Ariana Grande highlights her musical impressions on 'SNL'

When Ariana Grande appeared as a musical guest on a March episode of “Saturday Night Live”, It wasn’t hard to predict (and we did) that she would return in the fall to promote the November release of her film “Wicked.” But instead of pulling double duty as host and recording artist like Bad Bunny did last season, Grande insisted in her opening monologue (to music) that she plans to keep the tone low-key.

Thank God she was joking.

After accurately imitating the voices of Britney Spears, Miley Cryus and Gwen Stefani in the monologue, Grande told Yang, dressed in a “Wicked”-inspired pink dress, that her sketch about the film was cut. So she joined the dancers and promised not to duet with Nicks (“It’s worth a try!”).

Big, what could be up for some Grammy nominations soonmay not have been the musical guest, but she had plenty of songs to showcase her powerful voice on the show. Additionally, her sketches showcased her strengths as a performer with excellent comedic timing, who turns out to be as talented a mime as the show’s cast members themselves.

Guest host cleverly faked Celine Dion’s recent NFL appearance with a UFC-themed version of “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now”, and in a sketch that required Grande to imitate Jennifer Coolidge in a Maybelline commercial alongside current “SNL” impressionist Chloe Fineman and “SNL” legend Dana Carvey doing her own Coolidge takes, the pop star sounded more like “ The White Lotus” Emmy Winner.

Grande also sang — in a very, very loud voice — as a castrated boy in the Italian Renaissance whose parents (Maya Rudolph and Andy Samberg) explain the concept of “Castrato.” In a pre-recorded video, she sang a song about the smells in her best friend’s house (takes a dark turn). And in a sketch about a competitive mother meeting your son’s boyfriend for the first timeshe fought with and kissed her “Wicked” co-star Bowen Yang. She also played a backstabbing hotel detective inspector, as well as a member of a wedding party singing purposefully off-key lyrics, inspired by “Espresso”, to expose bad behavior at the bachelorette party.

The guest host broke character a few times, but always recovered quickly and gave a stellar performance in one episode which started five minutes late due to college football. Musical guest Stevie Nicks sang her new pro-abortion anthem “The Lighthouse” and “On the Edge of Seventeen.” For the third week in a row, there is no video for Please Don’t Destroy, but the boys can be seen in a Recent Instagram video filmed at the “SNL” offices and are apparently working on an ad for Allstate.

“SNL” knows when it has struck gold, as it did with The season premiere is open and cold featuring Rudolph as Vice President Kamala Harris and Dana Carvey as President Biden, followed by bringing the same guest stars back for the vice presidential debate. This week, the show reverted to a fantasy episode of “Family Feud” airing on CNN, with Democrats facing off against Republicans and Steve Harvey (Kenan Thompson) hosting “Feud.”

Kamala referenced her busy week of media appearances – she said she went on Howard Stern’s show to attract excited taxi drivers – former President Trump (James Austin Johnson) insisted that immigrants are eating Moo Deng and JD Vance (Yang) accused Democrats of transforming the Joker “on a gay guy obsessed with Lady Gaga.”

The format was fun, but the comedic beats were nearly identical to the previous two cold debuts, with a confused Biden, the bombastic energy of Minnesota governor Tim Walz’s father Tim Walz (Jim Gaffigan) and second gentleman Doug Emhoff (Samberg). The only new addition was to include Mikey Day as Donald Trump Jr., who laments about Vance, “It’s almost as if my father chose me to be vice president… But he didn’t.”

The prints were still solid, but the triple dipping extracted much of the humor from the piece.

In Grande’s monologue she highlighted that the She last hosted in 2016the country was “about to elect our first female president, so I guess…second time’s the charm.”

Best sketch of the night: Celine Dion makes broken bones look beautiful

Following Celine Dion’s strange surprise appearance in an NFL promotionGrande imitated the singer delivering a similar message – this time for the even more brutal sport of the UFC. With lyrics that include “There were broken bones / and knees in the balls,” this version of “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” celebrated UFC violence, from cauliflower ears to 300-pound Bosnian athletes vomiting their own teeth. Celine Dion de Grande promised to see him in the Octagon.

Also good: do you like Jennifer Coolidge? How about three of her?

As mentioned above, Grande passed the Jennifer Coolidge Academy of Jennifer Coolidge Impressions entrance exam in a mirror sketch with Fineman, who has played the actress before on the program. The two things associated gratuitously to talk about on a date, like lemons, until Carvey joined them as his mirror moved to reveal a third Coolidge. The only surprise was that it was Carvey who was sitting there, rather than the actual Coolidge herself.

‘Weekend Update’ Winner: Amazon Employee Monica Is a Little Overwhelmed

James Austin Johnson and Sarah Sherman played the bickering brothers of OasisNoel and Liam Gallagher, but Ego Nwodim hit hardest when Monica, an overworked Amazon employee still reeling from the company’s crisis recent two-day sales event. Monica worked eight days straight – so long that she had to invent a new day of the week, “Fair”. Monica discussed using a drone at work and at one point fell asleep with her eyes open. “Weekend Update” co-host Michael Che pointed out that the conditions appear inhumane. But when asked if he would stop ordering products from Amazon, he remained silent. Relatable!

This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.