Who is Hosting Saturday Night Live Tonight: January 19, 2019

at
Share This Post

Saturday Night Live returns live tonight with a marvelous mid-season premiere hosted by “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” herself, Rachel Brosnahan.

When we last left Saturday Night Live, Matt Damon had hosted a hugely successful and hilarious end of the year episode just before the holiday break, while in the meantime, everyone was worried that SNL cast member Pete Davidson might harm himself. Well, it turns out that the Christmas show was the highest rated episode of SNL – Season 44 so far. And we learned that Pete was fine and spent the hiatus hanging out poolside in Miami with a beautiful mystery girl and going to Machine Gun Kelly concerts. So, all is well in SNL-Land. Now, tonight at 11:30pm et on NBC, we’ll see if the comedy/variety series can pick up where it left off on such a high note. To do that, Lorne Michaels is bringing in a first-time host who happens to be one of the hottest names in television comedy right now, Rachel Brosnahan.

Lorne and company couldn’t pick a better time for Rachel Brosnahan to host Saturday Night Live. Rachel just won the Golden Globe award for “Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy” for her work on her Amazon Prime series, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” This was Rachel Brosnahan’s second Golden Globe win for the comedy. This follows “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” walking out of the Primetime Emmy Awards last fall with 8 Emmys including “Outstanding Comedy Series,” “Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for Rachel Brosnahan,” “Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for Rachel’s co-star Alex Borstein,” plus “Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series” and “Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series” for “Mrs. Maisel” creator Amy Sherman-Palladino. With all of that award hardware, Rachel Brosnahan is a perfect choice to become the 5th first-time host of SNL – Season 44.

It will be interesting tonight to see if Saturday Night Live does a “Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” parody sketch. Since the show is already about a woman struggling to make it in the male-dominated world of stand up comedy in late 1950’s New York City, one concept could be to have Mrs. Maisel trying to make it in this decade of #MeToo comedy, perhaps even running into Louis C.K., Aziz Ansari and Jeffrey Tambor. And for those that didn’t know, Rachel Brosnahan is also an Emmy award-nominated actor for her work on Netflix’s “House of Cards” as well, so while we’re on the topic of the #MeToo movement, there’s even room for a Kevin Spacey sketch involving Spacey’s bizarre video, in character as Frank Underwood from “House of Cards“, that was released on Christmas Eve while Saturday Night Live was on its holiday break.

Since SNL already did a quick “Mrs. Maisel” parody during their celebrity impression-filled SNL – Digital Short about the search for a new Oscars host where cast member Cecily Strong impersonated Midge Maisel and cast member Aidy Bryant did a great impression of “Mrs. Maisel” creator Amy Sherman-Palladino complete with her trademark top hat, this could lead to a bit that SNL has done in the past where a celebrity meets their SNL impersonator. Saturday Night Live has done this gimmick previously with Nic Cage meeting Andy Samberg as Nic Cage and also when Mike Myers impersonated Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger while Jagger sat next to him doing an impression of his fellow Glimmer Twin, Keith Richards. There’s plenty of possibilities on an all-new Saturday Night Live.

The big topic that’s expected to be featured in tonight’s live show in the SNL – Cold Open, on Weekend Update and in sketches and SNL – Digital Shorts has to be government shutdown. The back-and-forth between Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi wanting to delay the POTUS State of the Union speech and Donald Trump cancelling Pelosi’s official overseas trip at the last minute, could find its way into the SNL – Cold Open. Cast member Kate McKinnon (Pelosi) and Alec Baldwin (Trump) please report to the wig and makeup department! The government shutdown could be featured in an SNL – Digital Short parody PSA about how TSA agents are still keeping us safe while not getting paid with agents swearing their allegiance to our safety while overlooking known travel violations. Plus, there could be sketches featuring IRS workers allowing ridiculous deductions all because they’re not getting paychecks. Expect plenty of government shutdown on the new Saturday Night Live tonight.

Other things to look for on this evening’s show include Update jokes and sketches about Rudy Giuliani seeming to forget that he said there was no collusion between the Trump Campaign and Russia, Michael Cohen claiming that he allegedly paid off tech companies to rig polls in Donald Trump’s favor during the 2016 election run, Ellen’s attempt to get Kevin Hart reinstated as the Oscars host, the NFL playoffs this weekend, the new Fox TV sensation “The Masked Singer“, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezo’s highly publicized divorce and the Veep’s wife Karen Pence taking a job at an anti-gay Christian school. Plus, it’s been quite a few weeks since SNL has gone live. So, the Saturday Night Live writers’ room may have ideas lined up from before the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.

In the promos which you can watch below for tonight’s brand new and live SNL, host Rachel Brosnahan stars in a promo noir where she has a Saturday Night Live mystery to solve including answering the question, did Kenan Thompson just say “Frursday?” In the next set, Rachel is joined by musical guest Greta Van Fleet who just happen to have great hair and are the best friend of cast member Aidy Bryant.

Rachel Brosnahan hosts the mid-season premiere of Saturday Night Live – Season 44 and it happens live tonight coast-to-coast at 11:30pm et on NBC.

And join SNL next Saturday when the live shows continue with host James McAvoy and musical guest Meek Mill.

Read more comedy news.

Ernie Tripper
Ernie Tripper