SNL After Party 12/13/25 - S51 E7 “What Is A Laugh But A Smile That Hasn’t Been Born Yet?”
Host: Josh O’Connor
Musical Guest: Lily Allen
Josh O’Connor trades in his Wake Up Dead Man priestly garments to host this week’s SNL.
Was he a true Challenger for hosting kudos, and, if so, can we call him a Mastermind of a guest?
Let’s see if it takes Benoit Blanc to solve that mystery at this week’s After Party!
Cold Open:
In a shocking turn of events the cold open is another Trump sketch. (Is anyone keeping a tally of how many consecutive cold opens this is?)
This time, James Austin Johnson is doing the shtick as a straight forward Air Force One press conference (with Ashley Padilla as press secretary Karoline Leavitt).
Trump appeared peeking from behind a curtain, which he says is something he enjoyed doing at the 1997 Miss Teen USA competition. He also announces he took an Ambien and an Adderall and that he’s excited to see which one wins.
JAJ does his predictably great job as trump, asking one female reporter, “You have a question you nasty, horrible witch?”
Ultimately, he ordered a military strike on Santa’s sleigh.
This was better than the usual “Trump shockingly appears and breaks the fourth wall” cold open. Nonetheless, the bit is tiresome and I guess we just have to accept that this is how the show is going to start for the next three years
Monologue
Josh O’Connor spends his monologue talking about cartoons. He declares he is not the mouse from Flushed Away, and that he has not been cast as Chef Linguini in a non-existent live version of Ratatouille.
This was not a particularly strong monologue, and very much had vibes of being there simply because it had to be.
Still, O’Connor established that he is a likable enough fellow.
Let’s Find Love:
What’s that, you say? A game show sketch near the top of the show? Why, yes, yes it is!
In this episode, Kenan Thompson is host - and please hang on for this - Garth Vader. The writers this season just can’t get enough of dumb names for television personalities. O’Connor plays the contestant on this dating show style game, where, in an effort to foster inclusivity, the maximum age for the contestants has been raised from “38 to as old as we can find.”
We all, of course, know where this is going more or less. Chloe Fineman and Veronika Slowikowska come out first playing younger women vying to win O’Connor’s affections. And then, Padilla comes out on a scooter. She then proceeds to absolutely steal the scene.
She goes through a list of things she is trying to get right, such as her bones, meds, meals, cheese and salmons.
When asked about her pet peeve, she declares it it not having cake at a wedding, and when asked where she see’s herself in a year, and she says she will be at Toy Story 5. The toys are back and they’re wiser than ever.”
The sketch is funny before it kind just putters out of steam. Still, Padilla is fantastic in this one.
Your Year Wrapped:
Playing on Spotify Wrapped, we get a pre-taped commercial for Uber Eats Wrapped. A service that causes Andrew Dismukes’ character to say “I just don’t like that, and I don’t want that.” This is understandable because his wrap up shows he ate more nuggets this year than 99% of the people on the planet.
This is a funny bit that really gets our reliance on delivery services along with our shame for using them. It’s a well executed piece.
Teaching Hospital:
They decided to go weird early this episode. Bowen Yang brings back his oddball doctor who, along with his intern (O’Connor) to give patient Dismukes his lab results.
The sketch is absolutely ludicrous and filled with excellent wordplay:
“Wait, are you serious?
I am. And don’t call me serious. My name is Shirley.
Doctor, please…
How did you know my last name?
Your name is Dr. Please?
Yes, he’s Dr. Please and I’m Shirley Please.
Are you two related?
I hope not!
(They kiss).”
Perhaps the standout exchange:
Nurse (Padilla): Doctor, your five o’clock is….
Doctor: Dead?
Nurse: No. Is ugly.
Doctor: Then kill him.
Nurse: I’ll try.
Add to this some prop comedy (a bag of lolly-tops, and some “All That” branded chips, and there’s a lot going on here. The wild dialogue and Yang’s character really take this one far. It’s weird, funny, and entertaining.
Bachelorette Party Strippers:
Two sensitive male strippers, Augie and Remngton (O’Connor and Ben Marshall) show up for a bride-to-be’s (Padilla) bachelorette weekend.
The strippers are very sensitive and say such sensitive things as “I think the president should be Cynthia Erivo” and “You are enough”. Everyone is onboard except for Jane Wickline, who just wants to see some skin. Marshall obliges by flashing his belly with a “Zohran” tattoo. Ultimately, they give a lap dance, and Marshall breaks down weeping because he is thinking of the Supreme Court.
Finally, Mikey Day enters as Padilla’s fiancee, and the strippers beat him up.
It’s a weird ending.
