Sarah Sherman as Nancy Grace on ‘Saturday Night Live’, Luigi Mangione. Photo:
Saturday Night Live/YouTube; Luigi Mangione/X.com
Sarah Sherman took on the role of Nancy Grace — and jokingly discussed the online attention surrounding Mangione — in the show’s Dec. 14 cold open
Saturday Night Live touched on the online attention surrounding accused UnitedHealthcare CEO shooter Luigi Mangione during its latest episode.
On Saturday, Dec. 14, Sarah Sherman kicked off the NBC sketch comedy show — hosted this week by Chris Rock — with her take on Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, where she played the prosecutor-turned-TV host Nancy Grace in a cold open dedicated to explaining how Mangione, 26, has “women and gay guys alike all hot and bothered.”
“Our top story tonight, the masked CEO shooter has been unmasked and guess what? It’s game over Luigi,” Sherman’s Grace opened the sketch, alongside a Super Mario Bros. soundbite.
“And, of course, everyone online celebrated the hard work of law enforcement in apprehending this dangerous criminal. Just kidding! Y’all psychos made him a sex symbol,” she continued, adding later: “This guy looks like Dave Franco with Eugene Levy eyebrows.”
Mangione has been accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson outside the New York Hilton Midtown in Manhattan on Dec. 4.
Following a multi-day manhunt, he was arrested on Monday, Dec. 9 in Pennsylvania and charged with murder by authorities in New York.
After Sherman’s Grace argued during the cold open that Mangione isn’t a “sex icon,” she pulled up examples of social media users commenting on his “BDE” and calling him a “twunk.”
The host then invited a psychological analyst on the show, who said there was “a lot to unpack,” before she quickly cut her off and moved on to her next talking point.
Elsewhere in the sketch, Sherman’s Grace spoke with a man named Donnell Davis — who she said was “at the McDonald’s” in Altoona, Penn., where Mangione was apprehended. The Davis character, played by Kenan Thompson, said he was at the restaurant when he “pretended to go to work so my wife doesn’t find out.”
“Donnell, you were face to face with this criminal — could you believe people were attracted to this sexy slayer?” Sherman’s Grace asked.
“I mean, you could look at him and tell he had hoes,” Thompson responded while eating McDonald’s fries. “I mean, women love bad boys. Back in the day, you could impress your lady with a little poem. Now you gotta write a manifesto.”
Sherman’s Grace then asked Thompson’s character for his take on “health care in this country,” to which he replied: “Well Nancy, I’ve been eating McDonald’s every day for three years. I got type 10 diabetes. Blue Cross? B—-, I got blue foot.”
He also spoke on “alternative medicine,” saying, “When they tell me how much the procedure costs, I go, ‘What’s the alternative?’ “
The remainder of the skit also featured a “guy who happens to look like Luigi Mangione,” before Sherman’s Grace character closed off the sketch with the classic line, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night.”
Luigi Mangione.
PA Department of Corrections
Elsewhere during Saturday’s episode, Colin Jostshared a few additional jokes about Mangione during the Weekend Update segment, noting that after he was apprehended, “America delivered the delicate, senseless debate over who will play this guy in the Netflix miniseries.”
“After police arrested suspected shooter Luigi Mangione, they found a note on him expressing anger at corporate America. Yet he went to Starbucks before the shooting and then was caught at McDonald’s,” Jost, 42, also said. “So perhaps his greatest crime was hypocrisy.”
“The McDonald’s where the shooter got caught has been getting one star Yelp reviews to punish them for snitching,” he began another joke. “First of all, who looks at Yelp reviews of McDonald’s? The only Yelp review of McDonald’s should be, ‘Was open, five stars.’ “
Rock, 59, also spoke about Mangione during his opening monologue, sharing his “real condolences” for Thompson and joking that “sometimes, drug dealers get shot.”
The actor and comedian also joked about Mangione’s looks, stating, “If he looked like Jonah Hill, no one would care. They’d already given him the chair already. He’d be dead.”
Saturday Night Live airs weekends on NBC.
