If you’re “Saturday Night Live” and you need someone to play Alexander Hamilton in an opening sketch about the Founding Fathers, there’s only one person you can turn to: Lin-Manuel Miranda.
And then you make him stand there in silence for most of the sketch.
This weekend’s “S.N.L.” (which featured Timothée Chalamet as both its host and musical guest) seemed like it was going to begin with a sketch about the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Most of the cast was onstage in waistcoats and wigs, with Mikey Day playing John Hancock and Andrew Dismukes as Benjamin Franklin.
“What say you, Alexander Hamilton?” asked Michael Longfellow. And there, in his “Hamilton” garb, was Miranda, the decorated creator and star of that Broadway musical.
“What do I say?” Miranda answered. “I say our lives matter not if we lose them in the cause of liberty. What matters is the nation we build.”
And sure enough, he began to rap.
’Cause in America, all men are created equal,
America not England; we’re doing the sequel,
And we will have leaders, but know one thing:
In America, we will never have a king.
But then he and the cast members froze in place as James Austin Johnson strode onstage in his recurring role as Donald Trump.
“Never say never,” Johnson said. “Kidding, of course, though in many ways I’m not. I’m in my king era.” And like the Founding Fathers, Johnson said, “I am creating a new country as well. And just like them, we’re doing it very whitely.” He declared that “D.E.I. is over,” adding: “Workplaces must go back to looking like the TV show ‘The Office.’ Mostly white people with one funny Black guy who’s having a really bad time.”
Having returned to the White House, Johnson said that things were largely the same as before except “my new favorite son is Barron.”
“And he is smacking his head on every doorframe,” he said. “Oh, it’s bad. It’s like when Gandalf goes to Bilbo’s house.”
He also praised Elon Musk: “We love Elon,” Johnson said. “But to quote some of his own children, I do not want him in my life.”
“They say he did the Nazi salute,” Johnson continued. “Not true, OK? He simply was creating a new greeting. A cross between hi and hello. We’re calling it a ‘heil.’”
While they were frozen in place, Johnson took potshots at the rest of the “S.N.L.” cast. “Who’s going to play Hegseth?” he asked “I mean look at these guys back here. None of them got the build. Nobody has the jaw. Got plenty of Zuckerberg options though; that’s going to be a fight.”
He also teased Miranda, who he said “wrote a whole rap and he doesn’t get to do it — oh, the audience would have eaten that right up.”
As he concluded, Johnson said thank you for the “generous anonymous $1 million donation to my campaign,” and, turning to Miranda, he said, “I know that was you, Lin.”
Miranda finally came unstuck: “No it was not!” he said.
“Your word against mine,” Johnson replied.
The freewheelin’ Timothée Chalamet of the week
Alas, Chalamet — a newly minted Oscar nominee this week for his role as Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown” — did not get the real Dylan to make a cameo on “S.N.L.” this week. (If Dylan didn’t turn up in Stockholm to receive his Nobel Prize, it was unlikely that Dylan was going to come to New York to watch Day and Chalamet sniff each other’s rear ends while dressed as dogs.)
But as the show’s musical guest, Chalamet did perform a few Dylan covers with some help from the British pop singer James Blake. In his first segment, Chalamet sang “Outlaw Blues” and “Three Angels.” (He was also introduced by the “S.N.L.” alum Adam Sandler, which isn’t too shabby.) In his second musical segment, Chalamet performed “Tomorrow Is a Long Time.” And we’ll just assume that dog sketch was a homage to Dylan’s “If Dogs Run Free.”
Weekend Update jokes of the week
Over at the Weekend Update desk, the anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che continued to riff on President Trump’s second inauguration and his first week back in office.
Jost began:
Well, guys, I was never really doing dry January, but this week I stopped even pretending. President Trump was sworn back into office on Monday. But he appeared to not place his hand on the Bible. Well, he tried to, but the Bible screamed. The Bible Trump used was the same one Abraham Lincoln used at his inauguration. And man, I wish those two could talk to each other. Lincoln could teach Trump a lot about the importance of preserving our Union. And Trump could teach Lincoln how to turn your head at the exact right moment.
During his address, President Trump said he was changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. [Reacting to an audience member’s laughter:] Like you, Hillary Clinton could be seen in the background laughing while he said it. While Kamala could be seen silently begging her edible to kick in.
Che continued: President Trump pardoned Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes, who was serving 18 years for his role in the Jan. 6 attack. And ladies, just like his eye, he’s single. President Trump defended his pardon of the Jan. 6 attackers, saying that these are just people that love their country. You know, like how O.J. loved Nicole.
Best of the rest of the week
There was no return appearance from $mokeCheddaThaAssGetta, the unusual hip-hop star that Chalamet has played in his two previous hosting gigs on “S.N.L.” (You’re telling us Lin-Manuel Miranda wouldn’t have wanted to collaborate with him?)
But as always, Chalamet was game for several other sketches that took full advantage of his versatility (and eccentricity). For our cheddar, the best efforts were this sketch, which cast him as the volatile instructor of a bungee-cord exercise class, and a later segment in which he played a barista-in-training who aspires to be a standup comedian. In a different era, you’d have killed on “Def Comedy Jam,” Timmy.
