Funny / Saturday Night Live Season 42

Season 42 of Saturday Night Live, premiering on October 1, 2016 and concluding on May 20, 2017, was a wild one, for sure. From the election of Donald Trump (Alec Baldwin) to the presidency, a dancing man in a pumpkin suit, a rampaging cross-cast Melissa McCarthy, the last hurrah for Drunk Uncle, and the first and last for Dawn Lazarus, SNL had one hell of a year, and it needed its own page for all the laughs it gave us.

To cap this all off, SNL won a slew of Emmys for 2017, from Best Variety Show, Best Directing for Variety, and Best Supporting for Kate McKinnon and Alec Baldwin to Best Guest Performances for Dave Chappelle and Melissa McCarthy.

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As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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Margot Robbie

From the Margot Robbie episode:

• The cold opening parodying the presidential debate between Hillary Clinton (Kate McKinnon) and Donald Trump (Alec Baldwin).
  • Clinton comes out limping on a cane and coughing from pneumonia, then drops the cane and does a somersault.
  • Also, all of Clinton's expressions while Trump is talking. They include, "did he really just say that?" when he says something outrageous to a gleefully smug "yes he's still saying it". Borders on Moment of Awesome at times as Kate's Stunned Silence face is so still it's practically a screencap.
    • Then she starts crying because it's all going so well for her.
  • Alec Baldwin lampshading all the faux pas that Trump makes and then immediately insisting they're good ideas.
  • At one point, Clinton says that Trump can have her turn to talk and then makes reeling-in gestures as he continues to say outrageous things.
  • Trump accusing Obama and Clinton of breaking his microphone.
• A parody of Mr. Robot where hacker Elliot(Pete Davidson) is asked by Leslie Jones to find out who hacked into her computer and leaked nude photos she took of herself(which actually happened in Real Life two months before).
  Elliot [to Leslie, after she replies to Mr. Robot]: You can see Mr. Robot?
  Leslie: So, is there a Mrs. Robot?
  Elliot: No, he's a ghost, he's dead.
  Leslie: Pssh. I ain't afraid of no ghost.
• A Family Feud sketch hosted by Kenan as Steve Harvey where Team Hillary Clinton goes up against Team Donald Trump. Bernie Sanders is leading Lin-Manuel Miranda (played by Cecily Strong), Sarah Silverman (Melissa Villaseñor), and Bill Clinton (Darrell Hammond, who has passed the torch of playing Trump to Baldwin). Team Trump is led by Kellyane Conway, and features Ivanka Trump (Margot Robbie), New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and none other than Vladimir Putin (Beck Bennett)!
  • Kellyanne can only make up ludicrous claims about Hillary and seems to think she's on a game of jeopardy. Ivanka is portrayed as a brainless beauty, and when Steve says she's sexy, he says that its okay for him to do so since her father has said the same thing. Vladimir Putin somehow knows about Steve's nightmares about him. Ivanka summons her brother Junior (the brains), as she is the beauty... and Eric is just Eric. Steve calls them the "children of the corn", and when they fail to get any points, the three of them descend slowly in unison into hammerspace. Chris Christie looks down and around in confusion.
  • When Steve talks to Chris Christie, he wonders why Christie is still backing Trump since Mike Pence has been selected as the vice-president, and asks if Trump has promised him a place in his Cabinet. Christie shrugs and says "we'll cross that bridge when we get there" and immediately winces. Steve laughs and says it's just too easy. Later, when Christie says he's been working hard campaigning for Trump, Steve reminds him that he said some nasty things about him in the primaries. Christie plays it off as "water under the bridge", but once again immediately regrets it and slams the table, cursing himself.
  • Bill Clinton says he's looking forward to not being president but still living at the White House, as he can just chill while Hillary takes on the job. Sarah Silverman says she feels excited about the prospect of electing a female president from her head to her vagina ("You're that nasty kind of adorable", Steve quips), and Lin goes into a rap leaving Steve confused as to what beat, if any, he's following. Bernie later says that he thinks Hillary is the prune juice of the election - she may not seem that appetizing, but if you don't take her now, you'll have a whole lot of crap later.
  • Bernie later refuses to play when Kellyanne screws up her question, deeming it too much of a hassle despite the protests of his team. When asked one last time a reason why you might be late, he suggests because Jill Stein ^note the Green Party candidate who has amassed a following among Bernie's dejected supporters as she's advertised herself basically as Bernie 2.0 keeps calling you late at night for advice. It ends up getting Team Clinton the top score!
  • Just to top it all off, when we revisit Bill at the end of the skit, he's already chatting up Ivanka and they're seen leaving together as the skit ends. Steve gives him a Full-Name Ultimatum in horror.
• Michael Che exercising some N-Word Privileges here:

  "I didn't feel like i was watching a debate, I felt like I was watching a divorced couple fight for custody for a kid who hates them both. It's like Brangelina but if Brad Pitt wanted to keep the white kids."
  "Donald Trump was also criticized for suggesting a nationwide stop-and-frisk. They only stop and frisk people like me... if you stopped and frisked everyone who looked like me, you're gonna find drugs. But if you stopped and frisked everyone who looked like Colin, you're gonna find better drugs!"
  "I trust white people to defend the national anthem like I trust Phylicia Rashad to defend Bill Cosby. 'Now I dunno what he did to yall, but the nigga made me rich.' "

  • For context, that was about Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem during a game due to another police shooting, and Michael restores said context the best way he can.
    "Colin Kaepernick is not the only one trying to raise awareness during the game for a sad cause. They're turning uniforms pink for breast cancer awareness tomorrow, ain't nobody's sad about that. I bet if the police went around shooting unarmed boobies everyone would take a knee."
• In a Scooby-Doo parody called "The Hunch Bunch", Robbie played Becca, the girlfriend of a member of the gang whose efforts to fit in were entirely scuppered by her total cluelessness. When the "Shaggy" Expy, Fenster, (Kyle Mooney) exclaimed "I think I hear someone coming!", Becca's response was "Eww! Who would have sex in this filthy old castle!"^note Robbie maintained her look of disgust to disguise the fact that she was actually corpsing at this. When the villain entered in search of his monster mask, Becca shot him.
• The first appearance of repeat character Matt Schatt, whose wife, Alexandra Kennedy Schatt, loves him despite the fact that he's a puppeteer, drives a Kia Sportage, has only testicles and no penis, and wears Crocs with socks.
  Kenan: HE'S MARRIED TO THE LORD'S MISTRESS, AND HE IS WEARING CROCS WITH SOCKS!

Lin-Manuel Miranda

From the Lin-Manuel Miranda episode:

• "Crucible Cast Party," which hits home for a lot of theater-obsessed teens. Character shoes, Sprite, old age makeup: it's all there. Aidy claims that all the boys want her, but we see pretty much every guy at the party flirting with each other. Kate tries to smoke a cigarette to look cool, but later breaks down and cries to her parents about it over the phone ("if we don't have our parents' trust, we don't have anything!"). Cecily shows off her show shoes to some guys with a creepy grin, Melissa enjoys a massage train, and Aidy runs off to a locked closet with a guy... and watches a recording of their production from a few hours ago, and goes to get pretzels with him. Lin also stars as the stereotypical hotshot who always plays the lead since he can dance, sing, and fuck, and he gets an elated Cecily in bed... to tell her that their next production will be RENT.
• Lin-Manuel's monologue, a spoof of "My Shot," throws in an additional Hamilton reference when Lin spots a portrait of one of the previous season's hosts, "Piece of shi-" Donald Trump:
  [under his breath] ''Never gon' be president now, never gon' be president now...''
• Speaking of Trump: the cold open, which mocks Trump's (at the time) latest scandal about being caught on mic in 2005, making disparaging remarks about women and groping them without their consent. Trump (as played by Alec Baldwin) tells anchorwoman Brooke Baldwin (Cecily Strong) he "apple-ogizes" (he'd never apologize), but continues to make disparaging remarks while he thinks his mic is off. Hillary, meanwhile, is reached for comment while celebrating an almost guaranteed victory at the following night's debate (complete with the shoulder shimmy). At the end, Trump is caught laughing at how the once-proud Ted Cruz was recorded on video phone-banking for him with a pained look on his face... and doesn't apple-ogize for it.
  • As part of the 2005 hot mic cold open, one of SNL's newest cast members, Melissa Villaseñor, plays Asian debate moderator Elaine Quijano, "...because, baby steps."
• Trump gets mocked again in "A Day Off with Kellyanne Conway" (Trump's campaign manager), whose half-assed excuses for Trump's behavior are shown to just be rattled off so she can get back to her day off. The not-quite Noodle Incidents that lead to her being summoned to CNN headquarters sweeten the pot.
  Of course black people don't have one less toe than white people.

