Rachel Brosnahan’s ‘SNL’ Monologue Was All About Looking On The Bright Side

Saturday Night Live kicked off the New Year in style — with a song courtesy of host Rachel Brosnahan about how fun 2019 will be following the difficulties of 2018. Unfortunately, while she may be known for her title role in Mrs. Maisel, Rachel Brosnahan's Saturday Night Live monologue proved that 2019 so far is nowhere near... marvelous.

The actress lent her musical abilities to a song about leaving 2018 in the past and dedicating 2019 to carefree fun and taking it easy, made all the easier by the fact that she had already accomplished her New Year's Resolution of hosting Saturday Night Live while cast member Cecily Strong was still working on her resolution — "finding the killer." The two being to perform a jaunty tune, before realizing it's hard to expect for there to be "smiles all around" when the country is reeling from the results of the government shutdown.

The song is an unfortunate acknowledgement of the fact that while the new year always offers a promise of change and renewal, more often than not the problems that exist at the end of one year bleed into the other, as evidenced by the song's remaining verses, performed by Kenan Thompson, Aidy Bryant, and almost Kyle Mooney. The group hilariously sent him away when for not being able to sing.

The episode, much like the musical monologue, served as a recap of the year-so-far prior to SNL returning from the show's winter break. The monologue touched on the teacher's strike and the rising popularity of a drug called Krokodil. (Which actually isn't all that new and has been around for a while and should by no means be googled unless you're willing to view some genuinely gruesome body imagery. Really.)

The show's opening Deal Or No Deal parody brought out Alec Baldwin's Donald Trump to poke fun at everything from the government shutdown to Trump's subpar catering services and the fact that Steve King can't seem to stop making white supremacist remarks. Aidy Bryant even sang a song about Baby Boomers ruining everything.

Brosnahan kicked things off to a high-energy, if low-morale, start and paid tribute to her star-making role in a filmed sketch called "The Raunchiest Miss Rita," about her character taking a profane comedian played by Leslie Jones under her wing. But her most accomplished live performance of the night was the monologue, which combined her musical ability with plenty of fun opportunities to juxtapose peppy music to the truly horrifying realities of life in 2019.

All in all, while 2019 may be going poorly for the world as a whole, things seem to be going great for Brosnahan. In just the first month of the year she's won a Golden Globe for her role in Mrs. Maisel, and she's kicked off the year hosting one of the most influential comedy shows ever. While Mrs. Maisel is a few years away from being famous enough to host SNL, and a few decades from SNL even existing, Brosnahan's SNL monologue proves that she's bound to have a pretty good year.