Woody Harrelson

Woody Harrelson delivers the least funny SNL monologue in ages, indicating the bad vibes for the rest of the show. A recap and review of season 48, ...

[introducing musical guest Jack White for the first time](https://youtu.be/OHp_h7RLfAU), is another hint that something went awry during the opening monologue. [ nosy prison guards](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlKXYzYqxXY&list=PLS_gQd8UB-hKSlk9HSpAn8Cf3OZQN44Eb&index=3) who continue to be nosy, the guy who intermittently [ passes out during a theme park ride](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLRIUeNX7pk&list=PLS_gQd8UB-hKSlk9HSpAn8Cf3OZQN44Eb&index=4) and keeps doing so, the mother who is [ creepily enamored with her son](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXq0rM_1VHk&list=PLS_gQd8UB-hKSlk9HSpAn8Cf3OZQN44Eb&index=8) and remains as such, and so forth. [ actually works](https://www.cologuard.com/using-and-returning-your-cologuard-kit), it sure seems weird that the anthropomorphic boxes from [ those commercials](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHo7mK6mcQQ) are so chipper. Every fresh detail here is funnier than the last, especially Thomas the box’s preferred word for defecation: “unleash.” Also, as much as I dragged the monologue’s overdependence on Harrelson’s prodigious weed use, the meta-joke about it at the end of this sketch is a perfect grace note to end on. Harrelson has a right to [ his opinions](https://nypost.com/2020/04/05/woody-harrelson-sharing-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory-tied-to-5g/), but it’s neither a defense of Big Pharma nor liberal priggishness to suggest that this bizarre and unfunny polemic should have been left out of the show. Che and Jost both deliver some of their jokes with genuine surprise and delight, like they’d either never seen them before or the jokes had been tweaked since they last saw them. In a morass of sketches that miss the mark, the most consistently entertaining part of this episode was the succession of goofy wigs Harrelson donned throughout the night. Harrelson has been a reliably funny presence in film and television for over 35 years, and the episode had nowhere to go but up. In any case, things got off to a rocky start with the fifth-time host emerging, arms akimbo, alluding to an imminent [ induction into the Five-Timers Club](https://www.vulture.com/2022/02/john-mulaney-gets-inducted-into-snls-five-timers-club.html) that didn’t happen. It would be a little funny if, in this sketch, Martin Herlihy and John Higgins were simply dating each other and excluding Ben Marshall from post-work hangs. This week’s episode, though, had the least funny and most discomfiting monologue in ages, which proved to be a prescient indicator of things to come. Post-monologue, the odds were still in the show’s favor.

Harrelson, who hosted for the fifth time on Saturday, worked in a joke during his monologue that repeated a pandemic plot favored by vaccination opponents.

[Lee Goldberg](https://twitter.com/LeeGoldberg/status/1629736495115563008). Another [viewer asked](https://twitter.com/CaulfieldTim/status/1629870929395474432): “Does #SNL think just harmless noise? The actor, who described himself as an “anarchist, Marxist, ethical hedonist, nondiscriminatory empath, epistemological deconstructionist and Texan,” immediately began receiving accolades from people who oppose coronavirus vaccines.

Finally, at the end of the show, Scarlett Johansson came onstage to give him a jacket, thereby welcoming Harrelson to join the ranks of “SNL” five-timers. Other ...

Harrelson and Johansson – who is married to “SNL” cast member Colin Jost – are currently filming a movie together, titled “Project Artemis” costarring Channing Tatum. Finally, at the end of the show, Scarlett Johansson came onstage to give him a jacket, thereby welcoming Harrelson to join the ranks of “SNL” five-timers. [Woody Harrelson](https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/01/opinions/eat-the-rich-the-menu-triangle-of-sadness-stewart/index.html) this weekend, when he returned to host “ [Saturday Night Live](https://www.cnn.com/videos/media/2023/02/26/snl-cold-open-donald-trump-east-palestine-visit-emily-kohrs-mgw-orig.cnn).”

The actor returns for his fifth duty as host for a mostly meandering episode with only a handful of funny moments.

Combined with a nice insert paying tribute to the late, great Richard Belzer, who served as the warm-up act and an extra in the show’s first few seasons, things close out on a high note. Later, Colin Jost brings on Gina Bianchi (Heidi Gardner), “a woman with four daughters and one son.” The high-spirited mom doesn’t have the time of day for her girls – all doctors – but she can’t stop bragging about her beloved baby boy Anthony, a 38-year-old psychopath who constantly robs her (sometimes at gunpoint). He discovers that not only are his best friends lovers who’ve raised a secret family, but they’re holding auditions to replace him (they eventually settled on Harrelson). The self-described “redneck hippie” lays on the folksy charm, speaking briefly about his “purple” politics (“The red in me thinks you should be allowed to own guns, the blue in me thinks … The third straight segment in a row in which all the humor comes from long-winded rambling. Later, he brings out Emily Kohrs (Chloe Fineman), the weirdo foreperson of the grand jury investigation into his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election, whose shameless public statements have thrown a monkey wrench into the prosecution’s plans.