While most of SNL’s core audience fervently hopes that Trump won’t ever become the main character of America again, his third presidential run has at least resulted in some of the show’s funnier cold opens in recent memory.
Molly Shannon had to leave SNL to reveal the layers of her depth to the world, and returning to the show is an instant reminder of how explosively funny she’s been all along. If anything, that long string of indie dramedies has perfectly primed her for an opportunity to let loose again on live TV. By her second sketch of the night, she was invoking a “fart doctor” and bringing down the house, proving she hasn’t lost a single step in the 16 years she’s been away from the show.
#ROGUE TOWER IGG SKIN#
After 16 years of roles that similarly access her sincerity and sadness, would she be able to slip back into the skin of a total silly-billy on SNL? Obviously, yes. The last time Shannon returned to SNL as host, in 2007, she was promoting Mike White’s Year of the Dog, the more-bleak-than-quirky comedy that kick-started this run of characters. Although she is still a reliably funny additive in all kinds of projects - it’s never surprising to see her pop up in anything - roles like the dying matriarch of 2016’s devastating comedy Other People let viewers bask in the breadth of what she can do. It’s her ongoing collaboration with White Lotus creator Mike White, though, that fully unlocked the Molly Shannon archetype, establishing a series of complicated characters in dramatic comedies whom you (mostly) can’t help but root for. She played a welcome beacon of a hurt heart in the otherwise gonzo-silly satire, something she still does today on The Other Two. Her small part in Wet Hot American Summer, released in 2001, the year she left SNL, was weirdly prophetic.
The essential Molly Shannon was harder to pin down, let alone package into bankable star vehicles.
#ROGUE TOWER IGG FULL#
Stars like Eddie Murphy, Will Ferrell, and Kristen Wiig may not have displayed the full range of their gifts during their time on the show, but they established distinct personas there before going wide with them. While she’s certainly had a fabulous post- SNL career - one that alternates between “flourishing” and “ full-blown Mollaissance” - it took leaving SNL for her to show the world who she is. Many comedians have been cast on Saturday Night Live, showing the world who they were and going on to fabulous careers.
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