Dr. Anthony Fauci (Kate McKinnon) compares Covid cases to Jesus (“They’re Resurrected!”), While Marjorie Taylor Greene (Cecily Strong) worries that “between pastels and jellies, this celebration has become a bit too LGBQRST for New York Mayor Eric Adams (Chris Redd) boasts that he caught the Brooklyn subway gunman, although “it took 30 hours and the suspect surrendered,” while Elon Musk (Mike Day) is trying to buy the Britney Spears (Chloe Fineman) does a lot of twisting and Jared Leto (Kyle Mooney) begs people not to reconsider their awesome new Morbius movie. Finally, former President Donald Trump (James Austin Johnson) interrupts the process of wandering about Reese’s eggs (“I like Reese, I’m very good friends with Reese…”), Capn Crans (“It was very rude to me on the 500th birthday of Count Tsokoulas “) and Little Caesar (” I told him to say, “Pizza! Pizza!” He said it once and I said we have to say it twice! “) Aside from Austin Trump and Reds Adams, these are some of the worst, most obnoxious and straightforwardly lazy impressions in the cast’s repertoire. The writing sinks to fit them on many fronts, from the hypocrisy of making fun of (as lightly) Musk less than a year after the show gave him the entire platform, to Taylor Greene’s softening portraying her as a harmless cook. trying to do it both ways, pointing out how useless New York law enforcement is, while at the same time parroting the point of discussion about “rising crime.” Tonight’s episode shows Lizzo doing a dual role as host and musician guest. The singer and songwriter promises to “break the record for the number of times the bitch is called live on TV”, before discussing her recent talk to Ted about the twerking story (“I think Einstein could do this ass to applaud »). disproves rumors of her love life (“They think I’re picking One Direction members like the Infinity Stones”) and encourages audiences to love themselves to make their dreams come true. This last piece is really sighing – it’s supposed to be a comedy show, not an affirmative Instagram post – but Lizzo shows a good appetite for the comic book tradition. She also seems serious about her previous promise, with the Bitch Count numbering eight until the end of the monologue. Guess That is a game show where contestants have to answer quick fire questions. Things start quite normal, until Lizzo’s contestant asks a question and steals the show, refusing to admit he was wrong, accusing the host of gasping it and trying to overthrow him as “Mayor of the Game of Thrones.” This latest game is gaining the support of her teammate. It’s a welcome turn in the usual game show narrative and promising beginning of the episode, but things get an immediate problem for the next sketch, the latest in the irreparably awful Tik Tok reels. Instead of inventing anything original, the show simply recreates – read: steals – the latest viral videos from the social media platform. Everyone involved in this should be ashamed to call themselves comedians. Somehow this is an even worse sketch. We look back at Interscope Records Studios in the spring of 2008, where the Black Eyed Peas are recording songs for their latest album. Their producers help them capture lyrics for many singles, such as the ridiculously simplistic Boom Boom Pow, the extremely casual Tonight party anthem, and the highly problematic Let’s Get Retarded, which would later be changed to Let’s Get It Started. The problems with this sketch are many: from the lack of narrative coherence (the producers worry about the tangled lyrics of the song one second, then ecstatic by them the next), to the constant breaking of Lizzo, to the cowardly attempt to do so in both ways. focusing the jokes around the offense Let’s Get Retarded without really saying the offensive lyrics (thus fully burdening the audience). Beyond all this, this sketch talks about how stuck the show is in the past. It’s not that SNL should not be joking about older pop culture – one of its best sketches focused on a 24-year-old track of Blue Oyster Cult after all – but that does not bring anything original or fresh to the table. It just looks like obvious remarks and tired impressions 14 years after the date of their sale. It seems that the author’s mind was stuck in the middle, because the following sketch finds the first date of a couple (Lizzo, Day) being interrupted by a community of old idiots dancing “from the Six Flags commercials”, a piece of pop culture on duty, which first appeared in 2004. A new section follows Please do not destroy. Ben, Martin and John try to help Lizzo overcome a case of author’s exclusion by creating a “black woman’s anthem” to sing on the show. All they can think about are the sad “white guy anthems”, the theme of the Sopranos, one of Lizzo’s old songs and a song about Martin’s girlfriend that looks like Bob Sfougarakis. They are about to give up when Lizzo realizes that the sketch they originally planned to present to her – about a horny zoo keeper – is actually a wonderful song. As it becomes increasingly clear, the more PDD sections are based on guest stars, the less they work, and this is the most forgotten. On the Weekend Update, the show continues to eat her cake and eat it while mocking / kissing Elon Musk’s ass, with Michael Che talking about his failed attempt to buy Twitter to lower the rules of free speech, “This is how bad whites want to use the word N,” Colin Jost wonders why someone who “makes electric cars.” [and] going to Mars “would even waste his time in such an insignificant application. (A side dig at Meghan Markle is sure to win Jost a lot of angry comments on that platform, it will come tomorrow). In case it was not already very clear, whatever substitute the show has ever had is long gone. Jost finally welcomes this version of Update’s only guest, his personal guide, Cesar Perez (Melissa Villaseñor), who wants to try out some of his stand-up stuff. Perez launches a series of stings on Carlito’s nephew, the nerd, the lizard and the masturbation, to immediately succumb to remorse. His tearful apologies provoke a mildly ridiculous message of guilt from the Latino catholic brand. That said, this part of the character is carried away by a lot of extremely outdated jokes – this time through constant references in The Mind of Mencia. The update signs with a tribute to the late, great alum Gilbert Gottfried, who died earlier this week. Then, two party organizers in ancient Egypt rehearse a general for an orgy for their crazy god-King (it was finally revealed that he was a small child). Voluptuous rental acts include “sensual woman and her tender boy”, a mad fire eater, “old woman with rotten teeth laughing”, a trio of good-looking swingers, a benevolent admirer, a goat. quarrelsome (with a real goat) and a “rogue mouse” who is bigger than he advertised. This seems like a half-hearted thing at first, and the constant breaking of the cast does not help things. The live goat is quite careful though. Lizzo then plays a flutist who auditions for the first seat on the DeVry University Symphony Orchestra. Her musical abilities are unparalleled, but she can only play while twerking. That’s all there is to it. Given Lizzo’s connection to the dance movement, it makes sense for the show to build a sketch around it, but they certainly could have found something better than that. The last sketch of the night sees a group of friends celebrating one of their own (Andrew Dismukes) who quit his job to make a profit. Their moral support quickly eroded when it was revealed that his investment was his collection from the Beanie Babies. It makes sense for the episode to end with another tiring affair centered around a cultural phenomenon several years – decades, in this case – behind us. Lizzo’s constant break on the sidelines made her a good host, but everything around her – from the terribly cold open, to the really awful middle ground, to the ever-flowing streak of pop culture’s old-fashioned references – was unbearable. This was by far the worst episode of the season and perhaps the worst since Musk appeared almost a year ago. (It fits that it should appear so strongly throughout tonight’s show). It’s good that the show goes off to remind you of the month, although it is doubtful that the break will be very good. At this point, Saturday Night Live does not just need a course correction, but a real soul search.