Lady Gaga Heads Delightfully Weird 'SNL,' Best & Worst Moments of the Show

by Julian Spivey
Lady Gaga returned to pull double duty at “Saturday Night Live” in the 14th episode of the 50th season on Saturday, March 8, one day after releasing her latest album Mayhem. She presided over a delightfully weird episode, which proved she should be a frequent host of the show. It certainly shouldn’t be another dozen years before she returns to do so, as was the case this time.
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Here’s the best and worst from her hosting stint… 
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Photo: NBC

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Best:
The best part of Lady Gaga’s episode on Saturday wasn’t necessarily one sketch over any others. It was simply how magnificently weird many of the night’s sketches were, but usually in a charming fashion – like early on when she’s leaving her boyfriend to go to culinary school in Paris and takes riding luggage to the airport, which includes a hilarious shortcut through the halls of Studio 8H and a riding luggage biker gang featuring Andrew Dismukes, James Austin Johnson and Jane Wickline. Then there was the darker, weird, like a customer at Friendly’s lying about her birthday for a free sundae, turning into an occult sacrifice.

But if there were a standout moment from Lady Gaga’s episode it would have to be …

Best:
Pip!
Writer Dan Bulla has been with ‘SNL’ since 2019, but his promotion to writing supervisor this season seems to come with his recurring short film series titled Midnight Matinee. Previous segments of Midnight Matinee include Ariana Grande singing about the smell of her best friend's house and Beppo the monkey’s trip into space. But we hadn’t seen one since early November. The shorts' theme always seems charming and cute with a dark punchline coming ahead and “Pip” is no different. Pip is a mouse attending high school with humans and is embarrassed by a student played by Marcello Hernandez when the school’s weightlifting competition nears. With the encouragement of a student played by Lady Gaga through song, Pip works at lifting weights until the competition comes and he’s forced to save the day … mostly. 
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Worst:
Maybe I’m just tired of politics right now, and the show will focus on politics, it’s just what it does. But I found the cold opening about a rift within the President Trump administration between Marco Rubio (Hernandez) and Elon Musk, ‘SNL’ legend Mike Myers in a now recurring role, to have been flat. Neither impression completely works for me, and it’s pretty noticeable when paired against James Austin Johnson’s exceptional Trump impression. Still, I think it’s mostly just I’m not interested right now – I bet many watching probably identify with that feeling. 
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Best:
Lady Gaga brought two of her newest songs, “Abracadabra” and “Killah” to the ‘SNL’ stage on Saturday night, and while neither were quite my cup of tea musically. I couldn’t make out half of the lyrics, it was mesmerizing to see the performance and effort Lady Gaga put forth, and her usage of the studio as a whole, something we don’t often see from musical performances on the show. She had so much energy and the performances were so athletic, you could hear her hard breathing in the mic at the end of both.