Who: Aidy Bryant

Cast Member Since: 2012

When Aidy Bryant was asked by Marc Maron how Saturday Night Live was going in March 2019 on his WTF podcast, she answered, “I’m not afraid anymore”. I loved this, because the 2018-2019 season was Bryant’s best to date. The more I thought about it and looked back at start of her seven season (and counting) SNL run, if she ever was scared, it never showed.

The now 31-year-old Bryant’s first season, way back in 2012-2013, was an average one for a new Featured Player. She was absent from a few episodes, did her fair share of one or two line background characters, all while working to find a voice among Fred Armisen, Seth Meyers, Jason Sudeikis, and the other seasoned veterans of the era. She found some early laughs with “social media expert” Kourtney Barnes on Weekend Update, but was somewhat overshadowed when Cecily Strong’s fresh new Girl You Wished You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party also appeared in the same segment that episode. Speaking of Strong, her and Bryan definitely formed a bond in those early years. The two launched the Girlfriends Talkshow later that season and brought it back eight additional times over the next three years.

Her second, third and fourth seasons are when she really caught fire. Bryant told Maron in the same episode of WTF she wrote almost exclusively with co-cast member Kate McKinnon and writers Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider during this time. The result was a number of viral, female-focused music videos ranging from the Emmy nominated “Home for the Holidays (Twin Bed)” to “Wishin’ Boot” to “First Got Horny 2 U.” Bryant also debuted The Worst Lady on an Airplane, another one-off Weekend Update character I wish we saw more of today, the wonderful Dyke & Fats films, and of course, Tonker Bell during this stretch.

Then came 2016 and the President Trump era. SNL needed someone to portray former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and despite being fairly open with Maron about impressions not being her strong suit, Bryant handled the role with ease. However, as she told the New York Times earlier this year, every time she played Huckabee Sanders:

“I would just be inundated with tweets…Fifty percent of them were liberal people being like, ‘You are too gorgeous to play that fat, ugly pig,’ and the rest were conservative people saying, ‘You are a fat, ugly pig who should not be playing that strong, independent woman…It was so absolutely brutal that they’re reducing me and her both to being pigs.”

In the end, she quit Twitter. In an odd coincidence later that same year, author Lindy West introduced Shrill – a non-fiction book about her experiences with, among other things, body shaming. Jump ahead two years, and Bryant is now the star of the Shrill series on Hulu. When it debuted, Bryant harkened back to the Huckabee Sanders experience in a conversation with USA Today as something that helped inform the online harassment story arc of the show.

All of this culminated in — and, in some cases, ran along side — SNL‘s 44th season. Bryant unleased the devilishly funny Travel Expert Carrie Krum on Weekend Update, ratcheted every Mom character she had ever played on the show up to 1,000 in HSN Teeny Adorables, and continued to do excellent work with McKinnon and Strong. Over and over again. Like Kenan Thompson, Bryant seems to only get better at this.

My prediction for Season 45? Bryant is positioning herself to go out on top. With Shrill getting renewed for a second season, not to mention keeping busy with her own clothing line, Bryant is clearly starting to think of a life beyond Saturday Night Live.

Let’s look forward what may be Bryant’s last year by looking back at two instant classics from 2018-2019:

Weekend Update Segment: Smokery Farms

Episode: John Mulaney/Thomas Rhett (3/2/19)

Note: This came out of nowhere, and was one of the funniest moments of a pretty great season. I’m really hoping Bryant and McKinnon bring this back over 2019-2020. “Nothing personality farm junk” FTW!

Sketch: Nephew Pageant

Episode: Kit Harrington/Sara Bareilles (4/6/19)

Note: Bryant plays this host of this outrageous awards show spotlighting only the best of all of our siblings’ sons.

SNL REPORT CARD / AIDY BRYANT: 4 Coneys

SCALE:

4 Coneys = Excellent / 3 Coneys = Good / 2 Coneys = Needs Improvement / 1 Coney = Worst

Jason Nummer still wonders what a second SNL season with Brooks Wheelan would have been like. You can follow him on Twitter at @jrnummer.

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