Who is Hosting Saturday Night Live Tonight: February 23, 2019

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Tonight, “The Girl in the Spider’s Web” is also the woman hosting this evening’s Saturday Night Live repeat, Claire Foy!

Back on December 1, 2018 when tonight’s SNL rerun originally aired, first-time host Claire Foy was perhaps hoping for a little bit of that Saturday Night Live – Oscars luck. On several occasions, SNL hosts who have had Oscar buzz swirling around them when they helmed the show, saw that buzz turn into actual nominations and even some wins. Academy Award winners Casey Affleck (Manchester by the Sea), Emma Stone (La La Land), and Anne Hathaway (Les Misérables) all showed up to host while promoting their Oscar worthy work and not only received nominations after hosting Saturday Night Live, but also went home from the Academy Awards holding an 8½ pound, solid bronze, 24-karat gold-plated action figure named Oscar. Hosts that already had their nominations and used hosting SNL as part of their campaign to seal the deal on an Oscar win included Jeremy Irons (Reversal of Fortune), Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook), and J.K. Simmons (Whiplash).

Unfortunately, that SNL – Oscar magic didn’t pan out for host Claire Foy. Besides the action-thriller “The Girl in the Spider’s Web” in 2018, Foy had also turned in an incredible performance in the Neil Armstrong biopic, “First Man.” She played the conflicted, angry, terrified wife of the first man to step foot on the Moon, Janet Armstrong. Her powerful performance as the woman-behind-the-man-on-the-moon, made her seem like a natural for an Oscar nom. However, none of the acting performances in “First Man” including Ryan Gosling as the Apollo 11 Commander, received an Oscar nomination this year. “First Man” only earned 4 nominations, one for visual effects, two for sound and one for a production thingy.

Tonight’s repeat Saturday Night Live episode which airs at 11:30pm on NBC, starts off with an Alec Baldwin – Donald Trump SNL – Cold Open. When this episode originally aired early last December, the real President Trump was in Argentina for the G-20 Summit and the cold open takes it from there. The extended SNL World of Trump characters are there including cast members Cecily Strong as First Lady Melania Trump, Beck Bennett as Macho Vlad Putin and Kate McKinnon in her latest gender-bending White House role, Presidential lawyer Rudy Giuliani. There’s also a couple of fun cameos added to spice up this cold open which is really running up the mileage on Baldwin’s Trump impression. We won’t divulge the cameos here. We’re going to make you sit through another Baldwin-as-Trump sketch to find out for yourselves, that is unless you remember from the first airing of this episode or decide to bail altogether.

Claire Foy keeps her monologue short and tight, coming in at under 3 minutes which makes sense for a first-time host with no stand up comedy experience and because the cold open runs close to 7 minutes. The host goes to her strength in the monologue, her British charm. She comes across as cheeky and delightful and very British as she talks about Brexit, feigns ignorance about America’s desperate political situation, discusses her career and tells a story about meeting the Queen. She wraps up everything with a tidy shout-out to all the women who are getting involved and getting elected to help make both of our countries better places to live.

Sketches that received top marks for the night on this SNL rerun include the sketch called “Charlie’s Grandparents.” It’s a scene from “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” that you never hoped for or thought you’d ever see. As you might recall, Charlie Bucket’s elderly grandparents, all four of them, are confined to one bed in “Willy Wonka.” Well, what would it be like if Grandpa George and Grandma Georgina decided to try some sweet lovemaking in an already crowded bed!? This sketch is worth it alone to see how this great SNL cast including Kyle Mooney (Grandpa George), Aidy Bryant (Grandma Georgina), Pete Davidson (Grandpa Joe) and Heidi Gardner (Grandma Josephine) work their physical comedy magic to pull off this sketch. Things to watch for in this sketch- Kate McKinnon losing it as Charlie’s mother when she tries to comfort the trauma Charlie (Claire Foy) is experiencing by witnessing his grandparents engaging in rough sex, while singing “Cheer Up Charlie,” and Heidi Gardner as she bounces her own skull off of the bed’s headboard.

