On Its 50th Birthday, a So-So Saturday Night Live At Least Gifts Us Amy Poehler

And Your Host…

Amy Poehler was chiseled into the sketch comedy pantheon before she ever stepped onto Saturday Night Live‘s stages. After co-founding the Upright Citizens Brigade, Second City alum Poehler, along with fellow UCB stars Matt Walsh, Ian Roberts and Matt Besser, starred in the Upright Citizens Brigade series on Comedy Central, which is, by my count, one of the top three sketch series of all time. (Yes, SNL makes the top 10. The lower half, but still.)

The pre-SNL Poehler was—and I mean this as the highest compliment—a monster. A fearless, snaggly little dynamo of boundless energy and electric talent, she threw herself into every weirdo characterization with a commitment to UCB’s subversive mission like a comedy commando. Which she was.

Getting hired on Saturday Night Live in 2001 was, if anything, a step down creatively, even if her presence brought enough alt comedy cred to jolt the show awake a bit. Yet Poehler on SNL was still Amy Poehler, and she quickly asserted her place by sheer dint of talent and presence, even as the show perpetually worked to sand down some of her edge. Continuing well after she became a major star as Parks and Recreation‘s indefatigable Leslie Knope (still one of the best sitcom characters ever), Poehler the actor maintained that little glint of potential chaos.

This is all to say it was great to see Amy Poehler back doing sketch comedy tonight, even if this second episode of Season 51 somehow managed to let the opportunity slip away in a watery wash of labored premises. (That this was the anniversary of SNL‘s first ever episode got a monologue mention, while Poehler introduced musical act Role Model wearing an original cast photo t-shirt, no doubt for sale at the NBC merch store.)

Thankfully, while it took most of the show, we did get a glimpse of the old Amy in a couple of late-show sketches, the best of which saw Poehler channeling some of that old, gravel-voiced manic madness of yore. The law firm commercial (which I have a suspicion may have been written by co-star Andrew Dismukes) escalated from its simple premise (lawyers touting their collective years of experience) with energizing absurdity, all anchored by Poehler’s turn as a burly, booming septuagenarian male lawyer named Lachlan Mulchberger.

Fake muscles bulging her office wear, body bristling with old guy hair and Popeye forearms, and eventually rattling off her own 400-years-experience bona fides alongside her live tortoise partners (with briefcases, in neckties), Poehler seizes onto this inventive slice of gonzo sketch comedy with the obvious delight of someone just dying to cut loose. Dismukes and James Austin Johnson’s initial pitchmen hilariously up the ante by coming back with some hastily cloned new partners to try to top Mulchberger (and an elderly sister trio who’ve been practicing since WWII, plus Sarah Sherman’s vampire lawyer), but in the end only Bowen Yang’s Yggdrasil the world tree’s Zeus-representing law firm is enough to win the day.

It’s the sort of sketch that awakens a jaded, post-midnight viewer to the real possibilities for sketch comedy, even on SNL. A simple premise tackled with imagination, judicious escalation, and a healthy scoop of absurdity, performed with verve and utter commitment. And there’s nobody better at that sort of thing than Amy.

Now on to the rest of the episode.

The Best and the Rest

The Best: See above, obviously. The only other time tonight where I got a glimpse of that old, unleashed Amy was in the family dinner sketch, where Poehler’s late-returning mom reveals how her mid-life crisis has manifested as surly teenage rebellion. Like so, so many sketches tonight, this one starts off with a deadening thud of premise explainer syndrome (“Mom’s having a total mid-life crisis!”), and the form of the mom’s punky acting out (tattoo, lip ring, spiked leather) isn’t exactly promising.

But then there’s the old Amy (and sorry for using that description, Amy), bursting out around the seams. She’s always had a way of screwing up her lips in a glorious spectacle of adolescent contempt, and pitches down her voice to the perfect frequency of inarticulate, thwarted underage rage, here railing against her family getting on her back for wanting to watch anime with her teenage malcontent friends and losing her Etsy password with the same fierce intensity. Matching her from the opposite pole is James Austin Johnson, underplaying like a champ as Poehler’s forbearing husband, placidly telling their horrified actual teens, “Kids, your mother’s changing body is between her and the girl at Claire’s who pierced her areolas.” (He also prepared a dinner of seemingly unseasoned “rice and spaghetti, which checks out.)

