"I'm not going to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it. You can't get me to talk about it. But, but, but, I have a question, do you want to talk about it? Are you not sick of talking about it?"
Comedian Jerrod Carmichael, who self-identified as "the least famous person in Saturday Night Live history" during his classic monologue, did not mention the names of Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith or Chris Rock. He was over it, did, being harassed by "the pseudo-arguments of hair, and black men, and white people on Twitter". It was a man on Friday who swore he would never talk about what happened, and why, and how, and what now. There was more to talk about in life, including his masterful new HBO special Rothaniel. "Then Lorne [Michaels] came into my dressing room, and he said, 'The nation needs to heal.'" Carmichael's eyes widened. "And you want me to do that? The country doesn't even know me."
The Oscars were there six days ago, stunned, shirtless and handsome in his white suit, his gold necklace gleaming from his gleaming chest. We have always had this conversation, without any comfort or sense of the way forward.
We have all fallen prey to idiots or idiots, Covid or culture or Donald Trump or our complicated families. "Is my mind okay?" Kate McKinnon's gameshow host Lisa Something asked in a brass song. Poor Derek, played by Carmichael, used to have a big important job, but now he just mushrooms and has forgotten the word for wheelbarrow.
In his first appearance since playing hard for a Kardashian, Pete Davidson's "Short Us Movie" rap did the talking for us all. Our attention has shifted to the seed; The film with a runtime of 2 hours 47 minutes is a spirit-breaker. Batman's Davidson rapped, "I pissed my pants twice, that shit was longer than The Hobbit." Musical guests Gunna, Chris Redd, and a delightful Simon Rex, all eloquent to the thrill of the less than 90-minute film. "But the biggest thing, a true thing of beauty, is three minutes before every Pixar movie!" The sight of Red crying Bao was a true balm for the soul.
SNL had the patience to wait 40 minutes to say Will Smith's name. He surprised us by cold-opening a spoof of familiar targets from Fox & Friends, leading James Austin Johnson's Trump claim in passing aside that "I always knew I had a hitch hand."
Then it waited for about half the show for the audience to calm down, before airing sketches of dumbstruck Oscar seat fillers in The Slap. Carmichael stumbles upon dreams of sitting behind his hero, Smith, who was played by Redd with terrifying plasticity. Six days later, it's easy to look for clues that Smith had come into the night with increasingly frighteningly fast stitches. Raid's impression was all canned pops of Mirth ("Huh HAH!"), Tin can see joke threats, Laughter Smith's shaky fusilade loosened in response to Amy Schumer's vibe check. Carmichael and Kyle Mooney, two distant fans with the salad plate eyes of unlucky Lupita Nyong'o, shrugged off a superstar's breakup. What about that selfie? King Richard Starr thought. "I put my phone away," Carmichael said. "What is your name?" Superstar asked. "They didn't give me one," Mooney said.
Everyone just wanted out of the strange, surprising sadness. Here we are, six days later, and the spectacle of it is still messy and ongoing. No wonder the Weekend Update jokes went under the stale flavor. Colin Jost commented that if Will Smith was kicked out of the Academy, in protest of his heartbreaking resignation, "Oscar winners (Oscar winners!)" or, as they are also known, Bad Boys for Life. " Much still feels awkward on the surface of this exhausting, sad conversation. A smiling Jost and Michael Che shrugged as it seemed, instead of being given a chance to exhale, sea sickness was to bear.
So yeah, please, to the relief of the Osh Kosh f'gosh campaign for Born This Way Babies, all the future Twinks, Butch Girls, Messy DJs, Lil' Lesbian Babys Who Already Have a Little Belt Loop for the Ring of Keys Having a proper fashion moment. Yes, for Carmichael holding a little pink husky who conveyed the message: "Holland Taylor might hit me with a truck."
Yes, please please make the men in shirtless suits lie down. For the non-famous hosts who have something to say. to Vagafros. to cycle. To bao far from the tree. Cecily Strong in wigs that appear to be styled by raccoons. Mooney's for Bradford. To Gunna's medicated pink jacket during the cast goodbye. To the hope that Carmichael's homophobic cousins see her new special Rothaniel and they call or text her afterwards and tell her "good job." To Denzel Washington. To not talk about it.