Jon Hamm got a helping hand from none other than Kieran Culkin during his opening monologue on Saturday Night Live.
He begins the monologue by commemorating his fourth time hosting the show, noting that he’s made 14 cameos on the show aside from his hosting gigs. After a brief montage of his past appearances were shown, Hamm raves about how “important” a cameo can be to a show, “like when a sketch needs that little something extra to take it from a medium sketch to a marginally better than a medium sketch, or when a monologue is feeling aimless and like then it needs a jolt of energy,” to which Culkin enters the stage.
“Hey, Jon,” Culkin says as the crowd erupts in applause. “I’m just making a cameo.” Hamm jokes about “doing really well all by myself” amid the monologue, to which Culkin replies, “I’m sorry, man, hey, I’ll make it up to you.”
“Okay, cool,” Hamm starts, “Just give me your Oscar!” Culkin is notably unwilling, to which he adds, “Well, don’t you have enough, man? I’ve seen those photos of you in your gray sweatpants.”
At the end of Culkin’s brief cameo, Hamm threw a jab towards his way, saying, “Alright, whatever dude, you know, that Mad Men was better than Succession.” Culkin then parted ways before refuting Hamm’s comments, saying, “I love you, bye.”
After the recent Oscar winner left the stage, Hamm showed his love for SNL: “Well, I guess what I’m trying to say is whether I’m hosting or just popping by, it’s great to be on this show in any capacity. I mean, it’s an American institution and there’s literally nowhere I’d rather be than right here live on this stage saying, ‘We’ve got a great show for you tonight!’”
Hamm, the star of Your Friends & Neighbors, returned to SNL to host for the fourth time alongside Lizzo as the night’s musical guest. Saturday night marked Hamm’s long-awaited return to the NBC sketch comedy series after his last hosting gig in 2010.
At the start of the show, SNL once again riffed on President Donald Trump’s new tariff plan that sent the country into a trade war — with a religious twist.
The NBC sketch comedy show’s cold open began with a voice narrating, “Easter, the celebration of the risen Christ. The Bible tells us that Jesus and his disciples traveled to the city of Jerusalem. While there, Jesus visited the temple and enraged upon seeing money changers transacting business within its sacred walls, expelled them all. In mere days, Jesus would be arrested and crucified, only to rise again on the 3rd day, but it began with the cleansing of the temple.”
The camera then cuts to a parody of the cleansing of the temple, with Mikey Day playing Jesus. “This should be a house of prayer. These merchants and money changers have turned it into a den of thieves,” Day’s Jesus says. “I will rid this place of all its money,” he says before James Austin Johnson’s Trump enters the shot, saying, “Remind you of anyone?”
“I also got rid of money last week, but instead of one temple, I did the whole country, maybe even the globe. The money’s gone high,” Johnson’s Trump says. “It’s me, your favorite President Donald ‘Jesus’ Trump, comparing myself to the Son of God once again, you know, many people are even calling me the Messiah for the mess I made out of the economy.”
He continues, “All because of my beautiful tariffs. They’re so beautiful, they were working so well that I had to stop them. The Prime Minister of Canada, big guy, tears in his eyes, he called me and he said, ‘Sir, if you do this, you will upend the global economy, take the stocks and bond markets and unite your allies against you.’ And I said, ‘Let me cook!’”
“So we had to stop, but now everything is back exactly how it was, minus a few trillion dollars. Oh well,” he continues, “It’s true, the stock market did a Jesus — it died, then on the third day, it was risen. And then on the fourth day, it died again, possibly never to return, just like Jesus.”
Later in the episode, Johnson’s Trump returns for a sketch inspired by The White Lotus. Seemingly based on season three’s finale, the cast resumes roles of the infamous Ratliff family who are plagued by financial troubles. Johnson’s Trump was a clear parody of Jason Isaacs’s Timothy Ratliff, while Chloe Fineman portrays Melanie Trump (Parker Posey’s Victoria Ratliff), Mikey Day joins as Donald Trump Jr. (Patrick Schwarzenegger’s Saxon), Alex Moffat joins as Eric Trump (Sam Nivola’s Lochan) and a surprise appearance from Scarlett Johansson as Ivanka Trump (Sarah Catherine Hook’s Piper).
“We are so lucky that America will always be a rich and powerful nation. I mean, can you imagine how awful it would be if America lost all its money and no one in the world respected us anymore?” Fineman’s Melania says to the Trump-Ratliff family as Austin’s Trump gets a message with an article headline that says, “Trump Triggers Worldwide Recession.”
“You would never let our economy go to pieces. Right, hun?” Fineman’s Melania says.