Saturday Night Live addressed the streaming public’s insatiable lust for Regé-Jean Page right off the top of the show on Saturday, with Bridgerton playing a central role in the sketch comedy show’s 90 minutes. That started with Page’s opening monologue, where he couldn’t help but seduce a good portion of the SNL cast while an adoring crowd screamed with excitement.
“You probably recognize me from Bridgerton, the show that made everyone turn to their moms and say ‘You know what, never mind, I don’t think we should watch this together,” Page joked. “It’s a bit of a racy show, and because of that people might associate me with being this smoldering, sexy, smokeshow of a man.”
Page has to stop because the crowd quite literally can’t stop screaming in agreement with him. But the concept of the monologue takes focus here: Page is just a regular guy, even if he can’t stop seducing the camera while “Careless Whisper” plays in the background.
Chloe Fineman, who tried out a Daphne Bridgerton impression on Instagram during the show’s holiday break, brought that to the SNL stage twice on Saturday. First, she interrupted Page and two other members of the cast, Aidy Bryant and Ego Nwodim, who volunteered as liaisons to help Page out while he was host. Or, mostly, lust after him. Fineman at first played Daphne, upset that other women were interested in her “husband.” But she soon got caught up in Page’s seductive words and close-up cuts to him swirling a stiff drink and singing “Unchained Melody,” which he described as “nerdy.”
The back and forth is funny, and when Page asked what their favorite parts of the show were, they mentioned specific timestamps where the Duke and Daphne… got busy. And the in-studio crowd was certainly on the same page as the women on stage, which made it that much better. As much as Page wanted to make it clear he’s different from his character on the show, and that he contains multitudes, he certainly seemed to enjoy the reaction he got when he leaned into his status as a streaming sex symbol.
Later on, Fineman and Page reunited for an actual Bridgerton sketch, this time having to deal with two very strange intimacy coordinators.
Pulling off that kind of intimacy safely, especially in a pandemic, is actually something that will make the second season of Bridgerton such a challenge to film. Just not in the ways the sketch laid out, that’s for sure.
