Host Dakota Johnson Is a Mean, Scary Girlfriend on 'SNL'

Cold Open — Politics in American right now are just not fun. They’re not ripe for parody because they are parody. And almost everyone involved in Republican politics makes me sick to my stomach. Here’s the RNC trotting out some of those liabilities to help goose the numbers ahead of the midterms, including: Marco Rubio, JD Vance, Mitch McConnell, Pete Hegseth, and Trump. So, more of the same, only mixed up a little. (Score: 4.5 out of 10)

Dakota Johnson — Dakota Johnson’s monologue was pretty decent — she made fun of her tendency to date musicians, having broken up with two musicians recently (Chris Martin and Role Model). And then Taylor Swift came out and joined her, because they are friends and because Dakota Johnson is in her most recent music video, but also, does it feel like the Taylor Swift Eras Tour mystique is gone? Like, she’s marrying a normie football player and showing up in lame Grammy bits and crashing an SNL monologue. Anyway, decent monologue. (Score: 6.5 out of 10)

Press Your Luck — Ashley Padilla plays an overenthusiastic player of the Elizabeth Banks gameshows who doesn’t really understand how it works. She just seems to want to watch the Whammies and Press Her Luck, even if it means losing a lifechanging amount of money. Over and over. (Score: 7 out of 10)

Mean Scary Girlfriend — Everyone needs a Mean Scary Girlfriend who is brutally honest with you at all times, only wants to have sex on the worst day of your life, and has a protective best friends on cocaine. The thing about Mean Scary Girlfriend is that she’s mean, but she’s decisive, so I bet there is never a negotiation over what’s for dinner every night. (Score: 8 out of 10)

Eric from Legal — A group of nurses get together in the care to share gossip, but the only gossip that Eric from Legal has is about Eric from Legal, and it’s all very, very sad gossip (“I had an AI girlfriend, but she killed herself.”) (Watch Here) (Score: 5.5 out of 10)

Guns for Women — It’s a gun that looks like a vagina and it’s hard to find the trigger and it has to go to the doctor once a year. (Score: 7 out of 10)

Throne of Dragonborn — The Queen wants to have sex with a knight, but the knight is intimidated by the dragon, who is watching the entire time. Also, Kenan plays a eunuch for some reason. (Watch Here) (Score: 4 out of 10)

Weekend Update — The political jokes are ugly because it is an ugly political time, and the back half of jokes are all completely nonsensical. Meanwhile, Jason from Grand Theft Auto and Link from Zelda get into it about which is the better game (they’re both coming out with new games this November), which is funnier than it has any right to be, mostly because Link keeps pleading with Che to agree with him. Kam Patterson does a segment about how excited he is for the return of Glee until Che is like, “Two white writers asked you to do this, didn’t they?” and a Matchmaker who tries to find the perfect woman for Che and it goes nowhere (watch here). (Score: 6 out of 10)

Colorado Vicky — It’s those get ready TikTok videos, only Vicky is getting ready for electroshock therapy. This one stinks. (Watch Here) (Score: 2.5 out of 10)

Amazing Tales of Truth — Absolute nonsense! But just almost nonsensical enough to work. But not quite. It’s also not embeddable, but you’re not missing anything. (Score: 3 out of 10)

Verdict — Better than last week’s premiere, which was a clunker, but very inconsistent, and the back half completely falls apart.