Maybe it’s the sugar talking, or the bourbon-soaked hot toddies my neighbors included on their curbside candy table—but I’m pretty sure Saturday Night Live kept a righteous flare of hope alive with this week’s genial, middle-fingers-up episode. Three days out from the election, and we’re all still standing. New York is no ghost town, and its lifers still love it fiercely. Joe Biden may be sleepy, but he’ll rock his Ray-bans in a dog fight. You might have first swooned for The Strokes 20 years ago, but Julian Casablancas still cooks in a Lloyd Dobler trench coat. We can depend on some things in this world–like John Mulaney’s love of spit-shine shoes, and Weekend Update’s willingness to call out Donald Trump, Jr. for his love of a pre-interview bump. However chaotic our country feels, Kate McKinnon refused to break despite turtles and sandwiches flying at her head.
With the disclaimer that this recap has been brought to you by a dozen Kit-Kats, this felt like the first cold open of the season with a clear point of view. Jim Carrey returned as Biden, but the sketch had him wisely positioned in a chair, which helped contain his otherwise distracting schtick. He wanted to regale America with his rendition of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven,” with anxiety-provoking cameos from Nate Silver, Ice Cube and Lil Wayne, Mitch McConnell and McKinnon’s Hillary Clinton, who reminded Biden that however stressful he found these last few days of the race “your real advantage is you’re not a woman.” Sincerity plays in these troubled times. Touch is a treasure. A frantic sense of hope wafted off Maya Rudolph and Carrey as they crossed their arms and fingers, crying “Let’s gain an hour and lose a president!”
This season’s string of comedian hosts has been a refreshing break from the usual parade of talent on a PR blitz. All of us are locked out of clubs right now; these Saturday night slots give us a look at new material. Mulaney’s bit on Governor Cuomo working out his family dramas through his daily press conferences was a winner. “You gabone bitch!” he said, imagining Cuomo taking his sister-in-law to task for wanting to bring her family into his beloved mother’s house at the peak of COVID. “I will break your neck and bury you in the Rockaways.” His rapid-fire cutaways to an unpopular girl at a sleepover and his misgivings about his 94-year-old grandmother’s vote played, too. But his poking at November 3’s “elderly man contest,” and the idea that America won’t change much either way, is trash. It’s the tired equivalent of putting a My Dog for President sign on your front lawn. Now is not a time to be dismissive or wishy-washy about the candidates. There’s too goddamn much on the line; pick a side, and fight like hell.
If SNL is loyal to anybody, it’s the city of New York. The absolute highlight of their virtual episodes at the end of last season was the finale’s melancholic ode to pre-pandemic life. Tonight, they came with two sketches in honor of the city’s spirit. McKinnon flounced around in the background of an otherwise straight tribute to New York, honoring city weirdos everywhere who could care less about being fit for public consumption. “She’s not not a Columbia professor,” said the narrator, as she sunned herself topless in Central Park and shared an ice cream cone with her dog. In a direct rebuke to President Trump, the sketch ended with a reminder that “New York is not a ghost town. The people just crazy enough to call this place home will always be here.”
In the show’s big musical sketch—a tradition now for its John Mulaney-hosted episodes—Mulaney played the struggling manager of a Times Square souvenir shop, loath to sell a sentimental pair of NYC underpants to Pete Davidson. You had Kenan Thompson in a Minions costume, McKinnon singing Streisand dressed as the Bubba Gump shrimp mascot, Rudolph belting out Sondheim, Beck Bennett’s Diddler on the Roof, Bowen Yang dressed as Batman, and the whole gang coming together for a parody of the biggest show-stopper in Les Miserables. “Three more days til the election, but the results may take months!” SNL’s longtime music producer Hal Willner, who died in April after exhibiting COVID symptoms, and whom Mulaney honored in the goodbyes with a HAL t-shirt, would have loved it.
On Weekend Update, Michael Che couldn’t believe he and Colin Jost could very well be drafted into a race war following Tuesday. “It’s not fair,” he lamented. “You just married Scarlett Johansson. I just bought an electric bike. We’re both doing equally great.” Baby Yoda was on hand to lighten the mood, bragging about the rawness of his DMs and his new cannabis product line. A round of Wookie Cookies for America!
Well, folks, tomorrow we’ll discover what our God in heaven has in store. Nothing is promised except for Dave Chappelle as next week’s host. Who better to know we have in our life boat?
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