Emily Blunt

From the Emily Blunt episode:

• The cold open second "and worst" debate sketch, which starts with the moderators downing shots and gets funnier from there, including Trump stalking Clinton to the Jaws music and Clinton's pretending to be distraught at her husband having mistresses.
  • And because everyone apparently deserved it: Ken Bone Dance Cam.
• "Melanianade" a parody of Beyoncé's "Sorry" video from her "Lemonade" album where the women in Donald Trump's life: his wife Melania (Cecily Strong), his daughter Ivanka (Emily Blunt), his campaign manager Kellyanne Conway (Kate McKinnon), his other daughter Tiffany (Vanessa Bayer), and his "one black friend", Omarosa (Sasheer Zameda) call him out on his treatment of them.
• The 16th Annual Ann Arbor Short Film Festival screens the rather surreal and Deliberately Monochrome short qua. Afterwards, the host allows the cast and crew to answer questions from the audience, but awkwardness ensues when it turns out the audience consisted almost entirely of the cast and crew. The sole exception (Vanessa Bayer) consequently finds herself forced to ask multiple questions, which everyone answers in a vague and/or repetitive manner.
• A sketch set at tech convention where two Honda robots are serving appetizers. One of them played by Emily Blunt gets too close to the side of Kate McKinnon's face and repeatedly tries to offer her some quesadillas even though Kate refuses. It's the one of the few times Kate breaks during a sketch.
• The spoof of The Great British Bakeoff is so lovingly elaborate that it's hilarious as well as awesome. Melissa Villasenor and Aidy Bryant are practically spot on as Sue and Mel respectively (though Kate Mckinnon wasn't aged up enough to match Mary Berry.) And then there's Emily Blunt and Cecily Strong as two chavettes who only wound up here because they failed to get on Big Brother.
  • It's worth mentioning that not only are they from "the only town that voted unanimously for the Brexit", but the reason why they failed to get on Big Brother is because they failed the psychiatric exam. "This show doen't have one, so [they] passed."

Tom Hanks

From the Tom Hanks episode:

• The cold open - you knew it was coming - of the Third and Final Presidential Debate of 2016, with Hanks as the moderator Chris Wallace noting "This is kind of like Return of the King in that you don't wanna watch but hey you've come this far." It gets worse... okay, funnier from there.^note It doesn't help that a lot of the skit is taken from real things Trump said during and after the debate.
  • Trump promises to talk quietly and soft like a "baby Trump." He doesn't make it past the first question.
  • Hillary wins her Bingo card when Trump says the "Bad Hombres" bit.
  • When asked about the sexual assault allegations Trump replies "Nobody respects women more than me!" Cue video clips of entire audiences laughing in response including a shot of the Planet Earth.
    Moderator: Alright, alright, settle down, entire planet.
  • When Trump raises Hillary's past 30 years of experience, Hillary launches into a bragging session about her resume. Kate McKinnon's delivery of "Osama. Bin. Laden." in particular is hysterical.
  • Trump tries to boost himself by pointing out all the high-profile people backing him, including Scott Baio (Chachi) and THE Best Baldwin brother... Stephen.
  • As soon as Trump accuses Hillary of being a "Nasty Woman," Hillary promptly starts promoting Nasty Women coffee mugs and t-shirts.^note Seriously, pro-Hillary supporters created Nasty Women paraphernalia before the debate even finished.
  Hillary:You have a choice America. You can vote for the Republican candidate or you can vote for Donald Trump.
• The opening monoogue. Tom Hanks, having been in movies for decades and grown into one of America's most beloved actors, acknowleges that he's been addressed at times as "America's father", whereupon he dons a more homely sweater and addresses everyone in the audience (ie. America) like it was his son coming of age. Easily counts as a Heartwarming moment at the same time.
  "You're the most creative person there is. Look what you've done! You've been to the Moon; you invented the Internet; and you created a gun that shoots T-shirts!"
• Hanks as a stereotypical-looking Deep South Trump Supporter from the south showing up for "Black Jeopardy!" whose distrust of the government is very similar to the Black contestants, along with with his surprising love of Tyler Perry movies and preference for a Big Beautiful Woman. He's actually winning at "Black Jeopardy!" up until the Final Jeopardy question "Lives that Matter".
  Darnell: ...Well, it was good while it lasted, Doug!
• Three words: David S. Pumpkins.
  Kate McKinnon: ...and David Pumpkins is...?
  David Pumpkins: His own thing!
  Beck Bennett: And the skeletons are...?
  Skeletons: Part of it!
  • "Any questions?"
    Beck Bennet: Yes! Several!
• Leslie Jones' Weekend Update appearance about her iPhone hack.

Benedict Cumberbatch

From the Benedict Cumberbatch episode:

• The cold opening has Hillary Clinton freaking out over losing her poll lead after the FBI reopened its email investigation.
  Clinton: Mark [Burnett] my baby, I know you’re sitting on some pretty racist tapes of Donald on The Apprentice, so, Mark, as they say on Wheel of Fortune: ‘Give me an N.’
• The game show "Why is Benedict Cumberbatch Hot?". There are no characters; it's just Beck asking Vanessa, Aidy, and Benedict himself why he's hot. The women are inarticulate, with Aidy devolving to panting and howling like a dog as her description, while Benedict is just as confused as Beck is, describing himself as looking like Sid the sloth from Ice Age. Beck's only guess is that he's well-endowed, but is informed that "No, Beck, it's average-sized... yeah, the balls too."
  Cumberbatch: Uh, hello, I'm Benedict Cumberbatch, and I don't remember this sketch at dress rehearsal.
  • Round two has Beck putting up pictures of Cumberbatch against a "more classically-handsome American man" - namely, himself. When Benedict compliments his pictures, Beck starts falling for him too.

Dave Chappelle

From the Dave Chappelle episode:

