‘I don’t even want pizza anymore!’: Jon Hamm returns to ‘SNL’ for long-awaited 4th time
The ‘Mad Men’ star wasn’t the only throwback this episode, with many of the show’s previous Trump characters returning for ‘The White POTUS.’
For the second episode in a row, we got an SNL host who is determined to be the star of the episode. Like Jack Black last week, fellow four-timer Jon Hamm isn’t content to be a background player in his episode.
Despite not hosting since October 2010, the former Mad Men star (a show that Hamm insists is better than Succession) dived right back into the the qualities that made him a fan favorite as he rattled off three quick hosting gigs in just two years. Hamm is a natural. You can’t tell he’s reading the cue cards. He’s not afraid to make himself look dumb. He can play suave. He can play stupid.
There’s a reason SNL fans have been wondering when Hamm would host again. (Hamm himself even asked Lorne Michaels that question when he made a cameo for Kristen Wiig’s Five-Timers Club sketch last season.)
If anything, I wish we had gotten more adventurous writing in this episode to pair with Hamm. As SNL Network pointed out, Hamm’s 2008 episode gave us iconic sketches like Will Forte’s “Trick-or-Treat” and the Mad Men/Two A-Holes crossover. While the latest Hamm hosting gig started out strong, it lost some steam after Weekend Update before recovering with “Icebreaker” to close things out.
Will we see Hamm return to collect his Five-Timers jacket soon? Or will fans have to wait until Season 65 in 2040 for that to happen? (I’m sure there’ll be a Mad Men revival series to promote by then.) As for the rest of this season, we’re getting Abbott Elementary creator Quinta Brunson as the host for her second time on May 3 after the show takes a two-week break. Who’ll host the final two episodes of Season 50 after that? Does Pedro Pascal return to some early promotion for The Fantastic Four: First Steps?
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