The best sketch from the previous season of SNL was, without question, “Diner Lobster.” John Mulaney wrote it years prior with Colin Jost, but it didn’t “past the table.” (Or as Vulture put it, during “the sketch’s first table read a decade ago, nobody laughed. It died a quick and brutal death.”) But “Diner Lobster” went over so well with viewers — nearly five million views on YouTube (it also won an Elly Award from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which is apparently a thing — that it got a spiritual sequel during tonight’s episode.
The action in “Bodega Bathroom” takes place not in a diner, but, well, a bodega bathroom, complete with the world’s most disgusting toilet. Which is to say, every toilet in every bodega. “Diner Lobster” was all Les Misérables songs (including the wonderful pun, “Clawsette”), but “Bodega” has selections from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Little Shop of Horrors, Cats (you better believe there’s a bodega cat, played by Kenan Thompson), and Rent. Like Mulaney’s monologue, the sketch probably resonates more with New Yorkers than someone who’s never had to ask for a key attached to a brick to use the restroom, but if you can’t enjoy a singing toilet, I don’t know what to tell you.
That bodega is full of love 💓
…𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘴… pic.twitter.com/IKC4zBeSJQ— Saturday Night Live – SNL (@nbcsnl) March 3, 2019
Let Mulaney do whatever Broadway-related project he wants to.