• First off, Dave's return to the spotlight is guaranteed to generate more than a few laughs, and right out the gate, his opening monologue, at eleven minutes long, is also a stand-up routine. He cracks jokes on everything from Harambe ^note the gorilla shot at the Cincinnati Zoo that inexplicably became a world-famous meme to the point that 11,000 people voted for him on Election Day to the Black Lives Matter movement.
• During the election night skit, as results in Donald Trump's favor continue to roll in, the white Hillary supporters in the party react in shock and seem to discover for the first time that racism exists in America. Dave and guest Chris Rock can only guffaw in response.
  Cecily Strong: Oh my God, I think America is racist!
  Chappelle: Oh my God! You know I remember my great-grandfather told me something like that. He was, like, a slave or something.
• Plus their reactions to the new results show that they're fairly racist themselves.
  Beck Bennett: I'm calling it: Florida's going blue. (raises glass) To Latinos!
  The women: To Latinos!
  (after the Florida results come in)
  Chappelle: I guess the Latinos didn't hear your toast.
• Dave considered not reprising any of his old characters for the show, but after The Walking Dead had its' season premiere, Dave couldn't resist. He thus plays Negan choosing someone to die, and has to choose between a collection of his old characters. Among them is white supremacist Clayton Bigsby (who dons a Trump hat), Tyrone Biggums, and none other than Busta Rhymes as Lil' Jon. Ultimately, Biggums gets the bat, and his head is knocked clean off of his body... but continues to roll around, dodging Negan and Lucille. Biggums' head monologues, is superimposed on the bodies of every major political figure of the year as he does so, and then escapes.
• On the Weekend Update, Colin remarks how disgraced New Jersey governor Chris Christie joining Trump's forthcoming cabinet is counterproductive to "draining the swamp", and describes several other confirmed names as assorted swamp life, which gets quite a bit of jeering from the audience.
  Michael: You know you still gotta drive to New Jersey, right?
  Colin: Well just don't take the bridge!
  (Michael couldn't even start his story because he and the audience lost it.)
  • Kate returns as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and insists she will not retire thanks to Trump's victory. She contends that she will simply stock up on vitamins, and promptly scarfs down a huge amount of powdery Vitamin C, the stuff cascading out of her mouth and onto her gown.
• After a sketch revolving around afros appears to go over poorly, the cast then enters a panel on a behind the scenes segment. The panel is framed like a football press conference where the team lost horribly.
• Kate reprises the "Last Call" sketch, this time with Dave, with Kenan as the bartender who grows progressively more disgusted with their flirting. Kate also mentions that her zodiac sign is "Vagittarius" (as a nod to Kate being a lesbian in real life). Kenan claims that the apocalypse must have arrived, and on cue, a rubber frog falls from above. When Dave and Kate begin tonguing at the bar, Kenan begins frantically pouring bleach into his eyes! When they go for broke and begin tonguing again as they fire off streams of beer, Kenan declares he must do what he must — and promptly begins shooting at the two to chase them out of his bar.
• A behind the scenes mockumentary depicts Leslie Jones and Kyle Mooney in a blossoming relationship and her attempts to take Kyle's virginity, that even the other cast members including executive producer Lorne Michaels comment on wishing for Kyle to get laid. To Dave's dismay, Leslie and Kyle end up having sex in his dressing room.
• The final sketch of the night features Dave as a man living with his mother (Leslie), and his friends, who are over for a football game, are repulsed when Dave starts breast feeding with his mother despite being a grown man. It gets worse when Dave emerges from behind his mother's blanket with milk all over his face, and his sister (Sasheer) later joins in too, and milk squirts all over the other guys. Kyle stays while the others flee in terror.

Kristen Wiig

From the Kristen Wiig episode:

• The cold open features Alec Baldwin reprising his role as President-elect Donald Trump, in the midst of his transition and preparation for taking office. Kellyanne Conway winces that she got Trump elected, and Trump himself gets spooked when he begins to realize the sheer scope of the powers he must assume and the promises he made (a wall thousands of miles long, deporting millions of people, etc). Trump begins to abandon his plans, and later makes Mike Pence promise that he will handle everything once they enter office.
• Kristen Wiig's opening monologue goes into a musical number about the supposed first Thanksgiving... which involves everything from Vikings (Bobby), Napoleon (Kate), aliens, you name it.
• "The Bubble", depicting a supposed safe-zone within a giant bubble where progressives can live in peace in the wake of Trump's election. Bernie Sanders is on the $1 bill (which earns a big round of cheers from the audience), smart cars, "the rawest milk you've ever tasted", housing prices are through the roof... but hey, you're away from Trump! Kyle also insists that "we don't see color, we celebrate it!", earning him a grimace from Sasheer.
• A Retraux game show from the 60s has Kristen as a Broadway performer as one of the players, who insists on doing her vocal warmups before the game. If you pay attention though...
  "Tanya told the teacher that the preacher didn't touch her. The preacher told the teacher that he simply couldn't reach her."
• This parody of Anderson Cooper 360 has Cooper (Alex Moffat) host a panel about various questionable activities regarding Trump. All the other members of the panel react to each piece of "Breaking News" with the exact same wording each time, the only differences including everyone sounding progressively more enraged, and Dana Bash (Kristen Wiig) mentioning the previous piece of news as something the current subject "isn't like". Each cycle ends with Trump supporter Kayleigh McEnany (Kate McKinnon) asking, "Um, can we just remember that most Americans voted for Trump?" to which Van Jones (Kenan Thompson) responds, "Actually, they didn't, Kayleigh!", eliciting laughter from everyone. When Cooper starts to realize the show has become formulaic, everyone freezes. Two maintenance guys (Mikey Day and Pete Davidson) point him out as a robot who "...was starting to remember", replace him with a Jake Tapper (Beck Bennett) robot, and continue the program as usual. None of the other robots ask where Cooper went, and instead continue spouting their stock phrases, until the Westworld logo appears.
• "Target Commercial", featuring Cecily as a woman who decides to escape from a Thanksgiving with relatives from different political viewpoints at Target.
• A sketch revolving around a family (Vanessa, Kyle, Beck, and Cecily) watching the Macy's Thanksgiving parade up close and personal.. only for the balloons of Madeline (Kristen) and Woody (Mikey) to be non-stop Nightmare Fuel, seemingly coming to life and stalking the family. Then Bobby appears as Pennywise, an unblinking, grinning Pennywise at that. The three balloons gang up on the family, following them as they move. Then Madeline picks up Kristin Chenoweth (portrayed by a doll) and drops her! Beck quips, "So much for defying gravity!"
• "Whiskers R We" makes a return, with Kristen as Kate's latest fellow cat lady, who's even more thirsty than the previous one (Melissa McCarthy) for Kate. It gets to the point that when she decides to pinch a cat for bad behavior (including voting for Jill Stein), she spends a minute searching for Kate's left nipple, and finally gets a hold of it. Kate quickly loses her composure in what is perhaps the biggest instance of her breaking character on the show ever.
• "Surprise Lady: Thanksgiving" has a Thanksgiving gathering being headlined by a soldier (Pete) returning from the service to surprise his mother (Vanessa). Despite Cecily's attempts to have the group (Bobby, Aidy, Leslie), Kristen reprises her old Surprise Lady persona and threatens to ruin the surprise, and is flipping the hell out the entire time.

Emma Stone

From the Emma Stone episode:

• Another Trump cold open, this one about Trump's obsession with tweeting, and also bringing in Steve Bannon ^note Trump's new chief strategist, also a notorious Neo-Nazi, Islamophobe and all around racist, who is portrayed as a Grim Reaper-esque figure.
• The opening monologue has Emma happy to be back on SNL, and especially to be back with her old flame... Bobby Moynihan, who is played up as a hunky jock she slept around with. While he was engaged.
• "The Christmas Candle", a sparkly ballad about an unopened candle that becomes "another Christmas savior", as it provides "the gift of having a gift to give away." Vanessa struggles to come up with a good present for Sasheer^note whom the lyrics refer to as Jen, so she hastily sticks a bow on an old candle, then hands it to her at the office. Sasheer proceeds to give it away to Leslie offscreen, then Leslie chucks it onto Melissa while they have tea in London.
• A sketch depicting Pete Davidson as a high school student struggling with his math homework, and when he falls asleep, his posters come to life. They include Kenan as a stand-up comedian, Mikey Day as a radical snowboarder, Kate as a Commander Shephard-esque protagonist of an action shooter game, and Emma as a hot, but air headed and high-voiced model with a hot dog. The poster characters try to teach Pete to not give up and some basic math skills, but Emma keeps bringing it back to the hot dog. Kate grows so exasperated, she sighs "Oh my god, this bitch" and even goes over and eats the hot dog. "There! I ate the fat hot dog!"... only for Emma to pull out another one. Pete somehow gets the lesson that every math equation equals hot dogs, and sure enough fails his math homework after scribbling hot dogs all over it.
• "The Hunt for Hill" has a Finding Bigfoot style documentary about finding Hillary Clinton in the New England woods ^note Clinton has stayed out of the spotlight since losing the election, and took a picture with a fan while hiking in the woods somewhere.
• On Weekend Update, Vanessa Bayer reprises her Rachel impersonation... only for the real Jennifer Aniston to show up. Hilarity Ensues when Jennifer plays up how accidentally accurate Vanessa's impersonation is.
• A sketch on the birth of Jesus has Emma as the overwhelmed Mary moments after the birth of Christ. Surprisingly Realistic Outcome when the three wise men arrive and Mary derides her husband for letting them in... then Joseph demands Mary make drinks for the three wise men.
• One sketch ran short, so we get to see the entire credits roll by, and at one point the still-bearded Beck laughs at the camera, surprised they're still on the air.

