John Mulaney (and Bill Hader) come back for a good Saturday night

Mulaney's monologue was shamelessly New York, with infallible physical impressions of the police car's new mermaids and the flawless confrontation of his wife pushing the bulldog-stroller with two indelible New York characters. "Bodega Bathroom" shares the same hometown vibe, the lyrics of songs containing details such as buffers still on the highest shelf, bottles of iced or boiling water, and "a guy who does not work here soccer ". It also builds on Broadway's musical tradition that the recent episode of Mulaney Documentary now Comic shows as intimately as the Studio 8H rooms. It's delicious, it's delicious, and it's a companion worthy of "Lobster Diner", so almost anything we could hope for.

Best / worst sketch of the night

The worst thing I can say about any skit tonight is that the Cinema Classics movie was interrupted a bit abruptly, apparently because of the timing issues that robbed us of Reese De'What's usual shutdown and the good night a spectacle. Yeah, the episode was also good.

The toilet catapult is probably the weakest of a generally tumultuous group, although Mulaney's highly confident street vendor extolled the idea of ​​a dignified safeguard (to throw the elderly just before dying there -low). SNL Commercial parodies often deal with scataology, and here the joke is the reason why we, as a species, are going to deprive ourselves of our bodily needs, even at the extremes of seeing our old fragile and boring bodies being cast into our houses. The fact that even respectable literature on the ceiling can not overshadow the fact that our loved ones find us crumpled, stunned and disheveled – but not on the job – is a hit. This and Mulaney's absolute assurance that the device is "generally accurate", accompanied by a demonstration of aged corpses thrown into the walls work well.

You will have to keep reading to see my choice of the best sketch of the night, but the wedding sketch has worked exceptionally well. In addition to being a rare role for Ego Nwodim and a perfectly executed and choreographed physical comedy piece (for the second week in a row), the piece is also of refreshing elegance. The joke revolves around the old switcheroo. Mulaney, a seemingly irrelevant white man, nervously accompanies his black girlfriend on the dance floor of an all-black wedding. That Mulaney not only knows every step of a complicated group dance called by Kenan's DJ, but that it seems that all the assistants attend the stage, but the joke works perfectly, she skilfully avoids each trap. The unexpected skill of Mulaney does not make anyone a fool. Nwodim is appropriately impressed, but, like the rest of the participants, does not produce a stereotypical show of surprise at the workplace. (Something SNL depends again and again – you make the joke about a person doing something weird, so ask the audience to say how strange this is, it does not advance the cause.)

Update of the weekend update

Look, we all wanted Stefon. With Mulaney's partner in memorabilia-based schemes, he seemed almost assured that we would have a welcome return from the hottest nightlife expert in New York. But we have a lot of Bill Hader elsewhere and it's hypocritical to criticize Saturday Night Live to not do the easy thing by bringing back a recurring bit slam-dunk, right? Let's go on.

Jost and Che were fine. It remains irritating that so many UpdateIn general, the political content of Alec Baldwin is not centered on the political content, but they are struck by an intermittent power. Jost wisely left Trump's two-week disconnected speech at the annual convention of the country's worst citizens, CPAC speaks for itself in a series of terribly alienated clips. Meanwhile, he merely announced to Cohen's revelation that Trump had used Cohen to threaten his different schools if they revealed his academic achievements. (The joke that such a sweaty obfuscation means that Trump's true address is closer to 920 Pennsylvania Avenue than 1600 is a burn.) And Che continues to return to the comic premises to play the devil's advocate , mocking here the sudden change of Cohen's "damsel in distress". of heart saying that at least Trump seems to have the stubbornness to "slowly
crumble until he attaches to the handcuffs as a boss. "(" I mean that's how I
want to leave SNL, "Ad-libbed.)

There was only one correspondent article tonight, but it was more than enough with Aidy Bryant and Kate McKinnon teaming up for a pair of meat producing business women. Jost introduced the idea that the Internet still prevented people from sheltering from delicious, but adorable animals, and lunatics with straws asserting that their baskets- Gifts were made only from real animal morons. (These are not real animal morons, but animals that were real morons before being slaughtered.) But he was one of those lucky shipwrecked, along with Jost, Aidy, and McKinnon, apparently legitimately shocked by the smell emanating from the very real meat prop, get the giggle and try to keep things somehow on those tracks. Break SNL is a special occasion dish where performers, despite all their professional efforts, find the live television experience beyond their control. (Instead of being adorable, yes, I still feel Jimmy Fallon's resentment.)

