CULTURE

Jason Momoa Comes Back as Khal Drogo to Host a Talk Show on Saturday Night Live

The Khal and other fallen 'Game of Thrones' characters were revived on 'SNL'.


Jason Momoa and Pete Davidson
YouTube/Saturday Night Live

It seems like only yesterday we were watching Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) smother husband Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa) to death with a pillow at the end of the first season of Game of Thrones. Since then, however, the Khal has moved on to bigger and better things: Namely, a public access talk show in which he interviews his fellow fallen GoT characters.

Momoa’s hilarious role reprisal came courtesy of this weekend’s episode of Saturday Night Live, which was hosted by the Aquaman star. In the latest installment of Khal Drogo’s Ghost Dojo, the Khal and his bloodrider co-host, played by Kenan Thompson, chat with several ghosts of GoT seasons past, including Hodor (Beck Bennett) and the High Sparrow, played by Pete Davidson, whose platinum hair and pale skin make him the spitting image of the “potato sack”-clad cult leader.

Next to appear is Brienne of Tarth (Heidi Gardner), who isn’t actually dead, just determined to uphold her promise to protect the Stark children at all costs, and who tees up a tongue-in-cheek dig at Kevin Hart’s recent Oscars hosting snafu. “If this man wants to fight, I’ll give him what he wants,” Momoa says in Dothraki. “Man? Wow. You have a lot to learn about identity politics,” Brienne responds, prompting a chastised Momoa to quip, “You’re right. Khal need to learn from Khal’s mistakes or Khal will never host Oscars.”

The final guest is King Joffrey, played by Kate McKinnon, channeling the infamous 2016 Dr. Phil appearance that turned Danielle Bregoli into Bhad Bhabie. As Joffrey is booed by the crowd, he implores them to “cash me ousside,” claiming, “They simply cannot handle all of this. I feed off the haters.” Fortunately for all involved, the Khal signs off before the show can devolve into a full-on Maury episode.

Though it’s unlikely that any of these characters (sans Brienne of Tarth) will actually return from the dead in the final season of Game of Thrones, which is set to debut sometime in the “first half” of 2019, we do know that the late Khal’s wife will still be pursuing her goal of winning the titular game of thrones and regaining her rightful role as queen of the seven kingdoms. Before she does that, however, as seen in the brief teasers HBO has released in the lead-up to the eighth season’s premiere, Daenerys will first have to team up with Jon Snow, Sansa and Arya Stark, and Cersei Lannister, among other rivals, to defeat the Army of the Dead—which, hopefully, won’t include the Khal, Hodor, or any of the still-living characters’ deceased loved ones.

Related: A Brief History of Male Actors Complaining About Superhero Costumes

A Brief History of Male Actors Complaining About Superhero Costumes

On the skintight wet suit for his starring role in Aquaman: “It looks like it’s easy to pee in that, but really it’s not. And if you have the poopsies, it is very challenging. You’ve gotta be really good at holding it.” (Page Six)

On his infamous chest in Batman & Robin: “Well, I wasn’t thrilled with the nipples on the batsuit. You know that’s not something you really think about when you’re putting it on. You figure all batsuits have nipples, and then you realize yours was really the first. Batman was just constantly cold, I guess.” (Comic Book)

On the motion capture suit he wore for The Avengers: “I felt really uncomfortable. I’m not well-endowed, and those suits don’t really show you off in the most…The first day I was a miserable bastard, that I was just a trained actor reduced to the state of a Chinese checkerboard.” (Incidentally, the film’s visual effects supervisors have since clarified that the Hulk does not have a penis.) (Slash Film)

On his skintight suit for The Amazing Spider-Man: “I knew there were paparazzi taking terrible, unflattering shots of my, you know, everything…knowing that your keister has been shot from many different angles makes you very uncomfortable.” (Digital Spy)

Niko Tavernise, © CTMG, 2013

On his own Spidey suit, for Spider-Man: Homecoming: “The first thing you need to know, all I have on under that costume is a thong. They brought them in on my first day, like, ‘Here are your thongs.’ I had serious misgivings—would my arsehole ever be the same again? But I had to get used to it. Even though I was thinking, No way, no way!” (ShortList)

Chuck Zlotnick, © CTMB Inc., 2017

On his signature claws seen throughout the X-Men series: “I can’t tell you how many people I stabbed, how I stabbed myself. They were killing machines.” (Entertainment Weekly)

On the spandex suit he wore in Captain America: Civil War: “It was suffocating. Literally, it closed off every possibility of air getting to you. I was in it, put the mask on. I said, ‘Hey, you got to get me out of this!’ ” (Variety)

© Marvel Studios 2016

On the heavyweight suit that War Machine transitions to in Iron Man 3: “It ain’t no lightweight thing. It’s very heavy. It’s fiberglass, I think that’s what it is. But it feels like it’s some special alloy that they made in a torture chamber that Torquemada created…and Robert’s was not really heavy. Robert’s was nice and light. It’s racism, let’s just be honest. I mean, what else could it be?” (Huffington Post, YouTube)

His takeaway from starring in Daredevil: “By playing a superhero in Daredevil, I have inoculated myself from ever playing another superhero. Wearing a costume was a source of humiliation for me and something I wouldn’t want to do again soon.” (Irish Examiner)

On his completely CGI suit for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, following his famous last words: “the most humiliating, ridiculous thing in the world…but it’s easier for the digital effects guys. You can see who the priority is.” (Total Film)

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