SNL After Party 10/10/26 - S52 E3 “If Not, We Can Eat ‘Em!”
Host: Shane Gillis
Musical Guest: Rosalia
My mother taught me that if you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything at all.
Mom is going to be very disappointed in me if she reads this week’s After Party.
Cold Open
The cold open is set on the USS Lincoln, back in port after more than 300 days in the Straits of Hormuz. Of course, this means an appearance by Colin Jost as Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. He appears wearing a bandolier of cinnamon Fireball mini bottles and addresses the troops with the greeting, "Sup, dong munchers?”
He discusses the crew having not had working toilets and highlights one brave crew member (Kam Patterson), who has held it the entire tour of duty. Patterson appears wearing the equivalent of a Verruca Salt flight deck uniform.
Hegseth announces that public executions are back (“Kind of like Scrubs”) before introducing Health Secretary RFK, Jr. James Austin Johnson plays RFK, which was a relief as it meant Trump wasn’t going to haunt the cold open. JAJ’s impersonation of the Health Secretary is funny and well done. He discusses the ailments on the rise in the nation, including “testicular dementia”. He also addresses various meat recalls, reminding the crew that catfish, ponies and crickets are all viable protein.
JAJ’s impersonation is the best part of the cold open, and was a refreshing change of pace, even if the overall material here wasn’t stellar.
Still, a good enough cold open that touched on current events.
Monologue
Comedian Shane Gillis returns to host for a third time. And, like Dakota Johnson last week, the third time is definitely not the charm.
Gillis makes weight jokes, discusses hanging out with his pal Joe Rogan, and saying he was insulted in the sauna by saying he looks like a gas station egg.
He also talks about how women dress at the gym.
His closer…and I won’t go into the setup…ends with him saying “You’re either gay or Hitler.”
The entire set bombed, which is not an outlier for his monologues on SNL.
Gillis is one of the nation’s top comics. I honestly do not see how based on his SNL appearances. He seems like less of a headliner and more of an open-mic’er who the other comics bad mouth at the back of the club and then say “Good set” to him with a condescending smirk at the bar afterwards.
I guess the club owner just likes the guy for some reason.
Cop Talk
Gillis hosts the only talk show made by cops but for everyone. Mikey Day is his sidekick.
The concept here is that the interviews are all like traffic stops, and are rude and/or abusive.
Jeremy Culhane is an author who is hassled about his identification, Ben Marshall gets tased because of a tin of Altoids, and Kam Patterson is a local comic who sees the setup and politely declines to participate.
At the end Veronika Slowikowska appears as “some broad from a TV show” who Gillis flirts with.
The sketch is exactly as funny as it sounds.
Father-Daughter Song
This taped song shows a father’s (Gillis) thoughts as his daughter is getting married. He is thinking of all the stuff he can put in his daughter’s room, such as a pinball machine, a Ms. Pacman machine, a life-size Imperial stormtrooper and a cut out of Shaq.
The song goes on for a while then takes a turn when it discusses his wife leaving him, allowing him to create a super room for himself.
But then he is overwhelmed by black mold and the stuff in his room comes to life, leading to a weird encounter with Ms. Pacman.
It’s a strange song that overstays its welcome by quite a bit. Once the initial joke is established, it just doesn’t get more amusing, so the length is not justified here.
Green Eggs & Ham
Andrew Dismukes is Sam I Am, trying to convince Mikey Day to partake in green eggs and ham.
Gillis is Day’s son and is trying to protect him from Sam, who he is convinced is a scammer.
Immediately upon entering the sketch, Gillis flubs a line and drops an F bomb. After recovering from that, he threatens to hit Dismukes so hard “your name is going to be Sam I Was.”
Sarah Sherman pops out as Thing 1, who spent the night with Gillis, and this leads to an argument with Day. Gillis responds that “Mom left you for the Lorax!”
At some point, Marcello Hernandez rolls through as The Cat in the Hat.
Eventually Sam I Am convinced Day to eat some green eggs and ham, and then tries to scam him.
Gillis and Day riff on the inadvertent profanity a bit as well.
This was a silly sketch that had some fun moments, but the thing was derailed from the outset by Gillis’ goof.
Upfront Heating & Air Conditioning
In this commercial parody, Gillis tauts the company that will be absolutely upfront with you about what a nightmare a service call from them will be.
From workers having domestic disputes on your lawn to creepy peeping toms, the whole job is going to be absolutely awful.
This sketch is entertaining and gets some genuine laughs. Gillis seems to fare better in the pre-tapes than he does in the live material, and his demeanor works well in this one.
Sneakers
This History Channel show focuses on Fillmore Footwear where the owner describes a new type of shoe. Until now, all shoes are leather with loud wooden soles, but his team has designed a canvas shoe with rubber soles that are “good for running or a casual stroll.”
Gillis immediately notes they are also good for sneaking. “With these, gentlemen, she’ll never hear you. and she’ll never catch you. Because of sneakers”
The board tries on the shoes and Gillis creeps about on stage.
It’s a funny bit and Gillis sells the silliness on this one.
