With Bad Bunny at the Helm, 'Saturday Night Live' Leans Hard on ...

Even beyond his ability to draw cameos, recent VF cover star Bad Bunny turned out to be excellent company. Watching his monologue, even before Pascal slid into view, felt like being on a drip of relaxed charisma. “People are wondering if I could host this show because English is not my first language,” he said. “I don’t know if they know, but I do whatever I want.”

And when Pascal, a sexy shaggy dog next to Bad Bunny’s sleek Doberman, suggested the younger host employ some self-deprecating humor to endear himself to the audience, our Benito looked confused. “Uh, no tiendo. What do you mean?” Arrogance isn’t my thing, but this guy is in on the joke and delivers it with a wink. His fine comedic timing will serve him well in the future.

The show was mostly in Spanish, without subtitles. But the premises of the sketches—16th century explorers trying to impress to his King of Spain with their discoveries from the New World; a telenovela shoot about feuding brothers where Punkie Johnson can’t say her one Spanish line; Marcello Hernandez introducing his gringo girlfriend to his disapproving Mama and Tia, played by Pascal and Bad Bunny—all worked despite and because of any language barrier. Hernandez never had such a good night.

Bad Bunny went from rapping on stage dripping in leather and diamonds right into a nun’s habit for the next sketch. In a riff on Sister Act, Molly Kearney’s Mother Superior had gathered the nuns with word of a man lurking in their midst, intent on deflowering the convent. A very bad Bunny smirked beneath his habit, as the other nuns giggled and gasped over the pleasures of this interloper’s flesh. “You beautiful monster, you sexual king, just admit what you did!” demanded Kearney. And just like that, Jagger swanned back into view, his slink undeterred by his habit. “Fine, I confess!” he pouted happily. “It was me. I was the one who corrupted these poor women with my lips and my…” he paused for a shimmy, “hips, and I was the one who rang the bell with my pen-us.” This was not the night I saw coming, I tell you.