On the weekend before the 2022 midterm elections, “Saturday Night Live” turned to James Austin Johnson, its resident impersonator of President Biden, to assess how Democratic candidates might fare at the polls. And, well, he wanted to make a lot of last-minute substitutions.
This episode, hosted by Amy Schumer and featuring the musical guest Steve Lacy, began with Johnson as Biden speaking directly to the electorate. “My fellow Americans,” he said, “this Tuesday, our midterm elections will determine the fate of our democracy, and let’s just say: Big yikes.”
He continued: “What’s going on? I guess the Democrats’ message just ain’t getting through. Plus, I’m over here, talking to people who don’t exist. I don’t know much. Who’s that? Oh, nobody’s there.”
Even so, Johnson’s Biden said he was pushing himself as hard as he could: “I’m on the Peloton every morning, tempting fate,” he said. He reminded voters of past accomplishments, like an infrastructure bill that provided red states with broadband internet “so you can share your Paul Pelosi gay erotic fiction at light speed.”
The problem with his party, Johnson said, is that “we don’t have any stars anymore — too many Raphael Warnocks and not enough Herschel Walkers.”
“Which is why we’re going to make some last-minute changes before Tuesday with the Democrats who are exciting,” he continued.
Among them, Johnson introduced the free-spirited 2020 presidential candidate Marianne Williamson (Chloe Fineman). Describing herself as “a prominent author and Level 4 enchantress,” Fineman said, “I am ready to fight for the American dream — which I caught in this Tibetan singing bowl.”
Other replacement candidates included the goateed restaurateur Guy Fieri (Molly Kearney), who bellowed, “Do y’all want Dr. Oz’s crudité or a full plate of paid family leave, dripping in donkey sauce?”
Johnson brought out the adult film star Stormy Daniels (Cecily Strong) and the rappers Tekashi 6ix9ine (Marcello Hernandez) and Azealia Banks (Ego Nwodim). He also introduced the “S.N.L.” alum Tracy Morgan (played in the sketch by Kenan Thompson), who Johnson said would be in charge of student-loan forgiveness.
“Y’all want that money?” Thompson asked. “Why don’t you come on over here, rub my belly?”
Host monologue of the week
Schumer, the stand-up comic and star of the sketch series “Inside Amy Schumer,” returned to host “S.N.L.” for the first time since 2018. Since last hosting, she has become a mother, but parenthood and the passage of the years have hardly softened Schumer’s occasionally racy sensibilities (and vocabulary).
Among the portions of her routine we can safely recount here, Schumer joked about people who gave her advice during her pregnancy: “I had this one friend, she kept telling me: ‘You gotta do prenatal yoga. It really helps with the birth,’” Schumer said. “So I immediately signed up. For a C-section.”
She also talked about life with her husband after he was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. On a rainy night, she said, she told him that being with him and their son had been the best years of her life.
“He just looked at me and he said, ‘I’m going to go put the windows up in the car,’” Schumer recounted, adding affectionately: “That’s my guy. It’s one of the times we play the game Autism, or Just a Man?”
Fake commercial of the week
In what begins as a seemingly standard pharmaceutical ad, a voice-over asks: “Are you feeling tired and worn down? Sick of the endless grind at work? Exhausted by your family, desperate for some peace and quiet?”
Don’t feel ashamed if you caught yourself agreeing with one or more of those propositions before you learned it was, in fact, a advertisement for Covid — you know, the highly communicable disease responsible for the pandemic — which here is touted for having fringe benefits, like getting you out of work and child-care duties.
Probably not a sketch that “S.N.L.” would have attempted a year or two ago, but as the voice-over reminds you: “Side effects of Covid include having Covid, which is still kind of bad, but doesn’t it seem different now?”
Obligatory Twitter sketch of the week
Even in an episode that was largely focused on the midterms, you knew “S.N.L.” would find a way to revisit the chaotic energy unleashed by Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter. This weekend’s sketch was inspired by Musk’s announcement that the company would establish a content moderation council — in this case, a two-person team (Thompson and Heidi Gardner) who say they are the only two Twitter employees who haven’t been fired yet — to consider the reinstatement of suspended users.
The council heard the pleas of various characters played by Schumer, Strong, Bowen Yang and Punkie Johnson, and then finally from former President Donald Trump (James Austin Johnson), who wanted his account back, too. “I won’t do anything bad except maybe coup,” he vowed.
Weekend Update jokes of the week
Over at the Weekend Update desk, the anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che riffed on President Biden’s recent speech about American democracy and on the New Jersey Nets’ suspension of Kyrie Irving for promoting an antisemitic documentary.
Jost began:
President Biden, seen here begging for one more year before the midterms, warned about Republican candidates who say they will refuse to accept election results, warning they could set the nation on a path to chaos. So wait, this is just the path to chaos? I thought we’d been living in chaos for at least six years. I mean, Nancy Pelosi’s husband was attacked in their home by a guy with a hammer, and instead of even basic sympathy, Republicans were like, “We heard he gay.”
He continued:
Donald Trump Jr. mocked the attack on Pelosi’s husband by posting an image of a hammer and a pair of underpants, with the message, “Got my Paul Pelosi Halloween costume ready.” And I would agree that Don Jr. is probably the expert on getting hammered in your underwear. Also, Don Jr., is that your underwear, man? Why is it so dirty and stretched out? You were trying to burn Paul Pelosi, but now I’m just wondering if you wear your dad’s old underwear.
Che then pivoted to the news about Irving:
After meeting with the Anti-Defamation League, Kyrie Irving announced that from now on, he will pretend to not be antisemitic. Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving was suspended after he tweeted a link to the antisemitic film “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America.” You know, Hebrews II Negroes was also the name of my favorite R&B group in the ’90s.
Deskside segment of the week
Strong missed the first three “S.N.L.” episodes of this season while she performed a revival of the one-woman show “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe” in Los Angeles. But she has been rapidly making up for lost time with appearances like this one, a companion piece of sorts to her Goober the Clown segment from last season.
The name of this latest character, “Tammy the Trucker, Who Promises She’s Here to Talk About Gas Prices and Definitely Not Abortion,” pretty much says it all, and Strong could just barely pretend to turn a steering wheel or care about trucker lingo as she declared, “You shouldn’t have to pull the convoy across state lines to find a doctor who can provide health care for your anatomy without having to call their lawyer first.”
In closing, she reminded viewers to vote because, as she put it, “We all love someone who’s had an abortion — I mean, drives a truck.”
