Saturday Night Live: Amy Poehler is Pam Bondi and Tina Fey is Kristi Noem in standout episode | Saturday Night Live

Amy Poehler returns to Saturday Night Live for her first internet hosting gig in 15 years. She’s entrance and heart for the chilly open, enjoying Attorney General Pam Bondi, testifying earlier than the Senate judiciary committee. Bondi is combative from the beginning: “My name is Pam Bondi, I spell it with an I because I ain’t gonna answer any of your questions.”

She busts out her burn e book to hurl private insults on the senators (“Amy Klobuchar, your ass out here sounding like a Pokémon”) whereas doing all the things she will to keep away from answering questions on Trump’s numerous scandals.

She brings out fellow imply woman cupboard member Kristi Noem (Tina Fey, sporting pretend beauty surgical procedure that’s indistinguishable from the work Noem has had accomplished), who dismisses the truth that the present authorities shutdown is Republican’s fault: “That makes me laugh more than the end of Old Yeller!”

You knew that with Poehler internet hosting, Fey was sure to indicate up. Pairing them off as Bondi and Noem was the apparent and proper selection, with Fey’s caricature being significantly on level.

During her monologue, Poehler celebrates her new podcast (“I’m a podcaster now and if that’s not a recession indicator I don’t know what is”) and notes that tonight’s episode marks 50 years to the day that the primary episode of Saturday Night Live aired.

The Rudemans is a sitcom a few tremendous stand-offish, sarcastic household who all “talk like they’re a cashier at Buffalo Exchange”. There’s not a lot right here past that preliminary setup and a pair low cost pratfalls.

This is adopted by a industrial for Non-Non-Alcoholic Beer, “the first non-alcoholic beverage that’s over 96% alcohol”, permitting drinkers to get wasted whereas nonetheless reaping the social advantages of sobriety (at the very least till a cop tries to manage a breathalyzer check).

Next, Poehler is Miss Lycus, the Fast Psychic. With a “hard out at 7”, the clairvoyant discuss present host rushes by determined individuals’s questions as rapidly and brutally as potential (most of her solutions being some variation of “He’s dead” and “Drowned”). This is Poehler’s absurdist bread and butter, and the uncommon case the place the rushed nature of a sketch is a plus.

Television audiences’ newest soapy obsession, The Hunting Wives – the “straight but lesbian, horny Republican murder drama” – is again for its second (rushed) season, that includes numerous thigh-squeezing, gun drawing, and “more, you know, ‘great’ writing’”. This season additionally introduces a brand new character, performed by Poehler’s Parks and Rec costar Aubrey Plaza. Even with the visitor stars, this sketch manages to offer a lot of the feminine forged an opportunity to bounce off each other.

Then, Poehler performs a pregnant company supervisor persevering with to work as much as and thru her due date. Her water breaks throughout a gathering, however reasonably than going to the hospital, she jumps right into a birthing pool in the course of the workplace and, with the assistance of her crunchy hippie doula and supportive husband, births a totally grown businessman. A humorous thought, nevertheless it feels rushed (in a foul manner this time).

Musical visitor Role Model takes the stage for his or her first track. A shock walk-on and fast shimmy from Charli xcx pops the viewers. Then its time for Weekend Update, the place Colin Jost celebrates the ceasefire settlement within the Middle East whereas additionally lamenting the federal invasion of Chicago: “Only Trump could Freaky Friday Chicago and Gaza.”

Michael Che introduces the section’s first visitor, Rhonda LaCenzo (Sarah Sherman), a panicky New Yorker outraged over the chance of Zohran Mamdani turning into the town’s subsequent mayor. Apoplectically claiming he’s a “hipster jihadist” and “an Isis-trained millennial nepo baby from Uganda”, whereas additionally admitting to having detailed sexual fantasies concerning the “Bolshevik Tik Toker”, it seems she’s from Long Island and may’t even vote within the election. It’s a humorous (and solely barely exaggerated) sendup of Big Apple Islamophobia, but one can’t assist however discover it odd that, in gentle of the subsequent (presumed) administration, SNL select to put off forged member Emil Wakim over the summer season, given he was the one man that they had who may have performed Mamdani.

Later, Jost welcomes in style returning company Grant (Marcello Hernández) and Melissa (Jane Wickline), the couple you possibly can’t imagine are collectively. The loud, dumb bro and shy, nerdy wallflower speak about their shared love of fall (“the time when the trees lose their hair”), their respective Halloween costumes of Mike Wazowski and Sylvia Plath (“because it’s the one day you can dress like a slut”), and annual sexcapades (“I take him into the bedroom, light my candle, and jackle on his lantern”).

Then, Poehler crashes her outdated stomping grounds to problem Jost and Che to an old style joke-off, night the chances by bringing on each of her former Update co-hosts (“my first wife and second wife”) Fey and Seth Meyers. A terrific deal with for followers of Update, and an appropriately-star studded second for the golden anniversary.

During paid commercial for his or her legislation agency, attorneys Billson & Lieberman promote their “combined 50 years of legal experience”. They are all of the sudden interrupted by Lachlan Mulchburger, a “jacked and old as hell” rival lawyer who actually bursts by the wall just like the Kool-Aid Man to announce that he has much more years of authorized expertise beneath his belt. Almost as quickly as he seems, he’s interrupted by aged triplet attorneys who’re even older and extra skilled. The sport of senior one-upmanship continues by way of Billson & Lieberman clones (whose synced up line supply makes for the most effective gag of the night time), a legislation training Dracula, and an historical speaking tree named Yggdrasil who as soon as represented Zeus.

Next, Poehler performs a spouse and mom going by menopausal mid-life disaster by dressing and performing like an indignant goth teenager. Her emotional outburst over her “twisted reality” – “Raising two kids, taking care of my gaining parents … vision blurry, nerve pinched, pelvic floor on the ground…F my life!” – is classic Poehler, though all the things else about this one is forgettable.

The night time’s remaining sketch takes place throughout a masterclass at Juilliard, the place a profitable composer duo (Poehler and Bowen Yang) discusses the method behind their haunting instrumental themes for a number of acclaimed tv dramas (together with Severance and The Gilded Age). To the confusion of the scholars, their first drafts are all hokey rap songs a la Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, which characteristic wildly inaccurate lyrics concerning the plot of the exhibits. This is a a lot much less humorous model of the traditional Roundball Rock sketch from 2013.

Despite going out on a flat be aware, this was nonetheless a great episode, with expectedly robust internet hosting from Poehler and plenty of enjoyable cameos. On the one hand, this is able to have made for a significantly better season premiere, however on the opposite, it was the proper selection handy this historic episode over to a positive hand.