The latest episode of Saturday Night Live featured plenty of fun things for returning musical guest and first-time host Harry Styles to do. And while not everything the British celebrity and the SNL gang did was the epitome of comedy, some of the night’s odder, more surreal sketches were still entertaining. Like “Lunch Run,” a short bit about the infamous Popeyes chicken sandwich with Styles, Heidi Gardner, Ego Nwodim, Chris Redd, Kenan Thompson, and Melissa Villaseñor. It almost feels like the sketch was written and played poorly on purpose — which is charming.
Playing “Rob from the U.K.” — so as to disguise the fact that Styles is British, but also to serve the main crux of the sketch’s story — Styles suggests the company send him to a nearby Popeyes Chicken to “get us all those new chicken sandwiches.” He’s evidently excited about the prospect since “we don’t have one back in England.” His fellow white coworkers, Gardner and Villaseñor, agree — but the mere mention of the word “Popeyes” cues dramatic music and cheesy zoom-ins on Nwodim and Thompson’s characters. Even Redd’s janitor, who wasn’t even in the room at the start, has to chime in.
“Son, I don’t even know you but I don’t think I can let you do this,” he declares. “Yeah, you gonna die.”
Aside from the fact that people have actually died because of the sandwich’s popularity, “Lunch Run” grows increasingly odd like this, with the black SNL cast members’ characters insisting that Styles’s intern not go to Popeyes. Or, at least it seems weird until the sketch ends with a final title card. “Jordan Peele presents White Get Out,” exclaims the announcer. “Now available on Disney+.”
