A shockingly combative White House meeting between President Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine may have precipitated a diplomatic crisis and signaled a fissure in the longstanding relationship between the United States and Europe. But the incident provided ample grist for the satirical mill on “Saturday Night Live” in the first new broadcast after its 50th anniversary celebration.
This weekend’s show, hosted by Shane Gillis and featuring the musical guest Tate McRae, began with a voice-over that declared the meeting between Trump and Zelensky had gone “really, really well,” adding, “Everyone who watched felt at ease and thought, ‘the world is now a safer place.’”
The “S.N.L.” replay of this meeting began with Mikey Day as Zelensky and James Austin Johnson in his recurring role as Trump, introducing himself as “President and CEO of Gaza Hotel and Casino” and saying that he welcomed Zelensky to “this incredible trap; it’s going to be a big, beautiful trap, and we’re going to attack him very soon for no reason.”
Bowen Yang, playing Vice President JD Vance, chimed in, saying, “Watch out, ’cause this kitty’s got claws.”
Turning to Marcello Hernández, who was playing Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Johnson asked, “Are you excited to attack our European ally?”
Hernández gave a vacant stare into the camera and replied, “Um, no Inglés.”
Johnson also said he thanked Zelensky for “dressing like casual ‘Star Trek,’” adding that he loved “Star Trek” because “there’s no D.E.I.”
“The white guy was the leader, and he bossed around Spock, who I believe was Guatemalan,” Johnson said.
But when Johnson asked him to apologize to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia (and “maybe offer him one night with your wife”), Day could only utter a few words before prompting an angry tirade from Yang.
“I have to jump in here because that’s how we planned this,” Yang said. “What happened to ‘thank you,’ ’kay? Remember thank you? You haven’t said thank you to us once in the past 15 seconds I’ve been yelling at you.”
Pointing back to Hernández, Johnson said, “Look at Rubio over there, fully dissociating. He looks like Homer Simpson disappearing into that hedge.”
Johnson went on chastising Day, telling him, “You don’t have the cards.”
“I have the cards,” Johnson said. “I have Skip. I have Draw Four. I have Reverse. I have Get Out of Jail Free — the Supreme Court gave me that one. I have Pikachu and Charmander and Charizard. All I’m missing is a Charmeleon.”
More participants joined the scene, including the “S.N.L.” alumnus Mike Myers, who played Elon Musk, wearing a black coat and waving around a chain saw.
Defending the work of his Department of Government Efficiency, Myers said, “They’re saying I’m firing people with no cause. But I do have cause. It’s ’cause I feel like it.”
Opening monologue of the week
Gillis, the standup comic and “Tires” star, was famously cut from “S.N.L.” before he ever appeared in its cast, amid criticism of his past podcast appearances in which he used slurs and offensive language. When Gillis hosted “S.N.L.” for the first time last year, he performed a much dissected, much criticized monologue in which he joked about being “gay for my mom” when he was younger and having family members with Down syndrome.
In his sophomore appearance as host, Gillis showed no signs of aversion to touching comedic third rails. He joked about President Trump (and his “fifth grade-level ideas,” like taking possession of Greenland) as well as former President Biden (“Any time he was giving a speech, in between Teleprompters, his face would go back to being dead,” Gillis said.)
Gillis said that being liberal was “powerful — it’s too powerful, it’s like the Sith.” He added, “If somebody says something you don’t like at work, you can be like” — and here he mimed the Emperor Palpatine shooting Force lighting bolts from his fingertips.
He also performed routines about when, as a white man, it was appropriate to ask his white girlfriend if she’d ever had sex with a Black man; and about the Ken Burns documentary series “The Civil War,” which Gillis said was “Kryptonite to women.”
“If you put that on, they will fall asleep immediately,” Gillis said, adding, “That’s a little Cosby tip for you, actually. Who needs roofies when we have ‘Ken Burns presents the history of the buffalo on PBS?’”
Fake advertisement of the week
In a far less polarizing segment, Gillis also played the pitch man for a new pharmaceutical product that helped him manage his anxiety and depression and overcome his struggles at home and in the workplace. That product, it turns out, is called CouplaBeers, a “revolutionary medicine” that he sips from a can and consists of six percent ethyl hydroxyethane. (As a helpful onscreen disclaimer advises, “A couple of beers could mean two, or 10, depending on dose size.”) And should you experience drowsiness from CouplaBeers, not to worry — Gillis is also helpfully the spokesman for a companion product called aLilBump.
Weekend Update jokes of the week
Over at the Weekend Update desk, the anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che continued to riff on the antagonistic meeting between President Trump and President Zelensky, and an A.I. video about Gaza that Trump posted on social media.
Jost began:
President Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday. Let’s see how it went. [He played a video of Trump saying, “You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people. You’re gambling with World War III.”] Pretty good. And now thanks to that meeting, now you actually can gamble on World War III on FanDuel. Trump repeatedly scolded Zelensky, telling him, “You have real problems.” Yeah, man, he’s in a war. No one’s asking to borrow missiles so they can take the party to the next level. Zelensky was asked to leave the White House. Then he appeared on Fox News and said he thinks he can still salvage his relationship with President Trump. Which is like Justin Baldoni saying, “I’d love to work with Blake again.”
Che continued:
President Trump posted an A.I.-generated video featuring a transformed Gaza with a Trump hotel, bearded belly dancers and Benjamin Netanyahu lounging on a beach. The video was titled “ISIS Recruitment Ad.”
Weekend Update desk segment of the week
It’s been the kind of “S.N.L.” episode that was as fraught as the material that spawned it. So who better to soothe our frazzled nerves than Jane Wickline, who promises to perform a very romantic song you can use to make a potential paramour fall in love with you. Surely this would be a tender ballad of affection and not a tune that would make extensive, repeated references to the Trolley Problem, the famous thought experiment that requires one to determine which people imperiled by an oncoming trolley will survive. Well, OK, that’s exactly what her song does, and somehow this was still the most gentle, least provocative segment of the show.
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