From “Lost in Translation” to the MCU’s “Black Widow,” here are our favorite Scarlett Johansson moments.
You just knew that this week’s Saturday Night Live would open with President Joe Biden’s Speech of the Union address and the Republican response from Alabama’s junior senator, Katie Britt.
Saturday Night Live: Sydney Sweeney hosts another underwhelming episode
After an amped-up Biden (Mikey Day) sticks it to the angry Republicans in attendance, including the silently mopey speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, and obnoxious heckler Marjorie Taylor Greene, he turns things over to Britt (Scarlett Johansson), whose response is sure to “help me more than anything else I can say here”.
Backdropped by her “strange, empty kitchen”, the self-proclaimed “scariest bitch in the Target parking lot” delivers a shockingly violent monologue about a made-up Sєx-trafficking incident, before making her pitch for Trump, all while vacillating between utterly unconvincing theater kid, Home Shopping Network pitchwoman, “weirdly seductive” temptress, and the steely villainess from Get Out.
Johansson is an inspired choice for Britt, sinking her teeth into the role and turning in a real performance. The best cold open of the season, the only knock against it is that it could have gone longer.
Josh Brolin hosts for the third time. The actor recites the “super creepy” poem he wrote to his Dune co-star Timothée Chalamet before reading a new, even creepier poem dedicated to a visibly unnerved Kenan Thompson. He follows this up by stripping down to his undies and taking one of his regular ice baths in front of everyone. It’s all very scattersH๏τ, but Brolin is so effortlessly charismatic that he makes it work.
In the first sketch, two armed criminals rob a bank and find themselves pitted against two of the customers: a married couple (Brolin and Heidi Gardner) with a kinky role-play fetish. Much to the dismay of the robbers and their fellow hostages, the freaky pair attempt to turn their fantasy into reality. Not 10 minutes after his monologue, Brolin strips down to his underwear again. The edgy premise is promising, but Brolin and Gardner go a bit too big.
Next up is an R&B duet from Andrew Dismukes’s and Brolin’s airplane pᴀssengers. Dismukes can’t access his Kindle or afford headphones for his seatback screen, so he lives vicariously through Brolin’s flyer, who’s just trying to enjoy the sci-fi film Ad Astra. A headscratcher of a premise, this falls flat, although a brief bit that sees Dismukes and Brolin argue over the plot of the underrated Brad Pitt space thriller and the rules of Sudoku is good for a few chuckles.
