Charli XCX and "SNL" Took on Bro Podcasts This Week

The last time Charli XCX appeared on Saturday Night Live, she was both the musical guest and had a cameo as a singing meatball. This weekend, she returned to SNL to handle both hosting and musical duties, including a nod to the “Brat summer” discourse from earlier this year in her opening monologue. Said monologue got extra points for an unexpected Kyle Mooney appearance, which is always welcome.

The aftermath of the 2024 elections could be felt in several sketches this weekend, including one in which Andrew Dismukes, Marcello Hernández and Emil Wakim played the Banger Boyz, a trio of bro podcasters. Charli XCX played their producer, who ended up with most of the sketch’s best lines as she delivered messages from a series of increasingly unsettling sponsors, including “Zyn Junior” and “Male Chimp.” (No, that’s not the same thing as Mailchimp.)

The sketch’s election angle came from a very real phenomenon: Donald Trump appearing on a lot of podcasts this year to promote his campaign. The Banger Boyz, it transpires, were among them, and there’s a running bit where several of the hosts take calls to discover what positions in Trump’s administration they’ve been offered.

There’s also the matter of one of the podcasters clearly going through some terrible things in his personal life, to which Hernández brings an affable energy even as he describes some fairly awful experiences. Also, his character doesn’t seem to know the difference between snakes and lizards; that this is apparently a running problem for him is one of the better details of the sketch.

This Week’s “SNL” Offered a Different Kind of Election Reaction

It had a very different cold open than its counterpart in 2016

The way that the manosphere and politics have converged offers plenty of room for satire; earlier this season, SNL touched on some of this with a TikTok-themed sketch. If this week is any indication, there’s more humor to be mined from this concept — and I wouldn’t be shocked to see these characters return in a future episode.