Over time, divorce can be a constructive event in a person’s life. The immediate aftermath of a split is often vague, a hazy maelstrom that can involve tubes of ice cream, insomnia through intrusive thoughts, and an aversion to wearing anything but sweats. But the new separation can also be a warped lens through which everyday events can be reinterpreted: It can transform, say, an innocent song playing over the speakers at CVS into a private voice that speaks directly to someone’s loss. It can cause casual interactions to feel like personal mockery, or make someone read into something that isn’t entirely true.
The unique features of these heart-wrenching glasses inspired the zany Saturday Night Live sketch, a highlight from last night’s hard-hitting episode that saw Olivia Rodrigo pull double duty as host and musical guest. In the movie “My Ex,” Rodrigo played a woman named Brianna who tried to make her ex jealous at a party by appearing to flirt with someone else; he did the same, causing him to double down, and vice versa. The growing absurdity turned a common mind game among the ancients into a clever illustration of the power of sadness to create a great distortion of reality.
The drawing was opened by people gathered at a nearby cafe to celebrate their friend’s birthday. Brianna, when she saw her ex-boyfriend, Duncan (Ben Marshall), tried to break away from the unusual event. But he inadvertently made it clear that the three-week wound still hadn’t healed, admitting that he thought about her often and cried all night. He then turned to the stranger sitting to his left (Tommy Brennan) and asked him if he would pretend to be his date to make Duncan jealous. When he saw them struggling together, Duncan asked the woman next to him, Beverly (Ashley Padilla), to pretend they could they arrived together that night.
Their behavior was relatable, reminiscent of an individualistic civilization that could easily dominate abstract, ego-driven social gatherings. But “My Ex” improved on the absurdity, highlighting the unusual ways such mental exercises can work: In a chaotic situation, Beverly played her role as Duncan’s fake date with the wrong drug. When Brianna laughed at what her “date” was saying, Duncan—worried that this new guy was already making fun of her—told her date to act like she’d told him a joke. Instead of laughing at each other, Beverly turned to the odd side: “Gay joke?” He shouted angrily at Duncan, fist raised as if to strike him. “Hey friend, my sister’s gay!” When he explained his request, asking him to appear to enjoy the joke, he laughed excessively and said: “What a gay joke!” When Brianna and her fiance later make fun of it by spraying frozen birthday cake into each other’s noses, Beverly tries to beat them by putting mashed potato gloves on Duncan’s face and face, asking him to lick it off while moaning with fake happiness.
From across the room, a terrified Brianna seemed to register, momentarily, Duncan and this stranger’s attempts to make him jealous. But instead, in Brianna’s mind, Duncan and his date embodied a sexual chemistry that was “off the charts,” despite the unflattering mashed potatoes covering their faces. When Padilla’s character later rips off Duncan’s shirt and, inexplicably, tries to replace it with his own sparkly cardigan, Brianna doesn’t see it for what it is—a plan gone awry—but instead sees two people who “were wrapped around each other.”
Padilla’s physical comedy moved the sketch into a different stratosphere; Marshall and Rodrigo barely stifled their laughter as Beverly tried to jack into Duncan’s chest. The scene ended with Beverly giving a no-holds-barred speech that came off more like an official royal decree—“We’re getting married at midnight, under the clock tower!”—than a trick. By exaggerating the hatred between former lovers into a satirical depiction of forced friendship, the sketch emphasized how often a broken heart can hide what’s happening. A distorted version of reality attached to the already desperate thoughts that Brianna and Duncan had brought to the party.
The bottom line, though, is that the plans to make people jealous, however, worked: Brianna stood up in front of the entire party and admitted that she was still not over Duncan, and had made a mistake breaking up with him. He said he felt the same way, and the two then left together. They broke up for reasons unknown to the audience. Yet at that moment, they only had eyes for each other – even if one of them was dropping mashed potatoes.
