‘SNL’ Takes Aim At Jussie Smollett Controversy, Mueller Report In Return

Saturday Night Live handled the Mueller Report, the biggest news that dropped during its break, during the cold open, as we  saw Special Counsel Robert Mueller (Robert De Niro), Attorney General William Barr (Aidy Bryant), and the president (Alec Baldwin) reacting one after the other to its content – or, what we know of it, at least.

The formula went as follows: Mueller mentioned a finding, Barr repeated that, but in a way that was friendlier to the president, then Baldwin celebrated as only our president would. So for the report’s public issuance, Mueller says, “I am submitting these 380 pages,” Barr says, “I am writing almost four pages,” and Baldwin replies, “I am reading zero pages, but Sean Hannity has read it, and he was so excited that he texted me an eggplant.”

It goes on like this, with Mueller mentioning possible evidence, Barr changing it to no evidence, and the president saying, “the pardons are already in the mail.” Save for an appearance by Rudy Giuliani (Kate McKinnon), the sketch never really changes or builds to any peak. Although we do get to hear Baldwin-as-president singing “All Star,” so there’s that.

Sandra Oh hosted, and talked about how being a Canadian Asian-American – she became an American citizen last year – she is not one to accept praise well, apologizing and deflecting compliments. Leslie Jones tries to show her how to walk with a certain swagger, but Oh doesn’t catch on right away – apparently, “I cry more than any person you ever met” isn’t much of a brag.

Next, a commercial parody mashed-up the Discover Card commercials where actors play both a customer service rep and a customer with the hit Jordan Peele movie Us. When Ego Nwodim calls Discover customer service, the phone is answered by a horror film version of herself in a dark and creepy room, wearing the red jump suit worn by the murderous dopplegangers in the movie, and speaking with their strained cadence. She’s calling because, she said, “someone stole my identity,” and used it to buy red jumpsuits, gloves, rabbits and scissors, a clear allusion to the plot of the movie. Her husband, Kenan Thompson, tries taking over the call, but bails after one second with his own frightening double. This was well executed as far as it went, but this was as far as it went – it stopped seemingly in the middle, and never evolved behind a sheer imitation of the film it parodied.

SNL took a shot at Jussie Smollett, with Oh playing his agent, Thompson playing Empire creator Lee Daniels, and Chris Redd playing Smollett. Late for a meeting to determine if he’d return to the show, Smollett claims he was attacked again on the way, and oh, he happens to have a bag of “clues” on him including three big letter Ks. The sketch is a slam on Smollett, positioning him as so guilty that he keeps claiming to be attacked again and again. In the end, both Daniels and Oh fire him, and he leaves but then re-enters, this time with a neck brace. A fine performance by Redd, as always, but this one felt more sad than funny.

Next, a short film from the Victorian Era as Pete Davidson and Beck Bennett play two men set to duel over Oh’s affections. She watches from a distance as they select their weapons, imploring them to come to their senses. But as they prepare to walk ten paces, turn, and fire, Davidson cheats, getting off an early shot that misses its target, but ricochets off several statues until it hits Oh in the arm. She ignores the pain, saying only the emotional pain of the men matters. But then it happens again, and again. Throughout, she can only worry for the men’s suffering, until she fires a gun herself, which propels her into a nearby lake. This was good for a few quick laughs, as Oh captured the long-suffering maiden with no concern for herself.

Mikey Day plays a teenage nerd fretting to his mirror that he’ll never be anything but a scrawny nerd. His mirror is magic, and Alex Moffat shows up as a jacked, successful version of his 25-year-old self, ten years later. He even has a girlfriend, which Day takes as great news until he meets the girlfriend – Oh as Tishy, a 47-year-old who drinks Four Loko, wears half-shirts, and loudly brags of giving her man that “good goo-goo on the reg,” leaving Day horrified. These were really fun characters for Oh, who completely let loose and absorbed herself in Tishy’s crudeness, and Day, who grew increasingly concerned for his future as others appear in the mirror to confirm his fears about Tishy.

