“So government doesn’t work and, frankly, I regret not taking that gun.”
“I’m not an actor, I’m a[n action hero and not just a Jim Halpert] star!!”
For the first
Saturday Night Live of this year of please-god-let-it-be-different, 2021, I’m here to paraphrase Stefon. This
SNL had everything: a host who threw himself into sketches; the return of Li’l Baby Aidy; a political but not impression-driven cold open; a genuinely weird ten-to-one sketch;
Bowen Yang as Fran Lebowitz; and that thing where everyone seems to be having a good time and even the mediocre premises are lifted up by the sheer professionalism on display.
“I’m not an actor, I’m a [former SNL, current cat-woman] star!”
The best moment of Kristen Wiig’s fourth hosting stint saw three all-time great
Saturday Night Live women sharing the monologue stage. Wiig, after expertly underplaying her annoyance with her underperforming offstage assistant, Glen, launched into a Christmas show performance of “My Favorite Things,” that quickly went haywire. Later on, the joke was explained that 2020 was so off-the-charts “icky” (Wiig’s word) that the normal litany of placid “cream-colored ponies” and so forth have necessarily been replaced by scattershot, stream-of-consciousness imagery and flashes of trauma. But it’s better when the bit just plays out as Wiig being weird and off-book. The whole “when the bee stings” run from the original turns into a playlet about Wiig being stung so often in this (shit) year (of shit) that, as she croons, “And then I can’t feel my