Jake Gyllenhaal’s HGTV Show Parody Takes Wild Turn on ‘SNL’

Jake Gyllenhaal returned to the Saturday Night Live stage for the first time in 15 years this weekend, and the SNL writers made the most of his talents. One of the best pre-taped sketches of the night was a side-splitting HGTV parody called Dream Home Cousins. The sketch parodied the network’s best-known format, with a pair of stars with different skills to help a couple build their dream homes.

The Dream Home Cousins hosts were contractor Rick (Mikey Day) and architect Gage (Gyllenhaal). Their job was to design the perfect home for Lillian (Heidi Gardner) and her “quiet, milquetoast” husband Pat (James Austin Johnson), who is “deeply uncomfortable” in front of the camera. Gage and Rick then showed off the final design for the house. It was amazing… until Pat revealed that his mother Bea (Kate McKinnon) and her 27-year-old cat Charles-David would also be moving in.

This news forced Gage and Rick to make drastic changes to their amazing plan. Thanks to Bea’s requests and the machinery they need to keep a 27-year-old cat without kidneys alive, they became increasingly ridiculous. Gage and Rick could keep Lillian’s yoga studio, but it, unfortunately, has to double as a sorting room for Bea’s “wise quacker” collection. What is a wise quacker? They are tall dolls of ducks dressed like 1930s gangsters! Who wouldn’t want those around?

Later, Lillian is horrified to learn Pat told Bea about them having sex before their wedding. Then, Bea insisted they have three single beds in the master bedroom and have no windows in the bathroom. Pat failed to stand up for Lillian, who was also embarrassed when Pat couldn’t break a wall with a hammer.

This weekend’s SNL episode was Gyllenhaal‘s first time hosting since January 2007, although he also made surprise cameos in 2011 and 2020 episodes. The Ambulance star joked about how long it had been since he was on the show during his musical monologue.

“That was like 400 Marvel movies ago,” Gyllenhaal said. “To give you an idea of what it was like in 2007, in the show I hosted, there was a George W. Bush sketch. There were jokes about the first iPhone, and this is a photo of me from my monologue. There I am in full drag, singing a song from Dreamgirls to promote a movie where I played a gay cowboy. And that was actually the least problematic thing in that episode.”

SNL is back with another new episode on April 16, with Lizzo as the host and the musical performer. New episodes air on NBC at 11:30 p.m. ET Saturdays. Past episodes can be found on Peacock and Hulu.