Season 46, E07: Simu Liu/Saweetie
Airdate: November 19, 2021
Sketches:
- "Jeanine Pirro Cold Open": Jeanine Pirro discusses the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict.
- "Karaoke All-Stars": Two hosts recap the archetypal karaoke guests at a bar.
- "Target Thanksgiving Ad": The retail chain advertises great deals on everything you might need for Thanksgiving dinner...and afterwards.
- "New Military Weapon": A military man introduces Dog Head Man as a new potential superweapon.
- "Republican Or Not": Two left-leaning contestants try to guess if the guests in front of them are Republican or not.
- "Walking in Staten": A pre-taped parody of Marc Cohn's "Walking in Memphis".
- "Thanksgiving Baking Championship": The holiday Cooking Show parody sketch, now retooled for Thanksgiving.
- "Simu & Bowen": Host Simu Liu and cast member Bowen Yang try to one-up each other's representation accomplishments.
- "911 Call": A 911 operator responds to stoned academics at the same Thanksgiving dinner.
Weekend Update includes Aidy Bryant as Mother Earth bemoaning the lack of progress in resolving climate change, and Kyle Mooney's Baby Yoda. Saweetie performed a medley of "Tap In" and "Best Friend" and debuted "Icy Chain".
Tropes:
- Anthropomorphic Food: Like in previous Baking Championship sketches, the host's confection comes to life. This time, Liu's character made two cakes and both of them scream when he tries to cut them, with the pilgrim in particular throwing up.
- Courteous Canadian: In his monologue, the Chinese-Canadian Liu plays up the stereotype of Canadians being generally affable by saying he got the lead role of Shang-Chi by asking nicely.
- Cross-Cast Role: Zig-zagged with Dog Head Man. The character uses the head of a female golden retriever named Matilda but with the body of Martin Herlihy, a male writer who is part of the Please Don't Destroy trio.
- Family Disunion: The protagonists of "Target Thanksgiving Ad" are a dead-eyed couple exhausted at having to wrangle all their relatives at Thanksgiving.
- Gaia's Vengeance: Parodied. Aidy Bryant's Mother Earth acts as a cool single mom towards humanity, but then cheerily reminds us that if we don't get Global Warming sorted out, she'll burn us to death.
- Incest Subtext: In-Universe, the hosts of Karaoke Recap are hugely uncomfortable watching a father/daughter duo perform Ginuwine's "Pony".
- Non-Human Head: The concept of Dog Head Man (a man with the head of a golden retriever) returns, now as a Super-Soldier.
- Overly Narrow Superlative: "Simu & Bowen", which starts off with Simu Liu and Bowen Yang congratulating each other on their representation milestones (Liu was the first Asian Marvel film lead, Yang the first fully Asian cast member). It then turns into the two of them trying to one-up each other in the awards they got for being the first Asian men to do the pettiest things, from "first gay Asian man to mispronounce 'boutique'", "first Asian man to do a Cher impression on SNL", to "the first Asian to avail of the You-Pick-Two promo at Panera Bread". The final punchline is that Bowen can outdo him in milestones simply by being a gay Asian.
- Parody Commercial: The Target Thanksgiving advertisement starts off straightforwardly by advertising dinner staples...before veering into things to wrangle your family members with, like motion-sensor lights, noise-cancelling headphones, an air mattress, and lots and lots of wine.
- Super-Soldier: Parodied. Liu's military man informs a couple of government officials that he's managed to engineer a powerful soldier with super senses...which turns out to be a man with the head of a dog.
- Twofer Token Minority: Parodied in the sketch "Simu & Bowen", where the joke is that Bowen Yang's Overly Narrow Superlative representation milestones are worth more than Simu Liu's because Yang is a gay Asian. So while Simu Liu gets an award for being the first Asian to be deadpan on a theme park ride, Bowen Yang gets the same award for being the first gay Asian to do it.
