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Despite her claim that her fifth time hosting \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d would not be celebrated with a parade of celebrity guests and other \u201cS.N.L.\u201d alums wishing her well, Kristen Wiig turned her opening monologue into just that as she marked this milestone with help from Paul Rudd, Matt Damon, Ryan Gosling and other famous pals.<\/p>\n
Wiig, an \u201cS.N.L.\u201d cast member from 2005 to 2012 who was joined on this weekend\u2019s broadcast by the musical guest Raye, began by saying hello to members of the house band. Before she could get much further, she was interrupted by Rudd, who sat in the audience wearing the jacket he received as a member of the show\u2019s hallowed Five-Timers Club.<\/p>\n
Rudd told Wiig he had \u201cheard a rumor that you might be doing one of those five-timers sketches featuring awesome celebrity cameos.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cSo is there, like, a script or something I could look at for that?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
Wiig replied, \u201cI\u2019m sorry, I don\u2019t think we\u2019re doing one of those.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
But she was halted again by Paula Pell<\/a>, the \u201cGirls5eva\u201d star and former \u201cS.N.L.\u201d writer. She told Wiig that the jackets were not all that special anymore, adding, \u201cThey basically hand those out to everybody like free maxi pads.\u201d<\/p>\n Sure enough, Wiig\u2019s next interlocutor was Damon, also wearing a jacket, even though \u2014 as Wiig pointed out \u2014 he had only hosted \u201cS.N.L.\u201d twice.<\/p>\n \u201cBut Lorne said the first time I hosted was so good it counted for three,\u201d Damon explained, \u201cand then, second time, not quite as good. That only counted for two. But by my math, that\u2019s five, baby.\u201d<\/p>\n Lorne Michaels, the \u201cS.N.L.\u201d creator and executive producer, was shown hanging out with Jon Hamm, Fred Armisen, Will Forte and Martin Short. They too were receiving jackets, even though several of them didn\u2019t meet the qualifications. (And Hamm somehow hasn\u2019t hosted since 2010!)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Damon tried to persuade Wiig that her accomplishment was meaningful, telling her that she was the youngest five-timer (actually that was Emma Stone, she said), the first female five-timer (nope) and the first Frenchwoman to earn it.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not a Frenchwoman,\u201d Wiig said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou kind of seem French,\u201d Damon replied.<\/p>\n Several of the celebrities began to serenade Wiig, and just as she began to sing along with them, the camera cut to Michaels, now bestowing a jacket to Gosling, who is slated to host \u201cS.N.L.\u201d next week.<\/p>\n \u201cI haven\u2019t even hosted three times yet,\u201d Gosling said. \u201cIt seems unfair.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n With Wiig as host, it was hard not to feel a yearning for a certain type of sketch that she and her castmates pioneered in their era, in which loose premises were dreamed up mostly to allow the show\u2019s performers to play crazy characters who didn\u2019t fit into sketches of their own.<\/p>\n That\u2019s basically the setup for this segment, which is ostensibly a retirement party for an accountant played by Kenan Thompson but is really just a showcase for bizarre personalities played by Armisen (as a lascivious co-worker carrying on affairs with a security guard), Wiig (as a soft-spoken woman on oxygen) and Forte (playing an inscrutable figure who can only be described as having Will Forte energy).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Could you imagine Hamm as a high-ranking corporate executive, wearing a stylish suit while he works in a New York office from some bygone decade? Wouldn\u2019t that be wild?<\/p>\n If nothing else, that idea (which we really think has greater potential) provided \u201cS.N.L.\u201d with an excuse for Heidi Gardner to revive her character of a flirtatious but bumbling secretary<\/a>, joined this time by a like-minded and equally clumsy colleague played by Wiig. There are no surprise cameos from Elisabeth Moss or John Slattery, but there is a breakaway desk that doesn\u2019t quite break away when Wiig backs into it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Over at the Weekend Update desk, the anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che riffed on the coming presidential election and on the earthquake<\/a> that shook up the New York area on Friday.<\/p>\n Jost began:<\/p>\n Well, yesterday everyone in New York pretended they felt an earthquake. Just admit it, you thought it was wind. This earthquake was actually the best possible disaster. It was kind of like the time I saw my dad in the shower: It was a little scary, there was no permanent damage, but I\u2019m going to remember it for the rest of my life.<\/p>\n At a campaign rally, former President Trump said he would debate President Biden any time, any place. And then he pointed to an empty podium on the stage. And now Trump and Biden are both polling 80 points behind the podium. In a new interview, Donald Trump also claimed that President Biden was high on cocaine during the State of the Union, saying he was all jacked up at the beginning, by the end he was fading fast. Huh, it almost feels like Donald Trump knows exactly what it feels like to be on cocaine. You know, like at the beginning, you\u2019ve got a lot of energy [the screen showed video of Trump at a rally, dancing to the disco song \u201cY.M.C.A.\u201d]. But then by the end, you\u2019re fading fast [the screen shows video of Trump stumbling over his words during his speech at a rally].<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Che continued:<\/p>\n Donald Trump said at a rally that he would make Nov. 5 Christian Visibility Day. Wait, I thought that was called Ash Wednesday. The Florida Supreme Court has allowed the state\u2019s six-week abortion ban to take effect, so now Florida\u2019s only remaining method for ending a pregnancy is roller coasters.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Marcello Hern\u00e1ndez continued to lampoon people\u2019s reactions to Friday\u2019s seismic event by playing the earthquake itself dressed, with satirical simplicity, in a mortar board depicting a New York City skyline that jiggled fitfully when he moved his head. He boasted of the chaos he had caused while downplaying his roots in New Jersey: \u201cI grew up there but I moved to the city,\u201d Hern\u00e1ndez said. He also picked a fight with Monday\u2019s expected eclipse, played with similar gusto by Thompson.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Wiig mostly avoided revisiting characters she played during her \u201cS.N.L.\u201d tenure \u2014 she only does that now when she\u2019s getting the big bucks from Target<\/a>. But she did return to Weekend Update as the sassy but oblivious film critic Aunt Linda<\/a>. In this guise, she offered her reviews of summer movies like \u201cBarbie\u201d and \u201cOppenheimer\u201d while pretending to confuse Jost with past Update anchors like Seth Meyers, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, and being surprised that Che was there at all.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\u2018S.N.L.\u2019 nostalgia of the week<\/h2>\n
\u2018Mad Men\u2019 knockoff of the week<\/h2>\n
Weekend Update jokes of the week<\/h2>\n
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Weekend Update characters of the week<\/h2>\n