Weekend Update
The lads had a lot of fodder this week. They discussed Trump not winning a Nobel Peace Prize and getting upset. Jost noted “It’s like me thinking I’d win an Oscar for Tom & Jerry.”
Also up for review was Pete Hegseth’s call for a televised execution, the use of shock gloves by ICE and how the new Department of War’s new logo is reminiscent of Nazi iconography.
The USS Lincoln’s return to port is commented on, with the notation that it’s docked next to “Oh no, the USS John Wilkes Booth!”
Joining Che and Colin at the desk this week is JAJ as Mr. Wonderful from Shark Tank. JAJ’s impersonation of Kevin O’Leary is dead on as he talks about putting an AI data center in Utah.
Mr. Wonderful notes that these data centers are terrible, which is why he wants to put it in Utah. He notes he doesn’t live there, so “those people aren’t real to me.”
When Jost questions him, O’Leary says he wouldn’t understand because he is poor. Jost fires back that he is not. “My wife gives me plenty of spending money!”
Ultimately, we learn that Mr. Wonderful’s villain arc stems from losing out on deals for such products as Scrub Daddy and Bombas socks.
Also at the desk is Ashley Padilla as mom who can’t find a babysitter with some Fall tips. Padilla is joined by Grace Reiter as her ill-mannered child, who keeps interrupting her mom with embarrassing information. She says she fell into a pile of leaves and no one found her for a day, and that she saw her mom kissing a farmer at a corn maze.
Reiter has a certain mischievous creepiness about her, and Padilla launches into hysterics as only she can. The material here is not hilarious, but the delivery by the two sells it.
This begins a string of sketches Reiter will have a good part in for the remainder of the night.
Saying Goodbye
…For example, Reiter is a dying mother in a hospital. Her son (Gillis) talks with the hospice nurse (Sherman), who advises him that his mother could die in the next couple of days.
Gillis pleads for more time as he has tickets to see Jelly Roll at the Sphere that weekend. Once he understands that Sherman can’t control the timing of the death, he has to contemplate what to do.
In thought balloons, Jelly Roll (Marshall) encourages him to attend the Sphere concert (“Jelly on, brother. Jelly on.”)
In subsequent thoughts, Cool Jesus (Hernandez) encourages him to attend the show, where he will be turning water into Bud Light Limearitas, and notes he’ll be reuniting with his mom in a couple of weeks anyway.
Musical guest Rosalia shows up, and finally his mother, who tells him she died and no one noticed. She adds that the next two weeks without him will be tough.
This sketch has some laughs, even if the premise does get stretched thin over time. However, there is at least some heightening here and it’s a perfectly serviceable sketch.
Gillis and Reiter are parents to a middle school chess player (Culhane) participating in a tournament.
They are inappropriately enthusiastic, and in Reiter’s case, just plain inappropriate. (“I gave birth to you right there in the TJ Maxx!”).
By the end of the sketch, the sexual tension between the parents bubbles up and they start to get busy on the table where the chess match is taking place.
Reiter’s energy here is good, but the whole thing can’t escape the feeling that this may have been a leftover sketch that Melissa McCarthy was meant to do.
The Goodbye Wave
Best Sketch: Upfront Heating and Air had some real laughs and was well executed. So, it shines out in this episode.
Worst Sketch: If there weren’t some real deserving sketches, I’d go with the monologue, which absolutely died on stage. But, I prefer not to do that when it’s avoidable, and it certainly is this week. This is a tough call, but I am going to go with Cop Talk for trying too hard to attempt to show Gillis is “complicated” while not trying hard enough to flesh out a funny sketch. Twist my arm just a little and I’ll sub in Chess Tournament for this category.
Random Notes:
- Rosalia seems to be more known for her production values than her music. And, those productions were certainly on point. Some strobe lights fit in nicely in her first number, while an on-stage rain storm in the second was stunning, and had me concerned about electrocution risk.
- Like Dakota Johnson last week, it is somewhat puzzling as to why Gillis is back a third time. Will his language boo boo keep him from returning? The word has led to inconsistent punishments since none other than Paul Shaffer let loose with the first one in 1980. Charles Rocket was definitely fired for dropping one, while cast member Jenny Slate may or may not have been. She was let go, and she had dropped the bomb, but that may not be why. In any case, we’ll see whether banishment is still the proper punishment for this infraction in 2026.
- Grace Reiter is the only featured player to get significant air time this week. And, I don’t know that it did her any favors. She got the obligatory new cast member desk appearance, but she was really second fiddle to Padilla. Her remaining sketches this episode did not really give her a chance to showcase anything special to her. We’ll see where this goes.
Shane Gillis has a laid back approach to SNL. Maybe too laid back. He simply doesn’t seem to care about being there and he’s not the best with the live aspect of the show.
Three episodes in, and this has been a subpar season. This episode was - probably by a slim margin - the worst of the season. So, when the show returns after a two-week break, Obsession star Inde Navarrette has a chance to shine. But, no one make any wishes about that, I beg of you.
Grade: D
As always, we grade SNL episodes in comparison to other SNL episodes. Not TV in general. If you want to support our content, consider subscribing on Substack
