For a second consecutive week, Saturday Night Live regular Pete Davidson was not on tonight’s episode, which was hosted by Fleabag Emmy winner Phoebe Waller-Bridge with Taylor Swift as musical guest. Davidson is currently filming Warner Bros’ Suicide Squad 2, and had already missed last week’s season opener.
Call it a bit of gentle ribbing from the “Weekend Update” team, with whom Davidson has has some of his most memorable moments on the show, but Davidson’s name at least did come up Saturday — fittingly as the butt of a joke:
“A man who drove his car to a music festival still cannot remember where he parked his car a week after the show,” Colin Jost said. “Well, we hope you make it back soon, Pete.”
The “Weekend Update’ segment also included the debut of new castmember Bowen Yang, who scored in a solo playing Chinese trade representative Chen Biao (aka “basically the Lizzo of China right now”), with plenty of Donald Trump disses (not as rough as Michael Che’s POTUS takedowns earlier in the skit, though):
Also getting solo turns on the news desk was the return of Kate McKinnon as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and Mikey Day as Mort Fellner, reading headlines about supercentenarians (spoiler alert: it doesn’t end well for them, though the skit was great).
Here are those: