On October 12, 2024, singer Ariana Grande came back to host for the second time on Saturday Night Live. Season 50, episode 3 is the most watched episode of SNL since 2021 with 5.6 million views. The episode also featured singer Stevie Nicks as the musical guest.
The episode begins with Ariana Grande then coming out and starting her monologue where she spoke about her new movie Wicked, her co- star Cynthia Erivo, and her portrayal of Galinda. Grande then opened with a musical number, singing a song about keeping her time as a host lowkey, and “not making anything about me” in a very witty manner. (Ariana Grande Monologue – SNL).
The show had seven sketches with the first one being called “The Bridesmaid Speech.” Ariana Grande and other cast members of SNL recapped their bachelorette weekend in a sing along to Sabrina Carpenter’s hit song “Espresso.” They made up lyrics which stated that the bride cheated on her fiancé with a man named Domingo and how she fell in love with him. At the end of the song Domingo came out and stole the bride in the middle of the wedding. (Bridesmaid Speech – SNL).
The next sketch was called “My Best Friend’s House” which showcased Grande singing about the scent of her best friend’s house. The house came alive, and furniture started moving and dancing as backup singers to the song. The sketch ended with the best friend’s dad being taken away as a murderer, better known as the “Crossword Killer.” The song ends with Grande describing all the red flags she missed in her best friend’s seemingly perfect house, such as when she was listening to music with her best friend the father was in the background with a chainsaw. Another red flag was when she went in the fridge to get some snacks and there was a human head. (My Best Friend’s House – SNL).
These are just two of the seven sketches, but they are my personal favorites. The other four sketches were titled “Celine Dion Sports Promo”, “Charades with Mom”, “Maybelline”, “The Hotel Detective”, and “Castrati”.
The “Celine Dion Sports Promo” sketch had Ariana Grande come out as Celine singing a parody of the song “It’s All Coming back to me now” by Celine Dion. The song was about UFC and Grande was recapping some of the most famous fights and how much she loved UFC.
The next sketch, “Charades with Mom”, was about a son bringing his boyfriend over to meet the family. They started by playing charades and Grande was acting as the very competitive mother. When the boyfriend started to keep up the competitive attitude the mother started to threaten him.
The third sketch, “Maybelline”, was about Grande, and the other SNL cast improvising Jennifer Coolidge doing an advertisement for Maybelline New York. The two Jennifer Coolidge’s would look in the mirror at each other and talk about silly things they wouldn’t mention on a date. The next sketch called “The Hotel Detective” was about Grande acting as a detective and then later being arrested by two men, while the three of them were doing the live line reads, they almost broke character once or twice but in the end were able to refrain.
The last sketch, “Castrati”, was about the Italian Renaissance. Grande acted as a young boy who was only comfortable singing, and she sang very high notes. The main idea was that if the boy never developed a deep voice, he would be able to sing very high notes forever. ( Castrati – SNL, Celine Dion Sports Promo – SNL, (1030) Charades with Mom – SNL – YouTube, Maybelline – SNL, The Hotel Detective – SNL).
The episode got primarily good reviews with critics on Rotten Tomatoes saying she sang beautifully and was a perfect fit to host the show. Esther Zuckerman from Rotten tomatoes says, “Every time Grande opened her mouth, a carefully crafted sound came out.” Overall, the episode was very good and a great way to continue the season of Saturday Night Live.
