Inde Navarrette's 'Penis Destroyer' Robot Steals SNL's Halloween Show

Inde Navarrette carried the Halloween edition of "Saturday Night Live" with a digital short titled "The Inventor's Wife," in which a robot called the PD 44 rips off a man's penis and hurls it into the moon.

The sketch aired after a mixed night for the show. The cold open featured Tom Hanks returning as David S. Pumpkins, a Donald Trump character who admitted he "might be gay," and Nicki Minaj appearing as what the review described as his MAGA minion. The opening was, by the critic's account, "pretty weak." Navarrette's monologue landed better, taking a swipe at Shane Gillis along the way.

Then came "The Inventor's Wife."

The sketch opens at a funeral. Navarrette plays a widow delivering a eulogy for her dead husband, an "eccentric" inventor who "spent his final days in his workshop building god knows what." Her delivery is dry, wounded and precise. "My husband loved his inventions and he… liked his wife," she says.

Returning home from the wake, she finds her husband left her a final gift in his workshop: a small, cute, Wall-E-like robot called the PD 44. The widow and the machine become the best of friends. She cannot work out what PD's "purpose" is, and the sketch lets the question hang.

What happens six years later?

The story jumps forward six years. Navarrette's lonely widow is finally ready to date. She matches with a nice-looking man named Tom Oakland, played by Ben Marshall, on a dating app. The two go out, they click, and she brings him back to her apartment for a nightcap — and to meet PD.

Then PD transforms into a giant, menacing killer robot. It rips Tom's penis off and hurls it into the moon.

"PD stands for Penis Destroyer?!" Navarrette's widow exclaims. The robot then shoots Tom with a laser beam until he explodes, covering her in blood.

The payoff is emotional as much as grotesque. Standing bloodied in her apartment, the widow realizes the machine her husband built was guarding her all along. "He did love me… My husband loved me after all!" she says, delighted.

What does this change for Navarrette?

The sketch doubles as a calling card. The review called it "a fine showcase for Navarrette's crack timing and commitment to the bit," and ranked it "one of the better 'SNL' digital shorts in quite some time." For a host on a night when the cold open misfired, that is a substantial win.

It also suggests the digital-short format remains one of the show's most reliable vehicles for escalating, high-concept absurdity — when a performer commits fully to the bit. Navarrette did, and the Halloween episode will likely be remembered for her robot, not for its cold open.