John Cena

From the John Cena episode:

• The cold open features Beck and Kate returning as Jake Tapper and Kellyanne Conway discussing president-elect Trump's newest Cabinet pick - none other than Bryan Cranston reprising his role as Walter White! Turns out, Walt has been picked by Trump to run the DEA of all things, and Walt is delighted as a wall will mean less competition. When Tapper asks if he means competition for jobs, Walt says "Sure, Let's Go with That". He also insists that Trump will make America cook again, and is ready to support the red, white, and lots of blue.
• Cena's monologue is continuously interrupted by the cast playing wacky wrestlers themselves, among them Bobby as "The Waddler", and Leslie Jones as herself!
• "Hook A Hunk" has Cena host a dating show where the girl (Cecily) ends up falling for him and making out with him. The three contestants (Beck, Mikey, and Kyle) are bewildered until Beck and Kyle end up making out, leaving Mikey as the third wheel.
• The science fair sketch has a clearly rigged fair where Cena plays a brainless football player who gets an 'A' just so he can take the university to the championship.
• Dyke and Fats return, and their title sequence features the two opening a pair of boxes. Dyke opens a box where a sexy woman in a swimsuit pops out, and is floored, while Fats opens a box where a man holding a cake pops out, and is equally floored.
• Weekend Update features Kate as German chancellor Angela Merkel, bemoaning how Trump's platforms and policies are lining up with Nazi Germany. She also chews out the alt-right movement, saying that in Germany, the alt-right is "why Grandpapa lives in Argentina now." Cecily also appears as Cathy Anne to rant about Pizza Gate, and also rips into the alt-right, musing how they're Nazi's but hate being called Nazi's. She also looks directly into the camera and lampshades how Trump is probably watching right now.
• A sketch where Joanne (Aidy) falls out of a window, but her coworkers are only concerned with the Christmas Tree that fell out of the office with her. At the end, Joanne falls to the ground and Santa suddenly appears, not to save her but to save the tree.
• "Through Donald's Eyes" has Cena play Trump going through an average day, imagining his hands becoming huge, only to rage-quit when he gets mean tweets. Kellyanne (Kate) has to tuck him into bed like a mother coddling her spoiled child.

Casey Affleck

From the Casey Affleck episode:

• Alec Baldwin returns as Trump in the cold open featuring him getting ready for a Christmas party he's hosting. Suddenly, Vladimir Putin (Beck Bennett) climbs down the chimney with a bag of toys and shirtless (of course) to cheers from the audience. Putin asks Trump if he really believes him over basically the entire American intelligence community, and Trump shrugs and only cares that he won. Putin is appropriately bewildered. He then gifts Trump with an "elf on the shelf" to keep next to his Internet router all year long, and implies he'll give him one for each of his four years. Then Rex Tillerson (John Goodman), Trump's pick for Secretary of State, arrives and is giddy to see "Putie" and vice versa. The two then begin going over their plans to increase their oil production and all, and when Trump asks what's going on, they both insist he not worry about it. They even go "LIVE FROM NEW YORK" without him at first!
• During Affleck's monologue, he ends up dissing both Baldwin and Goodman while bringing up how they've hosted SNL so many times. When Affleck mentions esteemed, veteran hosts, both men arrive back on stage looking excited... only for Affleck to mention he's not counting them, and they storm off disappointed.
• We get a new version of the "Close Encounter" sketch, this time as one with Santa Claus. Only Ms. Rafferty ended up encountering the Krinklemaus, which sounds like a Captain Ersatz of The Krampus. Hilarity Ensues, ending with Rafferty being followed by a creepy elf she met named Shart.
• We get a parody of the famous scene from Love Actually, only with Kate reprising her role as Hillary Clinton. With her signs, she strongly urges a Republican electoral college member to vote for literally anybody else besides Trump on the following Monday; like John Kasich^note who many liberals/Democrats even feel was the best Republican choice for president in the 2016 election, or Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson... or a rock. Hillary admits she knows in some states there's a $1,000 fine for not voting for Trump, and she responds to that with a giant check.

Felicity Jones

From the Felicity Jones episode:

• The cold open parodies the absolutely chaotic press conference President-elect Trump had that week and the reported tape of Trump having a golden showers-type escapade with Russian hookers. Trump also announces that in a week, he'll be sworn in as the 45th president... and in a few months, Mike Pence will likely become the 46th president. When told that people could die if the Republicans successfully end Obamacare, Trump admits that as he's about to be president, we're all gonna die. After making lots of pee jokes and puns, Vladimir Putin arrives, claiming to be CNN's Wolf Blitzer (both played by Beck) and he asks Trump to once again admit that Russia interfered in the election... while waving the alleged "pee-pee tape". Trump panics and blames Meryl Streep!
• Felicity tells the audience how she recently starred in a little-known indie film called Rogue One. Saw Gerrera (Kenan Thompson) later shows up with a message, and after he takes a breath from his life support system, Felicity asks what he's breathing. Saw snarks, "wouldn't you like to know?"
  • Tina Fey herself appears in costume as Leia (as a tribute to the recently passed Carrie Fisher) and gives Felicity some of the lowdown on the show's proceedings, including how to know when she won't be the funny one in a sketch, how the writers often play up Leslie Jones as an angry and horny lunatic (only for Jones to indeed show up angry and horny), etc.
• A sketch where Felicity plays a princess cursed by a Maleficent-esque sorcerer (Kate really hamming it up), and her prince (Beck) promising he will love her no matter what her curse is. The witch reveals that at night, the princess is cursed to gain 15 pounds. The prince is horrified and immediately begins backtracking, even asking if the weight she gains goes all over or to a particular area. Sure enough, he books.
• Kate plays Susan B. Anthony, who is brought to life by a group of women visiting her home in the present day. They thank her for all her hard work as an activist, and then begin to make plans for afterwards. Susan continuously interrupts them, confused at their modern day technology and also spouting various non-sequiturs about her beliefs. Eventually Susan and the ladies make peace, only for Susan to spout a line about abortion that to say the least doesn't sit well with them.

Aziz Ansari

From the Aziz Ansari episode:

• The cold open stars Vladimir Putin addressing his new constituents in the wake of Trump's inauguration. He tries to calm America down, insisting he won't have Trump do anything too crazy. Olya Pavlotsky shows up and puts on a pink pussy hat to protest Putin while he's not looking.
• Aziz gets more than his fair share of hilarious moments during his opening monologue as the show's guest host. Words cannot do it justice.
• Aziz plays a nerdy scientist in a sketch revolving around the game show "Beat the Bookworm", and is smug as can be when the first few categories about science are listed... but screams in horror when the last category is revealed to be about 90's pop culture, as he's completely inept about pop culture due to being so devoted to his studies. He ends up getting every question from the category wrong, from Michael Jackson to TLC.
• Cecily and Beck play a pair of cops who are fanatical fans of La La Land, and interrogate a man who was a casual fan of the movie. Cecily even destroys the interrogation room's window in a rage at one point.
• Kate McKinnon really gets to shine in a Chicago-esque (a "Roxie" homage) showstopper, depicting Trump's senior adviser (and who many people decry as borderline delusional) Kellyanne Conway's desire to be famous as the reason she's always fighting for Trump. Aside from Kate being one hell of a Ms. Fanservice the entire time, she brings up how the real Conway actually endorsed Ted Cruz a year before the election and claimed Trump was acting unpresidential. Even Jake Tapper (Beck Bennett) joins in on the musical number after a while. Careful viewers will also notice that Kate uses some of the choreography from Chicago, as she mentioned back in "Crucible Cast Party" earlier in the season.
• On Weekend Update, Michael Che's running gag of Michelle Obama's disapproving face, illustrated with "Mm!" And his Sarcasm Mode is on fleek as always.
  "You can't expect all of America to stand out there in the cold after knowing that they'll lose their healthcare!"
  • Colin Jost describing the concert in front of the Lincoln Memorial as "the second worst live performance Lincoln has ever attended."
• The pizza skit. With Beck Bennett being the Comically Serious as a cop taking in a criminal, and Kenan Thompson getting distracted by the animatronics, you half-expect the bots to come to life and murder everyone like in Five Nights at Freddy's.