It’s hardly an inspired sketch, but as a vehicle to let Amy do her thing, it gets the job done.

The Worst: Coming right out of the gate with your lamest sketch is the sort of choice to make a guy question SNL‘s top-down decision making. There’s a template of sketches where the single joke is introduced with a theme song (“Mr. Short-Term Memory,” say), where the hackery of the idea becomes part of the joke. The only way the ensuing sketch works though is if that initial idea is the launchpad for inspired silliness in performance.

“The Rudemans” sees Ashley Padilla prepping boyfriend Andrew Dismukes to meet her family by explaining that “they can seem a little cold at first.” (Any sketch beginning, “But before we go in…” is the signal that we’re in for premise overload.) When we meet the family (Amy, Bowen Yang, and granny Sarah Sherman), it’s an impossibly long four minutes. The family’s tone is less cold than interminably drawn out sarcastic, and while I suppose that could work somehow, in practice here the whole enterprise is just deadly. (Seriously, the lack of audience response to the initial round of passive-aggressive sniping is the sort of lull that sends a performer into panic-sweats.)

Even resorting to intermittent slapstick (Sherman’s granny flopping through the coffee table with a brimming cheese dip, a bottle head smash) can’t lurch the sketch into gear before its abrupt ending. It’s the sort of table read mediocrity that, maybe, everybody was hoping would come alive on air. Instead, it let the air out of the tires right at the starting line.

The Rest: There was just enough inspired silliness (plus plenty of Poehler) to keep the TV psychic sketch afloat. Again, we get front-loaded with premise as Poehler’s would-be seer is introduced by an announcer stating, “She’s blunt, she’s clairvoyant, and she’s got a hard out at 7.” So thanks for that.

Along the way, Amy’s psychic speed-runs through her audience’s queries about loved ones, inevitably barking that they’re dead, all dead. (Mostly drowned, for some reason.) It’s not the most lived-in Poehler character, but her grumpy, middle-aged host carries enough unimpressed energy to keep things moving as her obediently confused audience receives their bad news. It’s the little touches that do it, as with audience member Kam Patterson’s immediate acceptance after he notes, “My father just passed away.” (Amy: “He’s dead.” Patterson: “Oh, thank you.”) Again, I give it up to JAJ who, as an author invited onto the show for some reason, underplays his own bewilderment as only JAJ can. (“That wasn’t the speed round?,” he asks at one point before the host’s rapid-fire readings turn inexplicably into a round of “f, marry, kill.”)

So apparently there’s a show called The Hunting Wives. [Quick Wikipedia.] Huh, Malin Akerman was funny on Childrens Hospital…always nice to see good ol’ Dermot Mulroney… Anyway, that’s all I’ve got about that one, as the SNL parody thereof truly left me confused if this was a reality show about gun-crazy Texas moms who may or may not be drawn into surreptitious lesbian flirtation over their blender drinks or not. (It’s not, apparently.) The pre-tape lightly failed the test of being funny enough on its own to non-fans, although watching Poehler, Chloe Fineman, Sarah Sherman, and Ashley Padilla alternately make goo-goo eyes in southern accents and whip out firearms at each other was moderately amusing. And the joke about an actual lesbian (a visiting Aubrey Plaza) freaking out the strapped-and-curious ladies (“This is Texas!,” Sherman shrieks, pulling out her piece) teases the show’s apparent subtext nicely.

Sticking with the ad parodies, the non-non alcoholic beer commercial was a handsomely mounted one-joke. Not a bad joke, especially with Dismukes as the former alcoholic pitchman who gradually reveals that that hyphen in the beverage’s name is “the skeleton key” to allowing him to drink a 96% alcohol beer as long as nobody smells his breath or reads too closely. (“But then I realized I wasn’t getting drunk, which is kind of the point, no?,” is the sort of moment that Dismukes can deliver with just the right note of sneaky madness underneath.) Hinging as it does on that one gag, the piece could have used a shot or two more inspired silliness, but it’s fine.

