You know we couldn’t completely say goodbye to this weekend without giving some well-deserved congrats to Keke Palmer. Yes, we’re very happy for her as she celebrates her pregnancy, but we also want to highlight how amazing she was in her Saturday Night Live hosting debut.
Considering that she’s been in the game since she was a kid, and she can literally do it all, I was expecting her to be good. However, I was not expecting her to fit right in like a regular member of the cast. There was no nervousness or weird cue card reading. Keke just jumped in and went for it, committing to every crazy sketch and character.
Obviously, the one that everybody is talking about is “Kenan & Kelly.” The pre-taped bit starts with Keke convincing Kenan that they need to work together. Then, to his surprise, her reboot idea turns out to be Kenan & Kelly, with the Nope star doing Kel Mitchell’s characters. Except, the hilarious twist is that Keke desperately wants it to be an award-winning remake, so she keeps throwing in out-of-place, overly dramatic scenes. Things go completely off the rails when Kel makes an appearance. The sketch is so absurdly funny, I kind of want to see Kenan & Kelly as an actual series now.
Palmer teamed up with Ego Nwodim for the ridiculous “Hawaii Flight,” which featured the pair as the long-time flight attendants of a hilariously out of date plane. She even played herself in the brilliantly funny “Drake PSA.” If you’ve seen those commercials where law firms offer their services to plaintiffs in class action suits, and you’re familiar with the Certified Lover Boy’s tendency to use his relationships in his music, then you see where this one is going.
The Password host even showed off her pipes in a music video with SZA.
It is an extremely rare SNL outing where there are no misses and that’s exactly what Keke delivered. I know she’s got a million projects in the works and a baby on the way, but Saturday Night Live’s producers need to have her back as soon as possible and make her one of their regular hosts who appears every season.