"What do you call this act?" "Californians!"– Recurring sketch report

"What is this name?" Has had some strikes against him. This brought a lot of notoriety SNL alum to steal the focus of the current cast. Plus, it's another game show and a repeater. But hell with all this, like alum is Bill Hader, and the sketch – in which the candidates can name the most dubious celebrities, but not the girlfriends of their friends or the bridesmaids of their wife – remains a funny exercise in sinuous nature. Beck Bennett, proficient and competent gameshow presenter SNL History has brought more than Hader to the seemingly ungrateful role of the straight man from the game of rules and questions, and it's simply one of the best he has ever achieved. The players of Mulaney and Strong being saddened by their embarrassing memories, it is Hader's mastery of lines, pauses and attitudes that destroys all along. Everyone has made SNL The all-casting all-stars at one time or another (I will re-shoot mine almost every week), which is a fun game and everything. But if Bill Hader is not on your list, you are wrong. From the beginning of the sketch, the smiling host of Hader is clearly doing something, exploiting each revelation and each pregnant pause to the camera for maximum effect (but perfectly judged).

Hader's has played countless roles of this type SNL, but the way his Vince Blake touches Mulaney's first prize ("Five dollars for you.") indicates, in the suspicion of controlled mania of Hader, how much he will take advantage of the trap that the game has stretched to his competitors / victims. Hader sparkles terrifyingly and hilariously at each successive humiliation he distributes, a horrible horror that, however, benefits from his accusations, real transgressions, though punished disproportionately. That Mulaney's faults are due to an underlying sexism about those he thinks are worth remembering, Hader takes pleasure in letting Twan turn. ("Finish that thought, Doug!") And the hairdresser is definitive, with Mulaney's anxious question "What do you want ?!" Answered, scary, by the demonic Hader, "In a word, chaos."

Chad, Pete Davidson's uncompromising non-commitment, is a reliable showcase for Stoner Slacker's millennial character. It's always amusing to see these inexplicably obsessed by the white Chad practicing solipsistically around Chad's lovable non-identity, and "The Unknown Caller" is stopping by reversing the usual romantic plot with the Yell– Diagram of the masked killer Mulaney to avenge childhood, taunt his jaded nemesis literally has no memory. Chad remains viable because there has always been a privileged assertion of its victim, and the fact that the murderous brain of Mulaney rises on his own ground despite the total disregard of his target for everything outside him. even only deepens the tasteless mystery that is Chad.

"It was my understanding there would be no maths"-Report of political comedy

There was a pair of Jussie Smollett jokes tonight, one on Update and one on an all-celebrity advocate edition Shark Aquarium, where the Empire The star tries to secure the services of jurists such as Michael Avenatti, Alan Dershowitz, Rudy Giuliani of Kate McKinnon and Rudy Giuliani, and Jeanine Pirro of "Fox News Banshee" Cecily Strong. Looking at this, Smollett inexplicably explained his harrowing narrative of homophobic racist attack, and the cries of jealousy that followed elicited the joy of right-wing members seeking to darken the real increase in hate-motivated crimes since the election of Donald Trump. , the subject is a fucking minefield for comedians who are not just looking for the easiest and / or most unpleasant laughs. As Chris Redd's Smollett began by claiming that Donald Trump had attacked him off the stage, the skit went out of the ordinary, although the joke that Pirro must recuse himself because of the fact that A black and gay man constituting a hate-motivated crime is both stealing his Fox News fan fiction and bringing it to the climax pulls him a little backwards. Smollett, overwhelmed, explaining that his reason for being there was that he had "broken humanity", also found a fair balance in the approach to the series facing the panic that this event has made the American public discourse already degraded.

Everyone in the sketch was buried, which made things easier. Dershowitz, from Mulaney, who enthusiastically offers his services, explains why: Smollett is famous, probably guilty, "at the end of the list". Giuliani warns everyone not to feed him after midnight. ("Or it's the city of the Gremlins!") The avenante Avenatti by Pete Davidson sparkles with miserly threat. Pirro hijacks the actions of Robert Kraft, owner of Trump and owner of the Patriots, describing the story in a diatema about immigrant prostitutes (and possibly victims of trafficking) stealing US jobs. Cellino and Barnes, two lawyers on the television channel, sing the praises of lucrative class action additions in each case. Throwing a wider net into the boring arena of identity theft is at least a smarter way to tackle a news comedy.