Other sketches making this SNL rerun worth another watch include “The War in Words” sketch featuring cast member Mikey Day as a World War I soldier pouring his heart out to his beloved Margaret (Claire Foy) in letters while getting barely a response from her. Watch for cast member Kenan Thompson’s appearance. Also, there’s a great ensemble musical number from the Women of SNL to Special Counsel Robert Mueller asking him to hurry and finish his report on Russian interference in the 2016 elections and everything else that has been tied into it, all done to Mariah Carey’s holiday hit, “All I Want For Christmas Is You.” By the way, this episode originally aired on the very first day of December and Saturday Night Live immediately went into holiday sketch mode.

Sketches in tonight’s repeat that land somewhere between “just okay” and “who wrote this fresh hell?”, include an HSN sketch featuring Claire Foy and Kenan Thompson as very southern hosts on the Home Shopping Network with Cecily Strong as a new vendor and Aidy Bryant as her overbearing mother. Aidy tries to save this one with her skills on a Rascal motorized scooter. However, the whole thing feels like SNL has done this same thing several times before with former cast member Taran Killam in place of Kenan. Another sketch that feels like we’ve definitely seen this before is “Good Morning Goomah” featuring host Claire Foy and Kate McKinnon. It’s like a less well-executed version of “Bronx Beat” with former cast members Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph. And there’s a return to SNL’s parody of MSNBC’S “Morning Joe“. This sketch, which feels like it could have been the cold open, is meant as a celebration of the announcement that “Morning Joe” hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski have finally wed.

There’s two SNL – Digital Shorts to watch for tonight. One is a great parody spot for Netflix which sounds more like a commercial for a monster truck show. It’s about how Netflix has bought everything and made every show possible so that no one could ever watch it all including a dramatic reboot of “Family Matters” where you’ll see featured player Chris Redd do a perfect Urkel and a spin-off of “Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee” called “Leslie Jones in a Van Getting Batteries.” Another is the holiday inspired short called “Dad Christmas“, which is a salute to those kids and parents who have to navigate their way through two Christmases after mom and dad split up.

Weekend Update in this encore SNL episode is on point as always. Anchormen Colin Jost and Michael Che discussed the revelations that Donald Trump was possibly trying to work a deal to build a Trump Tower in Russia all through the 2016 campaign, even while he was denying it during the election year. They also hit on Trump lawyer Michael Cohen spilling his guts to prosecutors, the G-20 Summit, the giant Baby Trump balloon at demonstrations, Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort’s alleged meeting with Wikileaks editor Julian Assange, Melania Trump’s White House Christmas decorations, tear gas being used on migrants, a six-foot tall steer and there’s a deforestation joke from Michael Che that just (hilariously) doesn’t work. Visiting the Weekend Update news desk in this episode are Leslie Jones who is swearing off sex in a bit that again feels like we’ve been here before and cast member Beck Bennett’s new annoyingly funny Update character, Jules who sees things a little differently, talking about the economy. This is also the episode of Saturday Night Live that aired just after the death of our 41st President, George H.W. Bush. Jost and Che wrap up Weekend Update with a special tribute to Bush 41 featuring an appearance he made on SNL to make fun of himself with Dana Carvey in 1994, nearly two years after he had left the White House.

In the promos for tonight’s repeat Saturday Night Live which you can watch below, first, Claire Foy joins in an SNL tradition with Pete Davidson and ends up owing Heidi Gardner some serious money. In the next set, Foy is joined by musical guest Anderson .Paak and Cecily Strong who tries to pinpoint where the host’s accent is from.

Claire Foy from “First Man“, “The Girl in the Spider’s Web” and Netflix’s “The Crown” hosts a repeat episode of Saturday Night Live tonight with musical guest Anderson .Paak at 11:30pm on NBC.

Plus, Saturday Night Live has announced its next two new live shows. The first is next week on Saturday, March 2nd with host John Mulaney and musical guest Thomas Rhett! Then a week later on Saturday, March 9th, SNL will be hosted by Idris Elba with musical guest Khalid! This will most likely be the show closest to St. Patrick’s Day, so expect plenty of Irish shenanigans with Idris Elba.

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Ernie Tripper
Ernie Tripper