It’s been a memorable week for public figures committing crimes, and “Saturday Night Live” has given some of them a forum to apologize on a fictional talk show called “Oops, You Did It Again”, hosted by the relatively innocent Britney Spears.
This week’s broadcast, hosted by “Bridgerton” star Regé-Jean Page and featuring musical guest Bad Bunny, began when cast member Chloe Fineman, playing Spears, reminded viewers who knew her “of my optimistic Instagram videos and of the word ‘guardianship. ‘”
She added that she now had a program in which “people could come and apologize for things they did wrong, because after the documentary ‘Free Britney’ was released, I am getting hundreds of excuses a day.”
Her first guest was Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, played by Aidy Bryant in braided hair, jeans and a T-shirt from the family vacation in Cancún. Holding a foamy drink, Bryant explained, unconvincingly, that she wasn’t really tanned – “I cried a lot because of my Texan colleagues and that’s why I drink in her honor,” she said.
Bryant added that she was “in trouble, which, I am told, is something that no one in Texas has”. If her apology was failing, she said, “I’m sorry, I’m really bad at human things.”
The next guest on the show was New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, played by Pete Davidson. Davidson first asked the audience if he welcomed him “because the covered dinner is back in New York”, then he shyly acknowledged: “Okay, I know. It’s because of the things in the nursing home. “
Asked to elaborate, Davidson added: “Some of the people who died in nursing homes were not counted as deaths in nursing homes, they were counted as deaths in hospitals. Which is basically what happens at Disney World, right? People die and move bodies. They say, ‘Oh, I think Brenda died in the parking lot, not in the cups of tea.’ “
Informed that Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York thought he should be investigated, Davidson countered: “I’m going to bury him in the highest pit this city has ever seen,” he said.
The third and last guest was Gina Carano, the former “Mandalorian” star who was fired by Disney, played in the sketch by Cecily Strong.
Although Strong denied that she had done anything wrong, Fineman reminded her that she had shared an Instagram post that compared American politics with Nazi Germany.
“I would never have made that Nazi comparison if I knew that everyone would be so Nazi about it,” said Strong.
When Cruz de Bryant tried to sympathize with her, Strong rejected her: “I am strong and you are a pile of soup,” she said.
Cultural barometer of the week
“SNL” was generous this week when it came to recognizing actors who are new to the pop-cultural firmament, including its host, Page (whose period novel “Bridgerton” was satirized in this somewhat obscene outline which aired late at night). Early in the evening, at an actor roundtable meeting organized by Ego Nwodim, Page appeared as actor Kingsley Ben-Adir, who plays Malcolm X in “One Night in Miami”. Chris Redd played “Judas and the Black Messiah” star Daniel Kaluuya.
The recreations of these actors and their award-winning films were impeccable. The jokes, however, were mostly about Nwodim’s character fawning over the actors’ British accents (and about Kenan Thompson as Ice Cube, whose efforts to pass as British were not so easy).
Video of the week
Nwodim returned for some well-deserved time on the screen in this expertly produced music video, playing a nightclub patron whose fantasy that she is getting along with a handsome comrade (Page) gives way to the reality that she, in fact, spent the year spent living locked in his apartment and gradually lost his head. (Hence the title of the song, “Loco”.)
As Nwodim sings in the video: “I’m crazy, like my brain breaks down / But hey, you laugh or cry like ‘Coco’.” His few acquaintances include Davidson (who went so crazy in his own quarantine that he understands the movie “Tenet”) and Bad Bunny (like a singer houseplant).
Jokes of the week from the weekend update
At the Weekend Update table, anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che continued to comment on Cruz’s canceled vacation in Cancún and the Texas winter climate crisis.
Jost started:
Well, if you hate Ted Cruz, this has been a really fun week. And if you like Ted Cruz, then you are Ted Cruz. Senator Cruz, whose face is gradually being recovered by nature, said his decision to vacation with his family in Cancún during the Texas climate emergency was obviously a mistake. Just like the tattoo he got there. [At that moment, a satirical photo appeared behind Jost of a lower-back tattoo of a leaping dolphin.]
Jost continued:
Cruz initially released a statement saying he only went on vacation because his daughters forced him to go. And if you think it was bad to throw your daughters under the bus, Cruz would like you to know that this statement was his wife’s idea. I just love that after he left Texas, he came back with a Texas flag mask as if nothing had happened. It’s like Jared and Ivanka walking down Fifth Avenue with “I Love New York” t-shirts.
Che picked up the riff, adding:
Cruz would have returned from Mexico even earlier, but it took, like, 40 minutes to get out of a network. This week’s huge winter storm caused millions of Texans to lose energy. It was the biggest snow seen in Texas since Michael Irvin’s Super Bowl party. Many Texans are left unheated and without clean water after the pipes freeze in the extreme cold. “Boy, that kind of thing would never happen in New York,” said people who never lived on the projects.
Weekend update, part of the week table
Davidson returned to the Weekend Update table for the last of his series of personal monologues, this one about the impact of having spent Valentine’s Day in isolation. As Davidson explained, it was “the first time being alone was not my fault”. And, he said, after watching the documentary “Saving Britney” with his mother, he had to move out of the house they shared on Staten Island.
With false regret, Davidson said, “My mom has a lot more cases to take over my finances than Britney’s dad ever had. I was like, ‘Wait, can she do this? And doesn’t she? She does not love me? ‘All Britney did was shave her head. I have a life-size tattoo of the Tootsie Pop owl. ”
Davidson added: “My mom is a lot like this show. No matter what I do, I am never asked to leave. In addition, both are very old and visibly tired. “