Kristen Stewart

From the Kristen Stewart episode:

• The Trump Cold Open where a "tired and cranky" Trump (Baldwin) tries to call various heads of state with disastrous results: insulting Australian Prime Minister Turnbull (really happened), trying to trick Mexican President Nieto to agree to pay for the Wall and then threatening to send in troops to deal with "the bad hombres" (really happened), and scaring German Chancellor Merkel as she begs for Obama to come back (probably happened). All the while Steve Bannon (a skeletal Grim Reaper) encourages him through each call... before declaring at the end that he thinks that was enough fun for this evening, asking Trump to give him his rightful seat at the President's desk back. Trump immediately obliges as he calls Bannon "Mr. President" and instead moves over his desk — a kid-sized version of the President's desk — to play with toys.
  • The phone calls end when Trump tries to call a country that HAS an actual dictator — Zimbabwe's Mugabe — where the dictator immediately chews out Trump as a weak wannabe ("I will rip out your spine and drink from your skull! You cannot even walk down stairs, you little white bitch! Don’t you ever call Zimbabwe again!") and hangs up on him.
• Stewart nervously dropping an F-bomb during her monologue, something every long-time viewer of the show knows will go over well with Lorne. Stewart even quips that she's probably never coming back now (at least for about 3 years).
• One sketch has a guy named Steve (Pede Davidson) having a Meet Cute with a woman named Claire (Kristen Stewart) and getting her to agree to a date with him. Unfortunately, after she leaves, he realizes that they never decided on what restaurant, what time, and he didn't get any of her contact information or even her last name. The rest of the sketch cuts between Steve frantically trying to figure out her name and running to every restaurant in the city in an attempt to track her down and Claire getting ready for her date in blissful ignorance of the fact that Steve has no idea who she is or where to meet her. At the end of the sketch, he manages to track her down and explains himself, and she invites him up to her apartment... Only for him to realize after she closed her window that she never told him what apartment she lives in, and she lives in a massive apartment building.
• Another Super Bowl commercial for Totino's Pizza Rolls, where the overworked housewife (Vanessa Bayer) gets some assistance from the lesbian sister (Stewart) of one of the game-watchers... and the two women get it on - from finger-touching while placing the pizza rolls on an oven tray before stripping and making out on the kitchen table re-enacting Blue Is the Warmest Color (even speaking in FRENCH) - while the clueless guys are laser-focused on the game.
• And the winner of the evening (and possibly forever): Melissa McCarthy guest-stars as a bullying Sean Spicer - Trump's press secretary - who opens up yelling at the press corps, threatens to chew gum (consumes an entire container of gum tablets) and punch faces, offering up Insane Troll Logic, and getting crazier — including using the oversized podium to pummel reporters — from there.
  • Highlights:
    Spicer: [very loudly, glaring] Before we begin I know that myself and the press have gotten off to a rocky start. And by "rocky start" I mean in the sense of Rocky the movie because I came out here to PUNCH you! In the FACE! And also I don't talk so good.
    [...]
    Spicer: I'd like to begin today by apologizing on behalf of you to me... for how you have treated me these last two weeks... And that apology is NOT accepted!
    [...]
    Spicer: As you know, President Trump announced his Supreme Court pick on the national TV today. When he entered the room the crowd greeted him with a STANDING ovation! Which lasted a full FIFTEEN MINUTES! And you can check the tape on that. Everyone was smiling. Everyone was happy. The men all had erections, and every single one of the women was ovulating left and right. And no-one, no-one was sad. Okay, those are the facts forever and there's something else. [starts to read from a piece of paper] We got something x, three four, capital T, capital P, eight, four — hang on, that's my email password, forget that one. Alright, nobody write that — [gives Death Glare to journalist] Stop writing that down!
    [...]
    Spicer: That's enough for today. Spicy's gonna go bye-bye right now, need a big boy nap. I will be woken up exactly one minute before tomorrow's press concert- LIVE FROM NEW YORK IT'S SATURDAY NIGHT!.
    Reporter: Uhm, yeah, that... already happened.
    Spicer: [attacks the reporter with the podium]

Alec Baldwin

From the Alec Baldwin episode:

• Melissa McCarthy returns as Sean Spicer for the Cold Open... and she, uh he has been told to cut back ^note  as a response to the real Sean Spicer's comments on the gum-chewing to just one stick (Spicer pulls out a stick of gum bigger than her head). Spicer proceeds to give a press conference crazier than the first, turns it into a QVC sale for Ivanka's canceled line of apparel from Nordstrom's, and ends it by driving the podium into the reporter pool.
  • A few weeks later, Spicer himself threatened to "make the podium move" during a press briefing. And this was actually a bald-faced defiance of Trump telling him not to acknowledge the show!
• During the Cold Open, Spicer says that Donald Trump is going to take on the 9th Circuit on The People's Court... and several skits later, we get exactly that. From Marilyn Milian pointing out that the 9th Circuit judges are "more real than she is" to Donald calling himself "A TV president." Also, Donald saying he's going to call a character witness, to which his son starts to stand, before calling forth a shirtless as ever Vladimir Putin. Putin does a secret handshake with Steve Bannon, Donald, Jr., and tries to give Eric a fist bump... but Eric just claps his hand over Putin's.

  Judge: I want one day without a CNN alert that scares the hell out of me!

  • The skit ends with the revelation that the next case is... Donald Trump suing Nordstrom's.
• Jake Tapper goes home one night to find Kellyanne Conway in a nightgown, demanding she be let back on the air to be back in the spotlight. Tapper refuses, citing how Conway made up a massacre to try to slam the media (really happened) and how CNN can't have her on if she's going to keep making up stuff and lying. Conway then begins threatening Tapper in a parody of Fatal Attraction until Tapper agrees to let her on CNN again, eventually saying that if he won't let her back on, she'll go to HuffPo Live - but hangs up with an "ew" shortly after they pick up. Conway thanks Jake, only to fall out of an open window to her apparent death. Her flayed body suddenly repairs itself, and Conway says she's okay, but only has three lives left.
  • The real Jake Tapper reacted with an "Um..." to the sketch, but later admitted it was funny. The real Kellyanne Conway took it in stride too.
• Weekend Update features Senator Elizabeth Warren (Kate McKinnon), who had been silenced by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for reading Coretta Scott King's letter slamming Jeff Sessions, Trump's pick for Attorney General who was denied a judge license in the 1980's for being too racist, the letter having been written back then. Warren says her now famous rallying cry, "nevertheless, she persisted" to big applause ^note this was the phrase used by McConnell when remarking on her being silenced, and says she's made Twitter her bitch. Warren goes on to interrogate Colin over the fact that he's credited and paid as a main cast member despite the fact he only appears in Weekend Update. She then tries to read a negative review of the episode where Trump hosted the show back in fall 2015.
  • When discussing Jeff Sessions being approved for Attorney General, Colin announces that Sessions has been approved as our new Confederate General, then corrects himself.
  • Also featured on Weekend Update is a couple (Leslie Jones and Mikey Day) who have started trying BDSM. While Leslie is portrayed as a meek girl who is secretly a freak, Mikey is portrayed as being desperate to escape his relationship and has several cuts and bruises.
• Leslie does a sketch where she campaigns to play Trump whenever Alec Baldwin isn't available - especially to piss off the real Trump who was most angry about the fact Spicer was portrayed by a woman. Leslie looks pretty unholy but fitting at the same time, but Lorne refuses her offer. Leslie is carried away screaming after manhandling Lorne, crying that she wants to show she has range since she's usually cast as a loud, screaming woman. Leslie is evicted from the studio, but her appearance fools the passing Melania, and so she hops in the limo.

