Saturday Night Live: Rachel Brosnahan and the less than marvelous misses

The first Saturday Night Live of 2019 kicks off with Deal or No Deal: Government Shutdown Edition. Replacement host Steve Harvey (Kenan Thompson) welcomes Donald Trump (Alec Baldwin), who attempts to make a deal with Congress to end the shutdown and get funding for his border wall.

Nancy Pelosi (Kate McKinnon) is one of the briefcase holders. “Drunk on [her] own power”, she needles Trump with abandon. The pair bicker “like two grandparents fighting over a thermostat”. The president eventually moves on to spineless Chuck Schumer, who’s willing to concede for “$15 plus a pastrami on rye”.

The rest of the sketch is a rundown of this week’s headlines – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s ascendance, Corey Booker’s naked presidential ambitions, Cardi B’s tirade, “hamberders”. It appears 2019 will be more of the same when it comes to the show’s lazy political content, as this was yet another cold open that seemed to equate satire with basic reference.

Emmy award-winner and The Marvelous Mrs Maisel star Rachel Brosnahan fulfills her New Year’s resolution by hosting for the first time. She leads several castmembers in a singalong about how 2019 will be the year of having fun, only to continually “pump the breaks” every time they recall one of the myriad disasters in which the world is mired: the shutdown, the LA teachers strike, turmoil in Europe, the Russian drug “krokodile” (the show’s a bit late with that reference). It’s another case of commentary by way of reference, but at least there’s a structural point to it here.

In what seems to have become tradition, the first sketch, Earthquake News Report, is a simple vehicle for crass but clever double entendre. A news team interviews the survivors of a massive quake, all of who were visiting the Seattle change-of-name office at the time. This pitiable collection includes Donald McRonald, Mark Peanus, Lisa Simpson, Bill Cosby, Ty Neadick, Todd Kobell, Ivan Jerganov, Pete Ophelia, Allan “A” Hitler, Holden Tudiks, and Dr Donna Diddaadog.

Next is a clever commercial parody for Leave Me Alun – a portable urn women can use as a “conversation prophylactic” when men attempt unwanted small talk.

Millennial Millions is a gameshow in which millennials attempt to win basic entitlements like healthcare, social security and debt relief. To hold on to their winnings they must endure the ramblings of their idiotic baby boomer parents without losing their cool. Given the younger generation’s inability to accept “anything that challenges [their] worldview”, this proves easier said than done.

The Raunchiest Mrs Rita is a spinoff of The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, starring Leslie Jones as a foul-mouthed ‘60’s cleaning lady who becomes a superstar comedian in the Def Comedy Jam mode. It’s a clever idea that never really leans into its premise, instead coming off as a lazy excuse to have Brosnahan play her breakout role.

Rockers Greta Van Fleet make their SNL debut, performing You’re the One. Then Weekend Update returns and immediately goes back over ground covered in the cold open: the shutdown, Trump’s “hamburger orgy” and bad-faith negotiation tactics, Ocasio-Cortez’s prominence, Schumer’s cravenness. Colin Jost gets the biggest reaction – half laughter/half groans – with a cringe-worthy R Kelly joke.

Presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren (McKinnon) is Update’s first guest. She talks about her progressive vision, defends herself against sexist criticism – “Am I likeable? Probably not. But neither is a prostate exam, but you need one or you’ll die” – and acknowledges the short-sightedness of her public DNA test: “Who knew race science wasn’t a good PR strategy?” She ends with a cutting appeal to the country’s worst instincts: “America, you will do everything you possibly can to not vote for a woman president. All I’m asking is that you let me be that woman.”

She’s followed by Update’s de facto third host, Pete Davidson, as himself. He’s who’s brought along a friend and mentor, comedian John Mulaney. They briefly discusses Davidson’s public suicide threat from late last year (he says he’s doing better), before giving a snarky rundown of Clint Eastwood’s weirder-than-expected new movie, The Mule, which, among other things, sees the nearly 90-year-old actor-director engaging in multiple threesomes.

Kool-Aid is a toothless parody of Gillette’s controversial “We Believe: The Best Men Can Be” ad. The Gillette story is loaded with subtext rife for comic savaging: commercial manipulation of social justice issues, corporate hypocrisy, performative wokeness, childishness of rightwing backlash. But the show’s writers ignore all that, content with reminding audiences of the obnoxious, wall-smashing antics of the product’s famous mascot.

Greta Van Fleet perform Black Smoke Rising. Given the episode’s recurring theme of baby boomers vs millennials, it’s fitting that the musical guest should be a young band so indebted to Led Zeppelin.

Finally, we get a new installment of Barbie Instagram. Exasperated Mattel execs Travis (Thompson) and Diedre (Cecily Strong) meet their buffoonish marketing team, a group of dunces as oblivious to their product as they are to social media. Brosnahan is the standout as an especially deranged team member who seems to be using Ken and Barbie’s relationship to work out her own disturbing drama. It’s unfortunate that Brosnahan gets to be the center of a sketch only at the very end of the episode.

While this wasn’t a particularly poor showing, it did mostly waste its comedically inclined host and the political content remained depressingly weak. That feels particularly egregious, given everything it has to work with.