Saturday Night Live Recap: Connor Storrie is a True Gift

Connor Storrie brought his otherworldly charm and a rabid Heated Rivalry fanbase to his first turn as host.
Photo: Will Heath/NBC

If you’re reading this, I probably don’t have to tell you who Connor Storrie is. It’s almost as if Storrie is doing Saturday Night Live a favor by hosting rather than the other way around. As one of the stars of gay hockey smut — sorry, show — Heated Rivalry, Storrie’s overnight catapult into the spotlight has bestowed upon him a rabid fanbase of horny women. If he’s on as a first-time host, you know they’re about to be tuning in. Still, the fervor surprised me: I got a suggested Instagram post for a UES bar hosting an SNL watch party; even the knick-knack store I worked at in Chicago in 2018 posted a grid carousel about Connor Storrie hosting SNL.

And with good reason. He has a background in clowning and took classes at The Groundlings, which feels like apt preparation for hosting. He’s also studious. The gruff, Russian accent he used to portray Ilya Rozanov is convincing enough that many (or maybe just me) were surprised to hear an American accent when he started doing press. Entering the episode, it was less of a question of whether he’d be a competent host and more about how the show would utilize his many skills.

And then, of course, the topical backdrop. With the news of the U.S. military strikes on Iran breaking Saturday morning, the mood was dour, if you’ll accept this understatement. The show handles it the best it can in the cold open, via a double-header monologue from James Austin Johnson’s Trump and Colin Jost’s Pete Hegseth. For a piece turned around in a day, it sufficiently captures the bewilderment of the news, pointing at the casual, dimwitted cruelty of the administration.

A little frustrating, then, for that sentiment is undercut by two players from the U.S. men’s hockey team joining Storrie onstage at the end of the monologue, fresh off celebrating their Olympics win with FBI director Kash Patel. Their presence was alleviated slightly by members of the U.S. women’s team joining, but before the hockey players joined him, Storrie’s monologue is charming and funny. He shows us the one family-friendly scene from Heated Rivalry (a maybe-two-second clip of Ilya going “Okay”), and then addresses how surprised he was by his fame, before turning to a zoomed-in camera and declaring that it had actually been his destiny. He goes back and forth between those two modes with confidence and ease. Throughout the episode, Storrie continues with the ease of a cast member. He plays a lot of normal-to-hot guys — jock, class clown, office guy — but he does it well, with good delivery and expressiveness.

The episode was slowed down by some clunkers, like the “Mr. Fronzi” sketch, and the leg-lengthening sketch ran out of gas pretty quickly. Overall, though, Storrie’s physicality and good attitude made for a playful episode.

Here are the highlights:

Getting rejected during a public proposal is bad enough, but for Casper (Tommy Brennan) and Candace (Veronika Slowikowska), it’s made even more uncomfortable by a group of guys (Storrie, Mikey Day, Ben Marshall) having the time of their lives zipping around on an ice skating rink. The premise itself is funny, and so is watching Brennan’s character get distracted enough by them to eventually join. But the best part is Storrie’s gleeful delivery of lines like, “God, I love being in my forties.” The reveal that Storrie’s character is Kendrick Lamar’s producer is delivered with such glee by Storrie that it made me laugh out loud with genuine surprise. Hudson Williams also makes a cameo as one of the giddy skaters, a sweet nod to his actual friendship with Storrie (and, of course, a seemingly necessary offering to the feral studio audience).

After tutoring the coolest kid in school, BJ (Storrie), high school nerd Dirkus (Marshall) gets an apology and — even better — an invite to sit at the cool kids’ table at lunch. Storrie’s cool kid realizes his mistake after Dirkus plays him a thank-you song. Marshall plays it with the kind of intensity that makes you want to lock your doors, and Storrie’s character’s face is plastered with the kind of regret that’s hard to recover from. Ashley Padilla and James Austin Johnson also pop in as Dirkus’ parents, and win BJ over despite being real freaks themselves. Many things to love here, with fun lines like, “You were just trying to express yourself and pursue greatness. And as Timothee Chalamet recently taught us, that’s cool now.” Also, “You can still be a baddie, even if you’re a little quirked up” is a perfect line read.