A very pregnant Amy Poehler resolutely giving birth in an inflatable pool should be a lot funnier, honestly. As the hard-ass boss who won’t let her impending delivery interfere with the big meeting, Pohler swings her gut around and does a little desultory screaming, but this one—tone set once more by three nondescript underlings stating the premise so’s not to lose anybody—didn’t spring to life until a bald Bowen Yang burst from beneath the pool’s waves in full business suit to praise his mom for always sealing the deal. Sadly, and even considering how Sarah Sherman takes a face-ful of afterbirth-tainted pool water, this should have been splashier.

Weekend Update Update

So, what’s going on in the world? Not much according to Jost and Che. But I kid perpetually underachieving Weekend Update. Tonight’s long segment was mainly focused on a triple Update anchor invasion, as Poehler, Fey, and Seth Meyers (popping by from down the hall) did a joke-off with the two current occupants about a lady in Tennessee giving birth to a huge baby. The show didn’t make as big a deal about this being its actual birthday and all (honestly, the 50th season hoopla left us all as hollowed out as that poor mother—zing!) so the old home week Update bit was at least a nod toward show history. And while pitting the old timers against the new kids (who’ve hosted longer than any of them at this point) was certainly a crowd-pleaser, the disposability of the material was more in line with what this Update was all about. (For the record, Tina’s joke about the Tennessee baby being so big because it was also pregnant was mean enough to edge out the win.)

As for Update proper, the beyond-shaky and deeply suspect Trump-branded cease fire in Gaza got most of the up-top jokes. Jost mentioned that only Trump could “Freaky Friday” wars in the Middle East and Chicago (intentionally or not utilizing ICE’s sick joke about their plan to terrorize Chicago’s immigrant children). Meanwhile, Che called both Trump and “the Middle East” “crazy,” which raises a few clarifying questions. Anyway, Jost, pointing skeptically to the fact that former President Biden also brokered a quickly abandoned Israel-Gaza peace deal last year, got to do a “Biden is old” joke one more time, so he’s happy.

It’s not that the guys don’t get their licks in. Che joked that the proposed new Trump coin will feature Trump putting Harriet Tubman in a headlock, ably mocking both a preening wannabe king’s demand for his own shiny vanity currency and the fact that Trump scuttled the proposed Tubman $20 the first chance he got. Jost noted the recent right-wing cultist freakout over Trump not getting the Nobel Peace Prize, noting that the Fox News headline about Venezuela’s María Corina Machado winning is, “Trump robbed by Dangerous Hispanic.” (Just a thought, but you’d have a better chance if you weren’t illegally blowing up fishing boats in another country, waging war on your own cities, and renaming your own defense department the Department of War.)

It’s more that they do so much less than the moment deserves. Apart from [gesturing around at the wealth of satirical material], the fact that Saturday Night Live and Update are in the (one hopes) figurative crosshairs of rabidly censor-minded and powerful figures is a test of mettle. And Jost, Che, and SNL are trying to play it as safe as possible while still banking their smart-aleck points. If the regime is blasting mandatory propaganda about the GOP-caused government shutdown across every airport terminal in the country and your take is a clip of Kristi Noem as the Jigsaw puppet, well, you’re probably in the clear.

And in the clear is not where Saturday Night Live—self-mythologized sticking-it-to-the-man TV rebels—should be. At least if it wants to avoid being merely the impotent court jesters as the mad king steers America into some increasingly dark places.

Closer to home for the show, Sarah Sherman trotted out a bejeweled travel mug of gin and a Lawn-Giland accent to channel the (white) partisan hysteria about Zohran Madani’s rise in the New York mayoral race. That the popular (not-white) Mamdani’s policies (rent freezes, free buses, even—horrors!—universal childcare) have been successfully tarred with the shrieking “Socialist!” tag is bad enough for Sherman’s walking avatar of the New York Post, but he’s also “a hipster jihadist.” At least according to the New York Times (comments section.) Airing out the predictably racist and bad-faith attacks lobbed at Mamdani in the midst of election season is SNL tending its own backyard, although the bit relies more on Sherman’s penchant for overacting, as her would be voter (she voted for serial sex creep Andrew Cuomo 48 times last time, despite not living in the city) pulls out the spec screenplay she wrote about a sex dream she had about Mamdani.

