Josh Brolin Was An Out-of-Nowhere Great ‘SNL’ Host
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Saturday Night Live’s best hosts often come from where you least expect them. Last year, Pedro Pascal brought the charm in a show that displayed underutilized comic chops. Maybe I shouldn’t have been as surprised by Josh Brolin (he’s hosted twice before, not always with great results), but the actor known for brooding bad guys proved himself to be downright silly. His monologue, already delightfully weird with whispered romantic odes to Timothée Chalamet and Kenan Thompson, went completely off the rails when he stripped down to his boxer shorts for a jaw-dropping drop into an ice bath. The big ol’ goofball then treated the entire show like his personal polar plunge.
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Brolin’s SNL was one of the season’s rare shows that hit across the board. Brolin proved he was up for anything in the first post-monologue sketch, partnering with Heidi Gardner as a couple who gets extremely turned on by a bank robbery.
The premise is solid, but Gardner and Brolin take it over the top with horny performances that freak out the robbers. “I’ve seen enough movies to know what’s coming next for a chick like me!” purrs Gardner, writhing in self-administered handcuffs. “Know this, I do Pilates, okay?” warns Brolin, now without a shirt for the second sketch in a row and straddling the check-cashing station. “It’s going to hurt you way more than it’s going to hurt me.”
Brolin continued to dive into the deep end throughout the night, scoring as a guy that cats choose for cuddle partners despite his job turning nursing homes into Top Golf locations…
As well as an eccentric fop who woos the arch-duchess with his invention of the shrimp tower…
And as an airline passenger who channels his inner Micheal Bolton alongside fellow crooner Andrew Dismukes.
The night’s running theme seemed to be, “There’s no way Brolin will agree to this, right?” But Brolin answered the bell every time, 100 percent committed to acting the fool in any way the show could imagine him. Like his Marvel uber-baddie Thanos, Brolin was inevitable.
And I haven’t even mentioned what I’ll guess will be the show’s most viral sketch — the political cold open (ugh) that ended with Colin Jost's spouse Scarlett Johansson playing Alabama Senator Katie Britt.
The good news: Johansson hits it out of the park, thanks to Britt earlier this week providing one of the most parody-ready performances since Sarah Palin. “I’m a wife, mother and the craziest bitch in the Target parking lot,” Johansson carefully overpronounced to raucous laughs. “To the American people who are struggling right now, know this. We hear you. We see you. We smell you. We’re inside your kitchen right now looking through your fridge. And what’s on that top shelf? Migrants.”
The bad news: The last election cycle brought a dizzying array of celebrities doing tepid political cameos during the cold opens. Most weren’t funny and stole precious screen time from the cast members. We’ll let this one slide since Johansson is SNL family, but here’s hoping this isn’t the start of a months-long trend.
