Amy Poehler is a great commentator

After the rocky premiere, Saturday Night Live It needs to give us some reassurance that Season 51 (and the newest in the cast) won’t be all flops. Enter Amy Poehler, a reliable (but not overused) choice to anchor a confident episode. No disrespect to Bad Bunny, who has his charm in this form, but he’s not quite as graphic a performer as Poehler. It’s fitting that she’s hosting the show on the 50th anniversary of the first episode ever.

Poehler isn’t here to promote a new movie or show. If anything, she’s here because Good luck with Amy Poehlerher podcast that launched earlier this year. “That’s right, I’m a podcaster now, and if that’s not a sign of recession, I don’t know what is,” she joked self-deprecatingly during a short, entertaining monologue, recalling her early days of watching. SNL And do battle with the artificial intelligence “actress” Tilly Norwood. Poehler brought that warm energy to the entire episode, regardless of the quality of the actual jokes.

I strongly agree with the choice to give Buehler new Characters to play, rather than reliving old drawings for nostalgia. (We got enough of that last year.) These are all essentially new roles or adaptations of old types, taking advantage of Poehler’s skill at embodying strong, often gritty characters. Deliberately old fashioned Rodmans The plot is nothing to write home about — the general premise has been done to death — but she and Sarah Sherman in particular stand out as Ashley Padilla’s passive-aggressive mother and grandmother. “I’ll just randomly get the landline we still have?” She says while answering the phone.

This was a fairly star-studded episode, starting with Tina Fey appearing in both Cold open and Weekend Update (joined by Seth Meyers). Poehler’s villain Pam Bondi starts the episode off on a good note, likening Amy Klobuchar’s name to Pokemon during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, but it’s the impressively creepy-looking Kristi Noem who elicits the biggest laughs, mostly through references to her pet dog being killed (“Not only do dogs get shot, heroes get shot”). Low hanging fruit? probably. But it works.

Then Aubrey Plaza met with her Parks and recreation Participate in a tournament Hunting wives Season 2 trailerwhich amusingly plays on the show’s conservative lesbian contradictions. Charli XCX appeared to silently dance Latest “Sally” In the first non-offensive summer performances of the role model. SNL It can’t stand to stand alone, but these events set up a strong episode that bodes well for the show’s ability to produce the same decent if unspectacular material this season.

Here are the highlights:

Sometimes, knowing that you’re ready to make one joke actually makes it better, and that’s the case with this story. (It’s technically a parody of the medium Sylvia Browne, for those who remember – I found it section her on Instagram just the other day, and the similarities are striking.) Everything gets funnier when you realize that Miss Lycus won’t offer any thought deeper than “He’s dead” to her legions of desperate, sad fans. But some of the twists are quite funny, from the first “He’s drowned to death” to “He’s drowned, but he’s still alive. What’s dead is your marriage.” Most of the audience doesn’t seem to mind.

Poehler’s Girlboss director insists on closing a big deal for the company while nine months pregnant, and quickly switches between work and birth mode when her waters break. It’s fun to see Ben Marshall as Doula, even if I’m not exactly used to scanning the background for other people Please don’t ruin it guys.

Colin Jost and Michael Che maintained their usual antagonistic relationship in this episode, with Che inserting Jost into the background of some of Trump and Epstein’s famous shots using Sora. Sarah Sherman had some good material regarding Long Island native Rhonda LaCenzo, who was concerned about sharia law under potential next Mayor Zahran Mamdani — or rather, “sharia.” traditions,” in her accent — but the character is more entertaining because of her tics, like hunched shoulders and constant offers to grab coffee. “Coffee, Chi?”

Of course, the most popular segment is the Weekend Update Joke Off, where former anchors Poehler, Fey, and Myers join Jost and Chi to talk about the 13-pound baby born in Tennessee. Not all jokes are worth a laugh, but it’s great to watch this group having fun, especially with the different improvised bell sounds. I wouldn’t have considered trading them for the entire update.

Maybe the best of the night? Poehler usually does a fine job as the mustachioed, gun-toting lawyer Lachlan Mulchburger, but the real beauty of this sketch is the constant escalation of one-upmanship in the game of paid advertising, as the various injury lawyers argue that they have the most experience combined. It really takes off with the reveal of the clones – five of Belson and five of Lieberman – and eventually climaxes with Yang appearing as Yggdrasil, the sacred tree, of which Zeus was a client.

Poehler gets a lot of mileage out of another one-joke premise, in which he dresses like your typical emo teen but whines about adult concerns like raising children, caring for elderly parents, and a forgotten Etsy password. The short transition to professionalism and coming back to make a phone call (she is a supervisor) is a highlight.

• “Two years ago, I was on the show, and she told me my brother had drowned but was alive and thriving in Florida.”

• A good speaker works by Andrew Dismukes in advertising Non-alcoholic beer Which turns into an ad for 96% ABV not– Non-alcoholic beer.

• Jeremy Culhane also has a good showing this week. I’m less convinced by Tommy Brennan so far.

• Gotta love the review given by AI Scott, “The robot is now doing reviews for it New York Times“.

• Apparently the Joost family has been celebrating National German-American Day “ever since they moved here in a hurry in 1945.” The use of the word “hurry” alone made me laugh here.

• Grant and Alyssa, also known as the couple you can’t believe are together, appear in the update to talk cuff season and Halloween. “I’m going to be Sylvia Plath, because it’s the only day of the year you can dress like a slut,” is a competing line of the night.

• YggDrasil: Injury Lawyer, Time is an Illusion, We Are the Shadows.

• There are some funny moments in Master theme songs Draw the end, especially the first to cut The rap and subsequent reflection with a sombre instrumental version of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air Theme song. Bowen Yang’s corporal punishment-obsessed composer is less memorable than Poehler, and it’s sketchy, but he gets the job done.

• It’s nice to see a picture of Diane Keaton appear before bed. If you are not already aware, Ashley Padilla She was Keaton’s assistant, so it must have been a tough day for her, and she did an amazing job in this episode! Hopefully the show will continue to cast her in roles that would otherwise go to Heidi Gardner and Ego Nwodim. She’s still just a special player, but she seems to be on a different level than the others.