Ashley Padilla's gradual star turn on Saturday Night Live has been thrilling to watch. Since she joined the show as a featured player in 2024, on the cusp of its big 50th anniversary season, Padilla has reliably transformed innocuous-seeming characters'notably, moms'into character studies that pluck at eccentricities lurking just below the surface. In last night's episode, Padilla's performance as a mother admitting a change of heart in her political views marked one of her strongest roles to date. In a sketch titled 'Mom Confession,' Padilla and her husband (played by this week's delightfully zany host, Alexander Skarsgard) were about to head to dinner with their four children, who were visiting from afar. As they all got up to leave, Padilla told her children that she first needed to share a 'shocking' development with them'but wouldn't reveal what it was unless they promised not to react. She anxiously did a couple of practice rounds to ensure they wouldn't, announcing that she...
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