Singers have sung songs about it. Playwrights have written plays about it. But when it comes to jealousy, Saturday Night Live likes to do a little of both.
In a pretaped, semi-musical segment, guest host Selena Gomez plays a woman visited by her intuition (Punkie Johnson). Appearing like the devil on her shoulder, Intuition takes Gomez from quietly enjoying a night in to lobbing her “creeping” boyfriend’s Xbox out of the window.
Not to be outdone, said boyfriend (Chris Redd) puts his foot through their coffee table because of his own Intuition (played by musical guest Post Malone). Redd’s trigger is texts that Malone convinces him are dick pics from, well, LeBron James.
All the intrusive behavior — from Instagram stalking to email hacking, all the way up to physical violence — is lightened by the performances of Gomez and Redd. Both of them seem genuinely shocked by the irrational conclusions they reach even as television screens are being bashed in to the refrain of, “He By That Bitch House.” Malone is smartly cast to only sing his “Dude Nudes” instead of having to act. (We can’t all be both guest and musical hosts, Lizzo.)
Despite the seeming spitefulness of the segment, it’s actually pretty forgiving of all parties involved. We can all get carried away by dark and spiraling thoughts – people can even do things and feel absolutely foolish right after we do them.
In that way, it works as an interesting companion piece to the show’s cold open, which addressed the Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard case that has been fueling gossip site traffic all week. By focusing on the outlandishness of the trial rather than the he said/she said of it all, it’s quite forgiving of both Depp and Heard. We can all do things and feel absolutely foolish after; it’s what people do.
Watch the video above, and grade this weekend’s penultimate Season 47 episode below.