SNL After Party (S51 E4 Air Date 11/8/25) - "I Don’t Get It, Says Every Person Over 25”
Host: Nikki Glaser
Musical Guest: Sombr
Ok, quick confession. I’ve never been a fan of Nikki Glaser’s stand-up. I liked her presentations on roasts, but her act, not so much. And I don’t even know who Sombr is. As far as I can tell, he’s a guy who could only afford to buy one vowel then failed to solve the puzzle.
Also, I’m AARP eligible, and getting more and more jaded.
So with those caveats in place, let’s go to the After Party and take the temperature of the room.
From that introduction, I bet you can guess the tone of this week’s recap.
Cold Open
Another Trump sketch! Hooray?
This one was based on Trump’s weird press conference this week where someone collapsed.
It’s the same Trump format they ALWAYS use now. Trump interrupts a scene and everyone else freezes while James Austin Johnson riffs. JAJ’s impersonation is brilliant, but the whole thing has lost its luster. There were a few good lines here and there “..killing two birds with another bird”), but this cold open collapsed in a heap on the floor. This formulaic bit just doesn’t get the laughs it did, say, the first 100 times.
The SNL crew needs to ration out the Trump cold opens a little less liberally. We still need JAJ’s Trump, but not every week in the same template.
Monologue
Nikki Glaser’s edgelord monologue did not help.
She teetered on arguably racist and pedophilia based humor. And, yes, I am sure she would argue I am being too “woke” or “PC” or whatever, but the fact is that the overly long monologue simply wasn’t particularly funny. The most entertaining part was watching the faces of the band members who were clearly not amused by this dumping of subpar stand-up on the 8H stage. They seem to be asking the same question many of us were. Why is Nikki Glaser hosting SNL at this point?
Karaoke Night:
Glaser and Tommy Brennan are siblings (with parents Andrew Dismukes and Ashley Padilla…which is probably now their permanent assignments) at a family karaoke night. Their song choices are too sexy and their moves are inappropriate. And then, guess what, Glaser’s dad gets in on it, and it’s also inappropriate.
This was an overly long single premise sketch that didn’t pack the shock value that they assumed it would. And it just felt like a premise that has either been done, or that was probably rejected repeatedly.
Either way, things are not going well.
Spirit Tunnel Anxiety:
In the first taped piece of the night, Glaser stars in an ad for an anxiety medication for celebrities facing the prospect of entering the “Spirit Tunnel” on Jennifer Hudson’s talk show. Glaser does a good job with this one, and it is mildly amusing.
Beauty and Mr. Beast:
A revamping of the Disney classic has Glaser as Belle meeting Mr. Beast (Ben Marshall). Bowen Yang and Kenan Thompson round out the cast as the anthropormphic clock and candlesticks.
The premise is that the Beast is the YouTuber Mr. Beast, and he sets up ridiculous challenges.
Kenan and Bowen singing “You’re depressed” to explain Mr. Beast’s popularity is the highlight of this sketch, that was probably funnier in concept than execution, but not bad at all.
American Girl Doll XL:
Ugh. This was a sketch with a single premise that was telegraphed from moment one. The American Girl store is selling dolls that age with kids, so they now have lifelike adult dolls. And guess what? You won’t believe this, but skeevy guys are buying them for inappropriate purposes. Yeah….
Mechanical Bull:
I don’t really know what to say about this one, other than it at least tried to do something original. Two women (Glaser and Sarah Sherman) ride a mechanical bull at a bachelorette party. The bull breaks loose and takes them on a journey across the country, and through time and space, all while JAJ sings. During the course of the ride, the women are pelted with various objects (such as fish and cheese).
Points for weirdness and originality (did Sherman write this one?), even if it was not a knee slapper.
Weekend Update:
Che and Jost were a little more subdued than usual as they delivered fake news on the White House press conference and Mamdani’s election. One joke noted that Andrew Cuomo campaigned in a white Bronco, just like the one OJ was in, leading to the quip that at least OJ was ahead in the race for a while.
They noted that the Supreme Court temporarily allowed the Trump administration to cut off SNAP benefits. They then cut to his purported reaction (which was a clip of him dancing badly).
Former cast member Peter Davidson dropped by (with a Burt Reynolds level mustache) to talk about the ferry he and Colin inexplicably own which is losing buckets of money. Davidson was full of inappropriate and well delivered jokes, and he brought a great energy to the desk. He made a joke about RFK that only he could really have gotten away with and said he enjoyed being a dad and giving it all the attention and energy he never gave to SNL.
This was classic Pete! (A new bit).
Sorority Meeting:
Forget the setup here. The premise is that there are reports of a guy in a “hyper-realistic girl mask” infiltrating sororities. In this case, it is Mikey Day in a mask that cannot really be called realistic, much less hyper-realistic. One Delta Gamma sister (Padilla) accuses him of being the infiltrator, while he denies it and others defend him. The setup allows him to awkwardly eat a donut and vape while having smoke issue from his eyes.
There’s even a goofball twist at the end!
There’s not much to this sketch, but the physical comedy redeems the ridiculous concept.
Brad and His Dad:
This was an oddly tender short piece of animation about an 11-year old boy spending the day with his divorced dad, complete with his dad’s awkward efforts to connect with him. This was sweetly funny.
Pilot Announcement:
A plane is stuck on the tarmac for an extended period due to recent cutbacks. During that time, the pilot (JAJ) makes the usual announcements, but then goes on to discuss the issues he’s having with a woman he is set to meet from “the apps”. You can probably fill in the basics yourself, but it’s done reasonably well, and has a few more laughs than it probably should.
Pinwheel
A woman visits her make-believe land and imaginary friends one final time. She brings gifts to her old pals, including a pair of pinwheels for two of her friends (Day and Jeremy Culhane). Day and Culhane chew up the scenery in the best possible way demonstrating their enthusiasm for the pinwheels. It was good to see Culhane get a chance to have fun as a character, but, my goodness, did Day really knock the enthusiasm out of the park.
This was a nice, quirky and funny final sketch for the night.
The Goodbye Wave:
Best Sketch:
I am going to flat out cop out and declare this to be Pete Davidson’s desk appearance. It was the most I laughed during the show. I was never a giant Davidson fan when he was on the show, but this appearance was filled with a different energy that I really liked.
Worst Sketch:
Another cop out! I am going with the overly long and underly entertaining monologue. Look, I am no fuddy-duddy. I will admit there are times when I can be fuddy and/or duddy, but generally not both. Glasser’s material was just trying too hard to be edgy without actually having the comedic payoff, particularly give how long it lasted (or at least seemed to).
Random Notes:
What was Glasser promoting with this appearance?
Jane Wickline’s lot in the show now appears to be “person who makes one weird comment in the sketch and is heard from no more.”
Was it my old ears, or was the sound mix on Sombr just absolutely terrible?
Is Marcello Hernandez doing another project or something?
This episode was a dud. They just didn’t have much they could do with Glasser. Yes, they played off her inappropriate energy for that Karaoke sketch, but otherwise, there just wasn’t much energy to channel her way. This felt very much like a filler episode.
Grade: C-.
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