In his third time hosting Saturday Night Live, Shane Gillis isn’t making the case for a triumphant return to the cast.
On this weekend’s episode, which also featured musical guest Rosalía, the comedian delivered several on-brand sketches that featured his signature everyman sense of humor, but no water cooler moments worth meme-ifying.
Gillis’ opening monologue was a tight five about his Bud Light commercials and getting into shape with workout buddies Joe Rogan and Theo Von, during which he put on his best femme voice to mimic gym gays and complained that “women just dress like whores now” at the gym.
The comedian also noted that he’s “balded directly into an Adolph Hitler haircut,” and the only other option is looking gay. “That’s it, you’re either gay or Hitler. And isn’t that where we’re at as a country?” he quipped.
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In the first sketch, Gillis played the host of a cop talk show, in which he just arrested his various guests.
Gillis then appeared in a country song music video, playing the father of a bride who imagines what he’ll do with her room when she moves out, only to end up hooking up with Ms. Pac-Man in a cloud of black mold.
In a Green Eggs and Ham sketch, featuring Mikey Day as the Cat in the Hat and Gillis as his defensive son who thinks his dad is being scammed, the host made things interesting when he accidentally dropped an F-bomb.
A History Channel sketch about WWII-time inventors patenting quiet shoes saw Gillis’ character finding them handy for “sneaking” around his wife, hence the name “sneakers.”
Gillis also led a heating/AC commercial that’s honest about how much of a nightmare of a process is, complete with workers making fun of you, smoking in your doorway and staring through your windows.
Meanwhile, new cast member Grace Reiter continued to prove her chops as she played problem child Coco in a “Weekend Update” segment in which her mom (Ashley Padilla) can’t find a babysitter. She was a perfect match for Padilla as the bratty daughter publicly embarrassing her mom.
Reiter also shared a couple of sketches with Gillis, playing his elderly mother as a hospice nurse (Sarah Sherman) tells him she only has a few days, which conflicts with his plans to see Jelly Roll in Vegas. The sketch also features a cameo from Ben Marshall as Jelly Roll, Marcello Hernandez as Jesus and Rosalía as a horny divorcee, egging him on to make the concert.
The final sketch of the episode was set in a kid’s chess tournament, where young TJ (Jeremy Culhane) tries to ignore his parents (Gillis and Reiter) in the stands, where they go from arguing exes to inappropriate flirtation. Saving the best for last, Reiter was certainly a bright spot on an otherwise dull episode.
Gillis’ latest hosting gig on SNL comes after he hosted in 2024 and 2025, following his removal from the NBC sketch comedy‘s featured cast days after he was announced. The decision came in response to resurfaced videos of Gillis mocking Asian accents, in addition to using ethnic and gay slurs.
