Saturday Night Live’s historic 50th season has been filled with highlights and viral moments, from that toothy White Lotus parody with Sarah Sherman to country star Morgan Wallen’s early on-camera exit. But for many fans out there, it just doesn’t get better or raunchier than Colin Jost and Michael Che’s semi-annual “Joke Swap” portion of Weekend Update. Though I guess that doesn’t just apply to fans, but also to Jost’s significant other Scarlett Johansson, who’s been on the receiving end of several hilariously harsh comments in recent years, particularly during the Christmas episode that capped off 2024.
Now, Johansson is set to return to the 30 Rock stage as the final upcoming SNL guest host of the season, and it sounds like she has ideas in the works for how to vengefully turn the tables back around on Michael Che, though she’s not showing her cards just yet. Speaking with Vanity Fair, in an interview that took place before she was revealed to be the finale’s ringleader, the Black Widow actress put her thinly veiled warning out into the ethers, saying:
I feel like it’s almost my responsibility to come up with some way to burn Michael back. Retaliation, I’d say, should be expected. Others on the show could support this desire. Know what I mean?
For some context that would be uncomfortable to clear up in front of one's grandparents: perhaps the most memorable Joke Swap moment to date came when Colin Jost was made to read a joke comparing his wife's post-pregnancy genitalia to roast beef, with cameras catching Scar-Jo's beffled laughter as she watched on a monitor backstage. (Though Jost himself may have actually been more horrified in the moment.)
Addressing her fleeting moments on the air during that holiday-centric episode, Johansson said it wasn't completely expected, and joked about the Weekend Update hosts being big kids.
I had all these cameras on me. I didn’t expect the setup to be like that. I was like, ‘Wow, you really are seventh-, eighth-grade boys.’
Michael Che previously threw down the gauntlet by saying he doesn't think there's a line too far for anyone to cross by way of the joke swap, and nothing within reason is off limits for the roasting. Which I can't imagine will be a great move in hindsight for the comedian, since it pretty much means he's wearing a full-body target suit, and Scar-Jo has an entire armory at her disposal.
Or, at the very least, she has Colin Jost and some other Saturday Night Live writers at her disposal. Which in this case is more effective than an armory, unless the storage compound happened to contain an ancient scroll of "yo momma" jokes.
Check out the first promo for Scar-Jo’s upcoming episode, and theorize about all the ways you'd most like to see her take Che down a peg or ten.
Be sure to tune into NBC on Saturday, May 17, to see if and how Scar-Jo gets her ultimate Season 50 revenge on Michael Che. You can also wait until it's available to stream with a Peacock subscription, but where's the fun in that?
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