The Weekend Updates desk jokes are fine to good, especially considering some of them were rewritten under duress. More interesting are the character pieces, like Veronika Slowikowska’s delightful maid of honor explaining current events.

But as far as the Update desk goes, Sarah Sherman coming on as Punch the Monkey’s neglectful (and Long Island-born?) mother steals the show. The bikini-printed monkey suit, paired with Sherman bouncing between antagonizing the audience (“you shuh up!”) and attempting to seduce Colin Jost in a tinny croak, has me giggling the entire time. Marcello Hernandez stops in as Punch, latched onto a giant stuffed animal and all.

You can boost morale at the company with a little office dance, where the outside world doesn’t matter, “Severance-style.” Storrie is convincingly passionate about pushing the office dance, but this sketch’s strength is highlighting the ensemble. My personal favorite moments include Andrew Dismukes maintaining his crossed leg even after his chair collapses, and Sarah Sherman’s character realizing she doesn’t need to be shitting out the window anymore. James Austin Johnson, as an asthmatic nerd who gets hot after his glasses come off, and Kenan Thompson’s inconspicuous alcoholic, also add some fun texture.

At last, Storrie breaks out the Russian accent in this sketch about a bachelorette party stripper who gets hit by a car on the way there. It’s arguably the best sketch of the night, and my guess is that it’s because it’s drawing from one of Storrie’s existing clown characters. He comes in writhing in pain, his limbs contorting like rubber. The women aren’t on board; Padilla’s character tries to be turned on, but the blood gets in the way (and having dragged himself over to her via toilet plumber doesn’t help). Storrie moves his body in ways inexplicable by science, and the physicality is both funny and hard to look away from. At the end of the sketch, my notes just say, “butt is up.”

• I found Storrie’s long, long end-of-show thank you to be touching. He seemed like he genuinely had a nice time this week and wanted to make sure he recognized as many people as he could. Thank you, Donna and Jenna!

• The Bridgerton-inspired sketch felt a little one-note, which is weird because it seems like it would work on paper. Still, I was tickled by Storrie and Day daintily pulling off their gloves finger by finger, along with that little dog paw.

• Perverts online noticed that Storrie’s fly was down during the “Office Dance” sketch. An accident, probably, but maybe fan service for the perverts online?

• Storrie emulates two modes of transportation (plane and train) in the “Ice Skating” sketch — the duality of man.

• Williams stopped by for “Ice Skating” and introduced Mumford and Sons with Storrie, which felt ideal for a cameo. While I liked seeing him (and, of course, always support Wasians in the arts), I also appreciated that Storrie had the chance to shine independently. But I would have loved to be at the afterparty.

• I wish that the “Car Song” hadn’t been cut for time! In it, Veronika Slowikowska and Jane Wickline sing about the familiar dilemma of having to figure out how to get out of an Uber now that car doors don’t have normal handles. “Stop making cars hard” is both funny and objectively correct. I loved that it escalated into weirder territory with the two of them confronting the guy who ruined car door handles, played by a demonic Storrie.

• Speaking of cut for time, it’s probably good that the “Tourette’s” pre-tape didn’t make it in. I get that it was poking at the idea of celebrities who try to excuse their bad behavior by pretending it was Tourette’s, but the muddled setup made it feel like it was sort of punching down at people with Tourette’s (even if that wasn’t the intent).

• Between that, the Weekend Update R-word joke, the “Mr. Fronzi” sketch basically being “this guy’s accent is funny,” and Mumford and Sons being the musical guest … 2012 is a state of mind. And not one I want to return to. That year, I wore a blazer and jeans to my cousin’s wedding, and could only talk about South Park.