Political Comedy Report

Amy portrayed Attorney General Pam Bondi in the cold open, reenacting Bondi’s contemptuous (not to say contemptible) appearance before Congress this week in a sketch that pretty much answers all the questions I had going into Season 51 about just how Saturday Night Live would operate under rapidly encroaching fascism.

Bondi’s actual testimony, an ugly spectacle of petulant name-calling and deliberate obfuscation where Bondi defended Trump’s weaponization of the supposedly impartial Justice Department against his political enemies and continued to brush off her boss’ best pal-ship with one of the world’s most notorious pedophile sex traffickers, signaled just how far down that road we’ve gone. But Saturday Night Live‘s requisite cold open steered hard away from grappling with any of that in favor of its traditional focus on personality.

A face-twisting Poehler was Bondi, reading from her prepared list of Trump-humping zingers against Democrats. Buddy Tina Fey with plumped lips popped in as homeland security henchperson Kristi Noem to make dog-killer jokes. Some fresh-faced male cast members wore grey wigs and pitched softball straight man setups. Along the way, there were a few chuckles, as Amy’s Bondi kicked things off by noting, “Before I don’t answer, I’d like to insult you personally,” and Tina’s Noem, after asking someone to hold her brandished assault rifle, announced herself as the rarest of administration figures, “a brunette that Donald Trump listens to.”

But I’ll keep saying it—if SNL‘s going to do politics, then they’ve got to actually, you know, do it. The United States is under assault by these people, with their utter, sneering disdain for the Constitution in their pursuit of the long-gestated plot of a cabal of white supremacist fundamentalist oligarchs and the erratic whims of a sundowning old bigot/sociopath. Late-night comedy shows are literally being picked off the air for insulting the tetchy would-be dictator and his minions, and so people are going to be watching how Saturday Night Live chooses to meet the perilous moment. What we’ve seen in these first two episodes is business as usual, and that’s just not going to cut it.

Bondi’s actual testimony was rude, sure. But it was a lot more than that, and the rudeness is all SNL chose to joke about. Andrew Dismukes brought out a Maine Justice-esque version of “aggressively folksy” Louisiana Republican John Kennedy (who went to Oxford, for god’s sake) but ignored how Republicans used the hearing to dodge questions about their complicity in the destruction of American democracy in favor of propping up their doddering leader’s daily attacks on the rule of law. People (non-white people) are being kidnapped off the street by masked and unidentified secret police into black sites, so a little amusing riff on how ICE agents are failed wannabe cops addicted to Oakleys and gas station energy supplements is the definition of “the least SNL can do.”

In short, this sort of facile, impression and cameo-heavy breeze-by of major events just isn’t sufficient it in a country plunging into the abyss. At least if SNL wants to keep pumping air into its leaky reputation as the edgy satirists. I’ve heard all five decades’ worth of Lorne Michaels’ windy pronouncements about even-handedness when it comes to political satire, and if they ever held any water, they’re sounding increasingly like capitulation and abdication when the boat is literally sinking around us.

Recurring Sketch Report

And we have our first recurring characters of the season!

I remain tickled by Grant and Alyssa, aka The Couple You Can’t Believe Are Together. It’s a vibe thing, as Marcello Hernandez and Jane Wickline’s constitutionally mismatched young lovers genuinely seem to dig each other, despite his hockey jerseys and bombastic bro-iness and her cardigans and poetry. So what if she like the pagan origins of Halloween and he just likes to see all the little Spider-Mans running around begging for candy? (Also: “My baby is so funny—tell them what you said the other day, baby.” “I said, ‘Please calm down.'”) The kicker might always be that the sex is great, but Marcello and Jane convey real affection for each other and, hey, there are worse reasons.

