SNL's The Black Lotus Offers 'All Of The Intrigue, None Of The Foolishness'
With Aubrey Plaza hosting "Saturday Night Live," it came as no surprise last night when they did a parody of "The White Lotus," the show Plaza just gave a memorable performance in for its second season. This "Black Lotus" sketch takes the same basic format as the HBO anthology show — it's about a hotel filled with a bunch of entitled rich people going through various emotional crises — with the key difference being the hotel's staff. Kenan Thompson, Punkie Johnson, Ego Nwodim and Devon Walker play the all-Black hotel employees who have "no time for this nonsense."
Fans of "The White Lotus" get to watch as Chloe Fineman does an impression of Jennifer Coolidge's Tanya, as James Austin Johnson plays Michael Imperioli's Dominic, and as Sarah Sherman plays Portia with her new sketchy British boyfriend who's definitely planning to kill her, played by new cast-member Michael Longfellow. All of them are repeatedly stunned by the staff members' brutally honest approach to hotel management.
You might expect Aubrey Plaza to reprise her role as Harper, but instead she plays a no-nonsense Latina woman who slaps the guests when they get too heated. While you might be disappointed that we never got to see an SNL spin on Harper (all we get is Mikey Day's take on her husband Ethan), this may have been the funnier choice.
A good episode for Plaza fans
It's a fun sketch, but it's not the only time the episode called back to a show Aubrey Plaza starred in. Weekend Update featured Plaza returning to play April Ludgate from "Parks and Recreation," giving half-hearted advice to the viewers about how to get involved in local government. Then Amy Poehler popped by, partly playing April's boss Leslie Knope, partly playing the real-life Poehler who just wants to make Weekend Update jokes like she used to. (Amy Poehler also appeared in the monologue, technically playing herself but still acting like the concerned mother figure Knope was for April.)
If you're someone who loves Plaza for her weird, vaguely threatening energy, this episode definitely didn't disappoint. An early sketch features Plaza and Mikey Day playing a new couple at a neighbor's game night, where their way-too-personal answers to the guessing game — not to mention, Plaza's character's growing horniness — makes everyone else deeply uncomfortable.
The episode also ends with a black-and-white noir sketch where Plaza plays a woman suspected of murdering five husbands in a row. It's not directly related to any movie or show she's been in, but man does it feel reminiscent of the roleplaying April used to do with Andy on "Parks and Rec." SNL is always at its best when it effectively caters its writing to the sensibilities of the host, and that's definitely the case here: this episode's string of strange, off-beat sketches is exactly what we'd hope from an episode hosted by Aubrey Plaza.
"Saturday Night Live" airs Saturdays at 11:30pm ET on NBC, and is also available on Peacock.