Saturday Night Live: Double Duty
Harry Styles Opening Monologue
Photo: NBC
Harry Styles and Marcello Hernandez igniting their inner Sebastian Maniscalco?!? That is something we didn’t know we needed. Last night’s episode of Saturday Night Live was definitely one to remember. Harry Styles took on the double duty of hosting and performing. I am so excited to break this down as someone who has been supporting him since day one.
Styles started out his episode by addressing certain topics about himself in the monologue. Why are his songs all about fruit and sex? Why is he always accused of queerbating? What was he up to on his break from music and touring? He said he is a pretty boring guy. He spent most of his break in Italy working on his new album Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally. And yes, there was some kissing in his monologue. At the end of his monologue, he kissed SNL’s featured cast member Ben Marshall and the crowd went wild. This was a highly anticipated episode for SNL fans, and it definitely lived up to the hype.
Left to right: Marcello Hernandez and Harry
Photo: NBC
The first sketch was the best one from the night in my opinion. It starts with Keenan Thompson playing a judge, Harry Styles as the serious lawyer (with an American accent), and Marcello Hernandez as Sebastian Maniscalco the defense attorney. Hernandez has perfected the Maniscalco impression with down to his famous quote, “Why would you do that?” Even Styles had an almost spot on impression of Maniscalco which surprised fans. Maniscalco even addressed the skit on social media saying the impressions of him were, “hilarious and absolutely nailed it”. He also mentioned that he’s been impersonated twice yet he still hasn’t been chosen to host SNL, despite his stand-up comedian career. I never expected to see Styles impersonate Maniscalco, but you never know what can happen on SNL. Overall, I think this sketch was executed perfectly.
Photo: NBC
Alongside hosting Styles was also the musical guest. For his first performance he performed Dance No More from the new album. Ryan Gosling introduced Styles before his performance after Styles made a cameo in Gosling’s opening monologue when he hosted last week. With him on stage was his band and he was really busting a move on that stage. In the bridge of the song he used the radio microphone which he also did at his One Night Only performance of the album in Manchester the week prior to the song Ready, Steady, Go! This is one of the first time he’s debuting his new music from the album, which leads me into his second performance.
He sang Coming Up Roses which is the first song that he wrote by himself and produced onto the album. Paul Simon introduced him who was a major influence for the music on Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occassionally. Styles was on stage playing the piano with an orchestra beside him. There is lots of pressure when hosting and Styles handled it well. However, Styles messed up in the first few versus of the song. He sang the sang verse of Coming Up Roses instead of the first one. Most fans noticed this small hiccup, but he handled it very well. The strings with the piano flow so smoothly throughout the song. It feels so magical listening to it, and I am surprised he chose to perform this song instead of one of his newest singles like Aperture or American Girls.
Photo: NBC
The final sketch was called “Harry for Him” and it involved almost all of the male SNL cast dressing up in past outfits Harry has worn for his new clothing line. I think this was one of the best ones from the episode as well because it was very on brand for Harry Styles and you can just tell by watching it the cast members enjoyed dressing up in the outfits as well. My personal favorite was Mikey Day dressed up in Harry’s Halloween costume as Dorothy. Overall, this episode did a really great job creating skits relevant to Harry Styles and pop culture which made it very funny and entertaining.