With the Mueller Report out, everyone has a reaction, and Russian President Putin is no exception, as he’s told that in fact, our president has not been colluding with him. Putin, played by Bennett, has apparently been telling everyone in his orbit otherwise, representing our president as being in his pocket. Now, his subordinates are learning the truth, and Putin has some backpedaling to do. After Day, Moffat and Cecily Strong lament this new reality to their boss, since they’ve been coyly insinuating to all their friends that Trump was a Russian asset, Moffat asks, if Trump is not a Russian asset, why he’s always saying nice things about Putin. “You hate America,” Strong points out. “All you ever do is try to destroy their country.” “I know, I can’t figure this guy out,” replies a perplexed Putin. “He’s in my head!” An appearance by Kim Jong-un (SNL writer Bowen Yang) with Oh as his interpreter puts Putin even deeper on the defensive. A funny sketch overall that asks a pretty pertinent question.

Weekend Update saw Strong as Judge Jeanine Pirro, talking about her return to the air after being suspended for bigoted comments about Muslims. She thanks her super fans: “mean, horny men laying on in-home hospital beds and white prison gangs who control the remote on Saturdays, thank you for watching.” Colin Jost asks if she can speak at a lower volume, but she cannot, saying that “mama’s got one volume, and it’s three chardonnay’s deep at a crowded party.” Pirro rants about her attraction to the president, saying he can “wax that ass from dusk til dawn,” and it’s a joy how deeply Strong embodies this character, conveying Pirro’s hardened attitude with more than a touch of bloodlust. By the end, Pirro gets so excited by Trump unleashed that she basically orgasm-falls off her chair – twice. A great turn for Strong here.

Bryant comes to the desk as Anne McClain, the astronaut who didn’t get to do a spacewalk last week because NASA didn’t have a space suit that could fit a woman. She emphasizes how she has spent her life working and training for this moment, only to lose the opportunity of a lifetime because NASA couldn’t build another suit. Bryant tries to be civil, but the heartbreak and anger flow – especially as she watches male astronaut Bennett do the spacewalk in her stead. Did he mention it was his fifth spacewalk, and that “It’s almost a chore at this point?” Yes he did, to Bryant’s heartbreak.

McKinnon plays 85-year-old receptionist Louise at an office meeting, and it’s her birthday. It slowly becomes obvious she has no one to celebrate her birthday with, so her co-workers try to accommodate her. But her birthday wish is a bit unusual – she wants to watch her co-workers kiss each other. The bulk of the sketch is Louise – who turns out to be a big ole perv who planned this out and faked her birthday – trying to convince her co-workers to get it on. When Day and Heidi Gardner finally exchange a peck to pacify her, she complains, “not hot.”

While the days of paying with a check are close to gone, a sharp parody ad (“Cheques”) plays off how they were once used for dramatic purposes in old movies, as paying someone to disappear is not quite as dramatic if you Venmo them. Bryant, McKinnon, Nwodim and Oh play different brands of femme fatale, paying for people’s silence and various other illicit endeavors.

Kyle Mooney hosts a PBS special on the roots of rock, profiling unsung blues pioneer Ida Mae Avery (Leslie Jones). The show claims just-discovered footage of a club date supposedly showing an Avery performance, but really showing how a male performer (Thompson) bigfooted her, extending his encore into her time until nothing was left. There’s an obvious feminist statement here about how men dominate attention at the expense of women, but this one-joke sketch isn’t strong enough to carry it as Thompson’s continuous returns to the stage just become monotonous, especially once the audience has come to understand the premise. Also, this undercuts its premise by taking a sketch initially positioned to star Jones and turning it into a showcase for Thompson, whose singer recalls his great energy from “What Up With That.”

Oh plays a substitute high school teacher trying to prepare her students for the SAT. But when she drills them on test questions, Bryant, McKinnon, Mooney and Davidson launch into introspective monologues about their lives instead. Oh joins the chorus by the end, but I can’t say to what point. Some quick and fun performances here, but this felt like a premise that was never fully fleshed out.

SNL returns next week with host Kit Harington and musical guest Sara Bareilles.

Larry Getlen is the author of the book Conversations with Carlin. Follow him on Twitter at @larrygetlen.