Who is Hosting Saturday Night Live Tonight: September 2, 2017

The Rock is Hosting SNL Tonight

If you’re wondering who’s hosting Saturday Night Live tonight? Well, you should be able to smell what the host is cooking. Tonight it’s Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson hosting an encore presentation of Saturday Night Live at 11:30pm on NBC. Tonight’s repeat is the Season 42 finale, originally taped on May 20, 2017 which was a show of filled with goodbyes and the second highest rated show of the season. When you watch tonight’s repeat of SNL, just know going into it that you’re saying farewell to cast members Bobby Moynihan, Vanessa Bayer and Sasheer Zamata. There wasn’t any acknowledgement of these cast members wrapping the SNL years of their careers other than a very late in the show commencement address sketch which could make you tap out before you even say goodbye to these popular cast members.

This repeat is also a celebration, Dwayne Johnson is awarded his 5 Timers Club jacket from fellow 5 Timers, Alec Baldwin and Tom Hanks. That happens during the Rock’s monologue. He also announces his run for the Presidency with Tom Hanks on his ticket for election year 2020. In this age of celebrity presidents, it doesn’t seem all that far fetched.

Alec Baldwin was also involved in SNL‘s cold open for this episode. He reprised his President Trump character while sitting at the piano singing “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen. If you think this sounds familiar, it does. Kate McKinnon had performed this same number at the piano as the defeated Hillary Clinton on the post-election episode of SNL. In tonight’s repeat, Trump is surrounded by all the cast members who have portrayed Trump Administration officials up until this point with Scarlett Johansson coming back as Ivanka Trump. The somber mood of the sketch is from the May 2017 headlines that Special Counsel Robert Mueller was on the case of the federal investigation into Trump’s ties with Russia.

Trump was a theme all through this episode’s Weekend Update with Colin Jost and Michael Che. Plus, the SNL anchormen were visited one last time by cast members Bobby Moynihan and Vanessa Bayer. Bobby returned to the anchor desk as his most popular Update character, Drunk Uncle, while Vanessa Bayer returned as a fairly new, but very funny character, a very confused television meteorologist.

There are a few sketches tonight that are definitely worth a second viewing. The first one being “Scorpio” featuring host Dwayne Johnson as a super hero who above all his other super skills, has an incredible, highly tuned fashion sense. Another sketch caused nothing but controversy on Sunday morning. It was called “World’s Most Evil Invention” and it featured Johnson as an evil villain scientist competing against other super villains in an evil science fair type competition. In this sketch, you’ll hear three words that set social media on fire, “Child Molesting Robot”. If you didn’t see it before, watch it to test your own sense of humor for what you think goes too far. If you have seen it, watch it again to see if it holds up.

Our favorite of the night, put Dwayne Johnson’s strongest skills to work. He played a professional wrestler who had to cut promos against his kayfabe opponent Bobby Moynihan. These two had done this sketch before when Johnson hosted and it did not lose any of its magic. It’s a hilarious behind-the-scenes look at pro wrestling when one wrestler goes too far with the trash talking.

In the promos for tonight’s Saturday Night Live repeat, Dwayne Johnson gives the SNL cast a lift on his shoulders and he hangs out with musical guest Katy Perry and works almost every song title she’s ever done into the promo.