Octavia Spencer

From the Octavia Spencer episode:

• The Cold Open of Jeff Sessions as Forrest Gump, talking about his troubles over lying to the Senate committee about talking to Russians and comparing them to his box of chocolates. Using a few too many racially insensitive observations, bumping fists with shirtless Putin ("This meeting never happened." "I wasn't gonna say anything about it anyway!"), and running into Spencer's character from The Help with her giving Sessions her infamous pie.
• Kellyanne Conway randomly showing up throughout the episode in her infamous feet-up pose, not even saying anything or with any attention brought to her.
• The trailer for the one brave Republican who broke from the party line when he couldn't stand by and watch the evils of the Trump administration anymore...To Be Determined (TBD) as soon as someone actually does it and they can fill in his name and anything he says.

Scarlett Johansson

From the Scarlett Johansson episode:

• The Cold Open is set in 2018, where Earth is being attacked by aliens. At a military base, Alec Baldwin returns as President Trump, who naturally is more concerned with his lies that he won the popular vote and The Apprentice (expressing glee when he hears that California has been wiped out, including Arnold). The aliens arrive, and when they ask for the human leader to be surrendered to them, Trump immediately tosses the general to the aliens.
• The opening monologue has Kate and Scarlett interact for the first time since the 2017 Oscars (in which they both presented awards). Kate greets Scarlett with several loving pecks on the cheek (and can be seen checking out Scarlett's lips shortly afterwards), and mentions she went to a really crappy after party following the ceremony. Kenan, who has been on the show since before Scarlett's first time hosting, arrives in a ridiculous bathrobe and orders Kate to do his laundry, and gives Scarlett a compilation tape of her times hosting focusing on him. Scarlett counters with an ad about his role in Fat Albert.
• A news report has a royal screw up in which a zoo photographer (Mikey Day) is presented as a zoo pornagrapher by a massive typo in the headlines. It just gets worse as the interview with a reporter (Scarlett) goes on, to the point that the head zookeeper (Kenan) shows up to fire the photographer from the zoo and insist they have no further ties with him. Even better, the actual zoo tweeted about the skit and joked that they really had no connection with him either.
• A parody promo for two new reality series on Logo TV, one is "Fire Island" about a group of 20 something gay men living in a house on Fire Island(which is a real show) and the other, "Cherry Grove", featuring a cast of affluent lesbians on another beach(played by Scarlett and SNL cast members). While the Fire Island guys spend most of the time partying and hooking up, the "Cherry Grove" cast are taking care of their babies, drinking wine and having emotional conversations with their partners in bed.
• "Complicit" a perfume commercial parody starring Scarlett as Ivanka Trump mocking the new First Daughter's image as the progressive member of the Trump family when really she does little to help those hurt by her father's policies.
  Voiceover: I bet when she watches Titanic she thinks she's Rose. Sorry girl, you're Billy Zane.
• A sketch revolving around a dog being given a device to let him speak his mind, but to his owner's (Scarlett) horror, he's a Trump supporter. Everyone reacts in disgust as the dog keeps defending Trump's platform and ideology, but the show-stealer is when the poor dog used in the sketch actually takes the device prop off of his neck. Beck, who was voicing the dog off-screen, rolls with it and throws in the dog demanding it to be taken off of him. Scarlett has to return the device to the dog's neck.
• A sketch featuring the filming of an Olive Garden commercial has some really ridiculous prompts and scripting, including casting Leslie Jones as a stereotypically sassy black lady, forcing Kenan to bury his face in pasta, and Scarlett and Mikey having to act aroused.
• Weekend Update features Senator Al Franken (Alex Moffatt) and Attorney General Jeff Sessions (Kate), and when the former tries to get the latter to swear on the Bible, Sessions tries to do it with a fake hand.
• Shud, Kate's disgusting blobfish-mermaid character, returns for another sketch, this time with Mikey Day having to choose between Cecily and Sasheer's beautiful mermaids, and Shud. This time, Shud has brought along her gal-pal Chunk, an angler fish mermaid played by Scarlett. It's even more ridiculous than the last time, and when Mikey tries to escape, Shud and her pal catch him and drag him to their lair for presumably one hell of a threesome. During the whole sketch, Scarlett is grinning like a maniac, clearly having a blast.
• Leslie plays a ninja named Shanice Goodwin, and she and Scarlett storm an enemy compound with some ridiculously terrible guards.
• Scarlett and Aidy directly address the audience and say that the women of SNL participated in the Day Without Women protests earlier in the week, meaning they were unable to help make another sketch. Luckily, Colin Jost and Beck were able to come up with something about feminism and what not. However, the sketch turns out to be just Beck and Kyle going on a tract about women's rights... without letting any of the female cast members speak. We get a great shot of the majority of the ladies sitting around a table confused and annoyed. Even Lorde (the episode's musical guest) can't even get in a word!

Louis C.K.

From the Louis C.K. episode:

• A pair of historical reenactment actors give a rendition of a New York couple from the 1910s that's completely historically accurate, ie dripping with horrible racism. Made even better by how the setup actually makes the multiple times Louis cracks up and flubs his lines still seem perfectly in character, joined in by the similarly breaking Kate (which is a pretty big deal since she almost never breaks).
  Louis: I wish I could bring home more ma-ney, I... (He and Kate start corpsing) But there are no good jobs. They have all been taken by the filthy greasy Italians.
  (Cut to Kenan Thompson's bewildered face)
  Kate: Michel, shame on you! It is not their fault that they are greasy, meatball-eating crotch-grabbers.
• A sketch where Louis plays a prosecuting attorney who captivates everyone in the courtroom, male and female, with his gorgeous eyelashes.
• The sketch making fun of the infamous "Live For Now" Pepsi ad has the director (Beck) being told how by people over the phone about insensitive his commercial is.
• The Weekend Update brings in Kate McKinnon playing Cecilia Giménez (the amateur restorer who botched a fresco of Jesus) to comment on a Cristiano Ronaldo bust that doesn't resemble him. She complimentarily describes it as looking like it had a stroke while saying "Cheese!", the facial features as twisting and sucking towards the nose, and so on. In the end, the camera goes to a bust of Colin that she proudly made.
  • Michael pointing out that the memetic image of Jared Kushner in a flak vest over his business suit looks like "Colin going to buy from my weed guy without me."
• Louis plays a weird, pathetic guy who hires a kids' birthday clown (Bobby) for his solitary party. The clown gets more and more creeped out, though they seem to form an understanding as Louis apologizes to the clown, who consoles him and is ready to make peace with him... until he finally warns away a couple other kids' entertainers with "You don't want this!" and blithely accepts the guy casually revealing he's going to murder him and chop off his limbs. "Yeah, that seems about right."
• In a rib on internet slacktivism, "Thank You Scott" is a musical number (complete with A Wild Rapper Appears!) praising a guy named Scott who solves the world's problems by sharing news articles on Facebook and Twitter.

  Some people protested, then got arrested
  He'd have to do more to end their oppression
  He knew he had to stand up
  He knew he had to march
  ...over to his laptop and write "Black Lives Matter" in his Twitter bio

• "Sectionals": A bizzare, not-advertisement about a man who loves sectional couches. It's summed up in the opening:

  Louis: So long as men can breathe and eyes can see, so long lives this, and gives life to me... SECTIONAL COUCHES!

Jimmy Fallon

From the Jimmy Fallon episode:

• Trump (Baldwin) does the Cold Open stuck going over the highlights of his first 100 days with a fawning Mike Pence (which is only one accomplishment, appointing Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, which Republicans had to change the rules to get in), and is told he's going to have to make a decision over who gets to run his White House: Steve Bannon or his shy son-in-law Jared (Fallon). So Trump does it the only way he knows how: hosting another The Apprentice and judging the final based entirely on who has the better photo head. He went with Jared's.
• It's Easter, so the White House Egg Roll opens with Sean Spicer (McCarthy) coming out as the Easter Bunny^note Truth in Television, Spicer once dressed up as the Bunny during the W. years, and Spicy spends most of the presser "apologizing" for his real-world gaffe trying to compare Syria's Assad to Hitler. He then tries to show how he "gets" Passover by using VeggieTales dolls, and concludes the presser by noting Trump will bomb North Korea by Monday and that this is likely our last Easter.
• Jimmy Fallon's ex-girlfriend (Cecily Strong) refuses all his attempts to get her back, and after numerous vague accusations that he knows what he did, it turns out he's one of the airport cops that pulled the doctor off the United flight that week. And then she finds that the guy she's with now (Bennett) directed the Kendall Jenner Pepsi commercial, to which she gives a Big "NO!".
  • Bonus points: The new guy was portrayed by Beck, who played the director in the sketch spoofing the Pepsi Commercial the previous week.
• In "Before the Show", middle school students are excited about playing in an upcoming musical and consider their work a masterpiece. The actual performance is as awkward as everybody remembers middle school theater to be.
• A Civil War sketch where a group of Union soldiers are sitting around the campfire and start singing a 19th century marching chant song "Old New York" and after two verses Jimmy's soldier sings a catchy chorus in the style of a 21st century pop song about a teenage party. It's so much of an Ear Worm that the other soldiers join in including the commanding officer and a Confederate prisoner (played by musical guest Harry Styles) who sings the bridge.
• In a montage of background screwups, supporting actors (Jimmy Fallon and Mikey Day) try to play basketball and failing horribly in a film shoot, repeatedly disrupting the stars in the foreground trying to have an important conversation. You really gotta wonder how both of them can rebound a shot off the hoop and nail themselves in the face IN SUCCESSION.