Weekend Update:
This week’s news provided some solid material, from Trump shouting “Eggs!” at a rally to protestors bellowing “The power of Christ compels you” at DHS secretary Kristi Noem. Apart from politics, there’s mention of Pantone’s color of the year, Cloud Dancer. The color is described as “a billowy balanced white, imbued with a feeling of serenity,” which Colin claims was stolen from his old Bumble profile.
The two desk guests this week are not characters, but are just two cast members doing material.
Marcello Hernandez talks about Christmas with his family. He notes there are two types of kids - those with iPads, and those you wish had iPads, and he tells a sweet story about calls he received from Santa and Spider-Man who both had very strong accents. It’s a cute segment.
Jane Wickline also pops in to sing a song about the Greatest Threat to Humanity right now. It seems like she’s going to launch into a criticism about AI, but instead warns us of the dangers we all face from the former child actors from Stranger Things. She declares they are evil and states that “I stand with Vecna!”
It’s a funny song that works because of the irrational fear/hate of the young cast members of Netflix’s hit show.
Wickline has not really done fantastic sketch work so far (including this week), but she seemed confident with this song, and I think it’s her best appearance so far.
Deleted footage from Wizard of Oz:
The Cowardly Lion (Kenan) doesn’t actually want courage from Oz (Yang). He actually just wants “a big old thang”. And really, that’s the whole sketch. Turns out the Tin Man (O’Connor” and the the Scarecrow (Dismukes) would like to change their requests to mirror the lion’s. It’s a one note, dumb (nay, sophomoric) sketch that is certainly not worth the production effort that went into it. But kudos to Sarah Sherman for her fun Dorothy imitation.
Brad and his Dad:
This sweet little cartoon series returns as a well-meaning divorced dad and his son navigate getting a Christmas tree, young love, and holiday custody issues. The humor in these cartoons lie in their efforts at legitimately capturing these characters and the good-hearted intent of all involved. It may not be hilarious, but it is nice.
College Class:
Yang is a 12 year-old college student whose mother (Padilla) crashes his study session repeatedly while trying to help him out. Yang just screams at her by name (“Heather”) repeatedly. Then O’Connor’s mom shows up as a professor (Fineman), and he shouts at her. That really is the whole sketch. It’s funny for a bit due to Yang and Padilla’s energy, but there isn’t really much to this.
Characters on Characters:
I don’t know. In this parody of Variety Actors on Actors and Director on Director interview series, fictional Christmas characters interview each other. We get Rudolph (O’Connor) and a partridge in a pear tree (Yang), Scrooge (JAJ) and the Grinch (Mikey Day) and the Little Drummer Boy (Kenan) and Tiny Tim (Hernandez), Mrs. Clause (Fineman) and the Grandma who got run over by a reindeer (Padilla).
This was almost clever, but never really funny, with Kenan and Hernandez coming closest. This felt very much like a filler sketch.
Lily Allen Brunch:
Guests and staff at a brunch sing parodies of musical guest Lily Allen’s songs. Then Allen shows up and joins them. Meh. It was the last sketch of the night.
The Goodbye Wave:
Best Sketch:
Do I go with “Let’s Find Love” on the strength of Ashley Padilla’s undeniable talent, or do I get swayed by Bowen Yang’s next level oddness? This time, the weirdness wins out, and I give this one to Teaching Hospital. It just had so much going on and was so well done.
Worst Sketch:
I’ll go with the Wizard of Oz sketch. This one really had the feel of a group of junior high boys being allowed to take over the writers’ room. But, Characters on Characters was not far behind.
Random Notes:
SNL is quickly turning into the Ashley Padilla Show. I’m not critical of this. She’s brilliant. But she seems to be creeping into more sketches each week..
Lily Allen’s public and messy divorce from Stranger Things star David Harbour certainly led to some powerful and pointed songs. Two were on display this week. One of them, for some reason, featured a cameo by Dakota Johnson. I am sure there’s a reason for this, but I don’t know what it is. Allen had a retro-torch singer vibe in these songs. And, yes, the mix wasn’t great. That said, I did fiddle with my audio settings this past week, and determined that part of the problem was, in fact, my setup. This just made a problem more noticeable.
I really miss Please Don’t Destroy. Just wanted to get that off my chest.
Someone please write a sketch for Kam Patterson so I can decide if I like the guy.
This was an odd show. There was some very strong material here, but Josh O’Connor never really stood out. He was good, but not memorable. He’s definitely a good actor and certainly came across as a nice guy, but he just wasn’t in much that let him put a stamp on the sketches (with the arguable exception of Teaching Hospital).
The cast, this week, however, had some shining moments. This ensemble felt more like the star than usual. I thought this was an overall solid episode, with some genuine smart and high points. But, there were enough middling and low points to drag it down a bit.
All that to say, I didn’t have my Knives Out at the end of this one, but I wasn’t quite able to give it The Crown.
Grade: B
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