This sketch from last night’s episode of Saturday Night Live takes place in an alternate universe, where (a) groups of friends can play pool indoors in a bar in 2021 and (b) the types of brothers who would gather indoors in a bar in 2021 are in touch enough with their emotions to cry to ” Driver’s License “by Olivia Rodrigo. In this hilarious piece of speculative fiction in short form, host Regé-Jean Page puts the teen break-up anthem on the jukebox at a dive bar, and his mates instantly go from skeptical (“wait, what am I listening to?”) To sold completely (“she has a healthy belt”). Alex Moffat explains that the lyrics are actually about “the children of High School Musical and Page clarifies that he refers to “High School Musical the Series,” breaking the drama between Rodrigo, Joshua Bassett and Sabrina Carpenter. Something about the songwriting and raw emotion really speaks to this bros, including the old man in the corner played by Kate McKinnon, and it doesn’t take long for them to argue over Taylor Swift’s influence on the craft and singing and singing along to the bridge.
Last night’s episode happened to coincide with Olivia Rodrigo’s birthday, and she took to Twitter to comment on the sketch, writing in all caps, “DRIVING LICENSE SNL SKETCH IS THE BEST BIRTHDAY GIFT EVER IM SHAKING.” The honking and screaming live studio audience joined Saturday Night Live last night sounded like they agreed.