Chris Pine

From the Chris Pine Episode:

• The Cold Open parodying MSNBC's Morning Joe with hosts Joe Scarborough (Moffat) and Mika Brzezinski (McKinnon) discussing the House of Representatives repeal of Obamacare while making not-at-all subtle innuendos towards each other ^note Scarborough and Brzezinski had announced their engagement days before the episode aired. Later, Scarborough and Brezinski take a call from White House affiliated publicist "John Miller" whose voice on the phone is clearly Donald Trump's (Baldwin) ^note This is a reference to the times Trump would pose as a publicist under the pseudonym "John Miller" during phone conversations with reporters in order to brag about himself . During the conversation, "Miller" wishes a happy Cinco de Mayo which according to him is the day every Mexican eats a sink full of mayonnaise ^note Cinco de Mayo is meant to commemorate Mexico's victory over French forces at the Battle of Puebla in 1862 during the Franco-Mexican War, before revealing that the White House hosted a huge party to celebrate the Obamacare repeal only for Scarborough to point out that the bill still needs to pass the Senate.
  "John Miller": ...What now?
  Joe Scarborough: The bill goes through the Senate. They might even rewrite the entire thing if they even pass it at all"
  "John Miller": But...there was beer.
  Mika Brzezinski: Mr. Miller, the bill has a long way to go so it seems a little premature to celebrate.
  "John Miler": ... You know what, we're going to look into this. Talk to you soon, bye bye! (hangs up)
  • Towards the end of the cold open, the flirting between Joe and Mika ends in the most bizarre way possible. ^note Only McKinnon could make nose biting sexy.
• With Pine hosting, there had to be a Star Trek skit... with Pine pulling off a believably hammy Shatner-as-Kirk impression. The skit itself is a "Lost" episode involving Spock's half-brother Spocko from Brooklyn.
• Spoofing children's television with a pitch-perfect "Where I the World Is Kellyanne Conway?" where contestants try to figure out where the White House had hidden Conway as it'd been weeks since she appeared on the news channels to defend Trump. When they bring out the two contestants, the kids are asked "Are you ready to find Kellyanne Conway?"
  Girl contestant (shrugging alongside the boy contestant): But we don't want to!
• "World Peace Rap", a parody of the already So Bad, It's Good 2003 music video "Stop the War" by Hungarian rapper Speak with Beck Bennett as "Stav D" rapping in an Eastern European accent rapping(speaking actually) about wanting world peace but it devolves into him talking about his porn addiction. With host Chris Pine in a wig singing the chorus.

Melissa Mc Carthy

From the Melissa McCarthy episode:

• It's already hit a Crowning Moment of Funny before it even aired: Twitter exploded with pictures of McCarthy dressed as Sean Spicer driving that podium down the streets of New York.
• From the Cold Open where Lester Holt (Che) is interviewing Trump (Baldwin): Trump openly admits he fired FBI Director Comey over the investigation into Russia's alleged interference of the 2016 election.
  Holt: But that's Obstruction of Justice!
  Trump: Sure, okay.
  Holt: Wait, so... did I get him? Is this all over?! (listens to his producer over the earpiece) Oh! No, I didn't? Nothing matters? Absolutely nothing matters anymore???
  • And Trump reveals he can do anything now because the Republican Congress are in the palm of his hands. To demonstrate, he has Speaker Paul Ryan come out to give him his two scoops of ice cream.^note An insider's report on the White House revealed Trump gets two scoops to everyone else's one.
• Spicey's Back. The press briefing starts off with Spicer (McCarthy) hiding among the bushes^note based on the Real Life hiding he did during the evening of the Comey firing and then charging back into the room to take command when the press starts hinting that his substitute Sarah Huckabee Sanders take his place. Spicer goes into yet another crazy bout of shouting, props, and denials about the "Russia thing", and when the reporters keep insisting Trump is close to firing him Spicer pulls out a Roman column from the wall to toss into the pack.
  • And then confronted with the possibility that Trump is lying to him, Spicer starts to worry and angrily drives the podium out of the room, sprinting off (via map) to New York City to confront Trump. As Spicy drives about in despair to a haunting Simon & Garfunkel "Only Living Boy In New York," he wheels the podium about town begging Trump "I promise to talk better!" and finding gum on the street to chew. Finally reaching Trump Tower, Spicer demands to talk to his boss only for the doorman to sadly tell him "Trump doesn't come here anymore."
  • Cut to "A New Jersey Golf Course"^note Trump has been spending nearly every weekend traveling to his golf club properties, undermining the arguments Republicans had that Obama golfed too much. where Spicer finally confronts Trump... and Trump offers a tearful Spicer a Big Damn Kiss which he warns Spicer is also a Kiss of Death like in The Godfather.
• The game show "Just Desserts!" where the insane rules make it so that only one contestant (played by McCarthy) gets hit in the face with pie. And sprinkles. And cake. And more sprinkles. And...
• A spoof ad introduces an Amazon Echo for the "greatest generation", meaning it makes a lot of stereotypical old people jokes, and starts out by saying that the device will respond to any name that sounds remotely like "Alexa" (Allegra, Odessa, Excedrin, etc.). The commercial ends with a screen saying the viewer can make 3 easy payments of $9.99 and can send a check or money order to Amazon.com. Amazon took the joke in stride.
  • What's more, the Amazon Echoes sound so deadpan and annoyed with the people who own them that they practically all become Karen Plankton.
• On Weekend Update, Michael Che introduces a new weathergirl, Dawn Lazarus (Vanessa Bayer). Unfortunately, she gets so nervous in front of the camera, that she delivers nothing but barely comprehensible blabbering. Later, she delivers some "Break'n Hnews" about a hurricane, but Michael realizes she just made it up, as an excuse to come back onscreen.

Dwayne Johnson

From the Dwayne Johnson episode:

• The cold open of the 2016-2017 Season Finale, where the show poked fun at itself, having various members of the Trump family and administration performing "Hallelujah" parodying when Kate McKinnon's Hilary did so after the election. While Kate's solo was both a tribute to the late Leonard Cohen and poking fun at all those horrified by Trump's victory, this performance is an ode to the imploding Trump administration. Though SNL admits it's predicted wrong in the past, this cold open very well could be the last to take place in Trump's presidency due to the nuclear meltdown over the Russia investigation. Even Steve Bannon comes back to join in! Scarlett Johansson also returns as Ivanka Trump.
  Trump: I'm not giving up, because I've done nothing wrong! ...I dunno about these people, though.
• Responding to real-life speculation that he'll run for president, Dwayne announces a faux-campaign for the 2020 election with none other than Tom Hanks as his running mate! Alec Baldwin is a bit miffed that he wasn't tapped as Dwayne's VP, though he pokes fun at several unfortunate incidents in the past that have tarnished his reputation as he chases after Lorne for supposedly talking to his wife.
• A commercial for a gold, fancy fidget spinner, which proves to be more entertaining than the vain, ridiculous woman played by Vanessa.
• Another Wrestle Mania promo starring Dwayne and Bobby, though Dwayne's character Koko WatchOut goes way below the belt (no pun intended) with some bombshell revelations about Trashyard Mutt, topped off by the revelation that they are actually long-lost twins thanks to a genetic experiment gone awry, and that Koko is the sperm donor for Mutt's wife... making the child both Koko's nephew and son. The skit ends with Mutt going off-camera to puke and Koko saying his catchphrase, "And that's what the Koko is cooking!"
  • The last bit is perhaps made even funnier for wrestling fans as it was part of an actual angle between Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio.
• An over-the-top and overcrowded music video parodying D.J. Khaled's Avengers Assemble-type track "I'm the One", where Kenan headlines a crew of wacky rappers. They're joined by even wilder rappers as Kenan realizes things are getting way too crowded (even musical guest Katy Perry joins the fun!). And who's the last rapper to join in? None other than David S. Pumpkins!!! ^note Here, his name is David S. Pimpkins.
  • Colin Jost and Michael Che show up as a duo named "2 Black Guyz". Kenan's response is "Bad name!"
• As a nod to Dwayne's old role in The Scorpion King, Johnson takes up the mantle as the vigilante Scorpio. However, his friends are more interested and impressed by his talented ability to sew, as evidenced by his superhero outfit. Scorpio ends up opening a fashion shop after he lets City Hall get blown up because he was too busy fawning over his work.
• Gemma and Ricky return to join Kenan and Vanessa on the Jurassic Park River Adventure ride at Universal Studios. Poor Vanessa keeps getting doused with water, culminating in a giant T.rex animatronic absolutely drenching her. And Gemma and Ricky can't be bothered to tell her to move out of harm's way.
• Weekend Update has Colin and Michael remarking on the disastrous week Trump has had and also suspect that Mike Pence will be taking over as president soon enough. And as this episode marks the final performance for long-runners Vanessa Bayer and Bobby Moynihan, they get in one last hurrah as Dawn Lazarus and Drunk Uncle, respectively.
• A 1948 film shoot goes awry as Vanessa's character has severe gas problems during shooting (and is implied to have soiled herself at the very end). Vanessa and Dwayne actually break character and giggle a few times. At the end, Bobby's character is so annoyed he pulls out a cigarette - resulting in the place exploding.
• A skit about a meeting of mad scientists from all over the world really pushes the envelope, as the villains of the world have a convention to showcase their Large Ham, Cartoonish Supervillainy devices, showcasing a traditional Shrink Ray and Freeze Ray and focusing on Monumental Damage. Then in comes Dwayne's character, a large, lab-coated man with a very meek voice, with his invention.
  Roy: My name is Roy. And for the most evil invention in the world contest, I invented a child-molesting robot.... It's a robot that is designed to molest children. And, uh, I call it Robochomo. You see, it's powered by solar, rechargeable fuel cells and costs pennies to manufacture. And it can — theoretically — uh, molest twice as many children as a human molester in, quite frankly, half the time. So uh... do I win the contest?
  • And how does one build a child-molesting robot? First you build a regular robot, then you molest it and hope it carries on the cycle of abuse.
  • The villains present are all repulsed, just like we are. He calls them out for going by half-measures, citing actual torture methods for "where the goalposts are." One Running Gag is Dr. Microknox trying to point out how objectionable the idea is, only for Roy to interpret it as his "getting it".
    Roy: I want to remind you guys that Webster's Dictionary defines "evil" as "profoundly immoral".
    Baroness Antarctica: We know what "evil" means!
    Roy: Well, seems like you don't, because you built a freeze ray. I mean, Benito Mussolini used to force feed people castor oil until they literally died of diarrhea. I mean, that's got to be where the goalposts are, right?
  • And then it turns out it was a commercial for White Castle ("We serve anybody!")
• Dwayne plays a guy wanting to hook up with a beautiful girl (Cecily), so the bartender (Beck) goes over to be his wingman... only for Beck to talk Cecily into a threesome. Dwayne is adamant that it not be a threesome, so the bartender then talks her into having sex with them one-on-one (with Beck going first), to Dwayne's horror. Then a girl played by Vanessa shows up, who is interested in a fivesome with all four of them and a creepy guy played by Bobby. It just keeps getting worse!
• In the final sketch of the season, Bobby and Vanessa lead a group of seniors performing a skit to pay tribute to their graduation. They parody Stranger Things, Beauty and the Beast, and also take the time to insult the roast beef prepared by Leslie Jones' lunch lady.
• One of the eyecatches is Dwayne re-enacting that memetic photo of himself with a fanny pack, outfit and all.

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Weekend Update: Summer Edition

August 10, 2017

• Mikey Day and Alex Moffat come back as Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. Alex's Eric continues to be incredibly dumb, and when Donald Jr. gives him a fidget spinner, Eric is perfectly content to just stare at it without spinning. Donald Jr. shows him that it spins, and Eric's mind is blown!
• Bill Hader returns to play none other than Anthony Scaramucci, the former White House Communications Director who enjoyed a hilariously short tenure of ten days. The Mooch lampshades and gets Che to confess that SNL was slightly disappointed that he left so soon, as they were no doubt cooking up something good to hit him with once the show returned in the fall.
• Colin talks about how too much of a good thing can lead to over saturation... and then makes a quick promo for next week's episode.

August 17, 2017

• During the coverage of the Charlottesville Nazi riots, surprise guest Tina Fey, who actually went to college in that state, talks about "sheetcaking", ie. ordering an American flag cake from a bakery run by minorities as a silent protest. Except it's clear from the way she tears into that cake that the whole business is having a clear effect on her.
  Tina: (still chewing) Also who drove the car into the crowds, Hilary's emails?!
  • Then she brings up the fact that Southern "gun-toting rednecks" have been deliberately arming and training themselves through legal means (or at least professionally, with former police and soldiers involved) to form militias, supposedly all over America instead of just the Southern states anymore.
  Michael: Gimme some of that cake man... (grabs a handful and eats)
  • Tina continues gorging herself with the cake and even scoops up some of it with a grilled cheese sandwich. She then goes on to call Speaker of the House Paul Ryan a "pussy" for, as usual, not directly standing up to Trump.

August 24, 2017

• This episode features a Cold Open with the return of Alec Baldwin as Trump at his rather unhinged Phoenix rally.
  • Trump shows up wearing eclipse glasses and after taking them off, remarks that his audience looks so white, except for Kenan, who plays the one black guy in the audience behind Trump. Turns out, "Kenan" is just an actor responding to a wanted ad for POC to attend his rally to make himself not look racist. Kenan nearly steals the show from Trump himself!
  • The episode aired the week after the departure of everybody's favorite white supremacist chief strategist Steve Bannon from the White House. Trump brings him on stage for a farewell appearance, and Bannon arrives with his sinister Leitmotif blaring as usual. When Trump tries to thank him for his service, Bannon only sneers that he's made him more powerful and that he'll eventually destroy him. Naturally, Trump quickly ushers him from the stage.
• The guys lampshade that of course, Trump stared directly into the eclipse without glasses ^note the sunlight during an eclipse is especially concentrated since so little of it is passing on to Earth, making it more dangerous than usual to stare at it.
• Alex Moffatt plays Conor MacGregor, who continues talking up a storm in preparation for his upcoming fight with Floyd Mayweather that weekend. Alex plays him as big Irish ham, making jokes about Lucky Charms and what not. But shortly before Conor leaves, Colin dryly notes that Conor will probably lose the fight anyway (and eventually did).
• Cathyanne later returns, having lost the vision in one of her eyes and now wearing an eye patch. She doesn't mind too much, though, since she can still see out of her remaining eye (revealed to be a glass eye) just fine.
• A segment called "Where's Wes?" debuts, where viewers have to guess where correspondent Wes (Mikey Day) is based on the clues he gives. Colin and Michael talk about the rules in length, there's a whole intro for it, and then...
  Wes: Hey! Greetings, guys, or as they say here in Belgium, d- oh my God. I just said Belgium. Oh, f-
  (outro plays)
  Colin: Well, you guys have your first clue. Good luck.

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