It is a foolish monologue the place Gosling breaks a pair instances over. He by no means laughs as closely as he does in a few of his different sketches of the evening, however it definitely set the tone for the fixed breaking to come back. What it did not set the tone for, nevertheless, was the dearth of celeb cameos going ahead. Blunt did not star in any subsequent sketch, simply as Kate McKinnon (reprising her position within the new “Shut Encounter”) did not present up once more both. For McKinnon it was significantly stunning, on condition that she too starred in “Barbie” final 12 months.
The energetic, off-kilter monologue additionally set the tone for a weird (but pleasant) “Weekend Replace” phase the place faculty basketball star Caitlin Clark confirmed as much as lastly put Michael Che to activity for all these horrible girls’s basketball jokes he is been telling. It is the uncommon case of Che being the one squirming with discomfort as Colin Jost calmly watches from the sideline, solely chiming in to assist the visitor dig the knife into Che even additional. It is a refreshing change of tempo after years of Che at all times ending up on prime between the 2.
Most significantly, the phase with Clark is the kind of feminist comedy that “Barbie” followers might most likely take pleasure in. Clark would not simply get to torture Che for a couple of minutes; she will get to speak earnestly about girls’s basketball on the finish, in a approach that is not a joke or dismissive of feminine athletes in any respect. That may not sound like a giant deal, however it’s a rarity on “SNL,” which has so usually handled girls’s basketball as a simple punchline. The spirit of “Barbie” did not simply dwell on with Gosling and Ken — it is lived on to hang-out Michael Che as properly.