The icy cold weather dropped the country's Trump in favor of the irresistible spectacle of the Congressional testimony of Trump's long-time public prosecutor and fixer (and former deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee), Michael Cohen. As with "What's That Name?", The usual caveats apply: not one but two distinguished guests draw attention; the cold opens the recent story of harvesting fruit at hand. But yes, screw those. Ben Stiller's Cohen finds just the right note between the likelihood of Cohen's harsh impetuosity and his comic exaggeration. (That his testimony was written "with the help of the guys who wrote Green paper"It's surprisingly good." But that's the sketch of Bill Hader, his belligerent, constantly upset Jim Jordan (R-OH), the showboater of Freedom Caucus, sings with the inimitable mix of careful observation and the fully lived performance of Hader.

The sketch contains amusing elements of the actual distribution. (I liked Kyle Mooney's evil connection with the incoherent questions of Paul Gosar, Arizona GOP Congressman.) But overall, the sketch was based on the inescapable fact that it was was Bill Hader's show. Yielding their time to Jordan's epic, Jordan, in order to let the congressman himself covered in scandal hang himself more ("I would give the rest of my time to Jim Jordan as a joke."), The casting backup solid, Kenan Thompson's Elijah Cummings, piloted the debates with exhausted skill.But Hader (and, of course, Stiller) was the main attraction here, channeling the political opening of the series on his description of Republicans desperately inane attempts to portray Cohen as a liar and dishonorable fool without recognizing that he was a major player in the party and Donald Trump's right-wing sticker for a decade. (And without addressing the numerous, numerous crimes and acts of general murder, Cohen states that Trump is guilty.) Alex Moffat has had some shots that depict Congressman Mark Meadows (R-SC) largely derided "Trump n He may be racist because he Lynne Patton, a member of the HUD, to refute Cohen's claims that Donald Trump is actually a racist. Meadows think Patton is not as qualified, but is no longer employed. Omarosa is a clever way to emphasize the fragile symbolism of Meadows. And, of course, it took someone to throw a Kardashian joke, but there was a self-awareness at the conclusion where Kenan's Cummings presumes that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democratic MP in the United States , the hon. member in the spotlight, would have been the dazzling target of hearings. "No, I was going to ask, kind, carefully studied questions," said the Villaseñor AOC, to which Cummings replied scornfully, "Yeah, obviously, that's not what it is today. "

I'm hip to the music of today

Thomas Rhett at the Saturday Night Live as if he was preparing his whole career there. It's not a compliment. Rhett's light and overproduced pop-country songs sounded a bit like Kenny Loggins, which is kind of a compliment. Sometimes, a boring act makes me try to understand how much the performer is counting on a guide track, but for Rhett, a bright, high-performance smile, I honestly do not think there's a lot of difference.

"What is going on is This thing? "- The Ten-To-Oneland Report

Due to timing issues (see below), technically, the last segment of the evening was Rhett's second song, but Cinema Classics was the real starter in the list of ten this week. Mulaney is better as himself (or an exaggerated version of it) than as a man of character, but the Have and not have The latter allowed his indifferent Humphrey Bogart to play wisely against Lauren Bacall, edgy Kate McKinnon. Seeing Kate McKinnon go wild with a complete physical comedy is one of the most powerful weapons SNL At these days, and here, Bacall's inability to maintain his seductive calmness sees her become hyper-verbal ("I should go to school") unhinged, or wringing her face with abandonment. while she's trying to whistle part of Bacall's collection line once outrageous. It's a fun little idea that gives Kate McKinnon the opportunity to do her thing. What do you want more?

Observations lost

• SNLThe end of the evening seems to have broken the network, with the second issue of Rhett from 12:54, leaving the show to end with two photo-stampers Mulaney, some noodles of the invisible group, then (at least on my show) a pair of d & rsquo; Blank screens marking the hour with a three-tone peacock graphic.
• "I ride with a bunch of problem bachelors and we call ourselves. . . Squad. I love Bill Hader.
• "No, you do not see double – there are three women there!"
• A dramatic break after treating Donald Trump as racist, Stiller's Cohen: "I thought it would spark a bigger reaction."
• Yes, a US congressman (it's Paul Gosar, R-AZ) recounted the provocation "liar, liar, pants on fire" during the interrogation, because we are all so completely screwed up. And yes, he did a little poster.
• "I felt it in my nose and I pulled out the best." – Mulaney's monologue assured that he was once a "cool guy" who was making cocaine.
• Redd's Smollett: "Spoiler for the next season of Empire: I die."
• For the second consecutive issue, we obtained a title card for a deceased deceased. SNL crew member. This time it was for Margaret
  Karolyi, who for more than three decades played a 90-minute live television show, written and rewritten on the fly until the last second. RIP and thank you.