Not Ready for Prime Time Power Rankings

After a season opener where a lot of people got shafted for airtime, everybody got some love this time around. At least in air quantity if not especially juicy roles. All the newbies had speaking parts (Ben Marshall, all but shut out last time, was everywhere), and while none of them got many laughs, let’s chalk it up to paying dues.

Jane Wickline was literally shut out last week, so having a recurring character and being prominent in the 10-to-one sketch must have been a relief. Ashley Padilla should be bumped up to main cast—she’s clearly meant for it and is getting as much spotlight as anybody.

Kenan has now entered the “pop-in” phase of his historically long career. It’s rare the show builds a sketch around him at this point, but if your sketch needs a funny delivery guy or a weirdo with funny hair to swipe focus, call Kenan.

James Austin Johnson is the best actor on the show and, freed from his Trump tonight, didn’t have to spend precious time removing prosthetics. It was nice to have him in so many sketches—even when he’s not doing much of anything, JAJ’s ability to bring something to his characters is valuable stuff. Just as an example, after Poehler’s visiting musician makes a half-joke in the final sketch, JAJ’s moderator offers a soft little, “Nice” with the perfect blank politeness.

While the show did a decent job balancing the needs of another unwieldy cast this week, I’m still waiting for someone to take advantage of the star power-vacuum that’s existed for a few years. My money’s on Padilla at this point, but if anyone on the show has a real grabber of a piece/character in their back pocket, this SNL is wide open for the taking.

10-To-Oneland Report

I’d have swapped the Jiulliard sketch and the law commercial for the “save the best and weirdest for last” spot, but I’m not running things—yet. Amy and Bowen are the veteran TV theme composers whose moody instrumental themes for the likes of Severance are revealed to be their compromised visions of a world where every show would begin in a Fresh Prince-style explanatory rap. (According to their first draft, Severance is about cutting your brain in two, “one half for work, one half for sex,” which isn’t exactly right, but…)

Amy has done some better rap-based sketches in the past, sure, but she and Yang are having fun (watch their self-satisfied synchronized air-conducting), JAJ moderates with signature impeccable moderation, and Kenan, yes, pops by as musical mentor Theotus McNamara, playing key-tar to the duo’s initial pitch for The Gilded Age, where the year is 2153 and robots are your friends. Plus there’s a running gag where, no matter which skeptical student asks the question, Yang really wants permission to physically punish Jane Wickline.

Stray Observations

When a publication once asked me to write an article ranking the greatest SNL cast members, I unapologetically put Amy Poehler at #2. The fact that said publication edited Poehler out of the piece entirely without my knowledge only fuels my defiant assertion that Poehler is a sketch comedy god. And why I don’t write there any more.

Ending that lawyer sketch clutching one of those very alive and heavy tortoises in her hands is just Amy planting her majestic freak flag.

Poehler smashing through the set like the Kool-Aid man as Lachlan Mulchman was like past Amy Hulk-ing magnificently into the dreary present.

Amy’s delivery of the phrase “like two slick newborn babies” while insulting her lawyer competitors bumped this episode’s grade up one entire half-notch.

Congrats to Dismukes on his 100th show.

Tonight’s more-devastating-then-usual memorial card went to Diane Keaton, who died on Saturday. She never hosted the show, but she’s Diane Keaton, dammit.

Thanks to Amy for pointing out that that was Charli XCX wordlessly dancing during Role Model’s first number.

“You know what’s nice about turning 50? You start to not care about what people think. And that’s what’s so great about SNL—she’s obviously stopped caring.”

Jost, after a story about HHS head RFK Jr now blaming autism on… circumcision? “Which is not surprising coming from a man who looks like he’s made out of foreskin.” [Che, off camera]: “Not mine.”

After Sherman’s Long Islander asks Che, “Without us, where would all the most violent cops live?,” cut to Jost, reading the paper: “Staten Island.”

Episode Grade: C-Plus. Thank Amy.

Next Week: Sabrina Carpenter pulls the difficult double duty.