Kate McKinnon returned with tales of another alien encounter, and this time, she was joined by her mother, played by Meryl Streep. “I’m getting winched skyward with my vagedy and my tragedy flapping in the breeze,” McKinnon explained to Aidy Bryant and Jon Hamm, before demonstrating how risqué things got by slapping Pascal’s pascal and sneaking up from behind Woody Harrelson’s undercarriage. Streep, who looked right at home manspreading in a mullet, had the best lines of the bit. “Like my daughter, I got an Into the Woods situation,” she said. “Underwear wise, the devil wears nada.” When Pascal complimented her maternal instincts, Streep looked over at him and purred, “Well, a good mother can also be a badddddd girl.”
This was a nearly three- and half-hour production, but it rarely lost its sense of rhythm and fun. Sure, I thought the old black-and-white film of Jon Belushi walking through the headstones of the first cast dragged a little. And Mike Myers didn’t seem to be having all that much fun reviving Linda for some coffee talk. I didn’t love Miley Cyrus and Brittany Howard’s take on “Nothing Compares 2 U,” which seemed to fall apart by the end. (Their voices blended much better covering Elvis Presley during Friday night’s phenomenal concert.) I do wish they’d held up a picture of Sinead O’Connor at the end of the performance—in elegy, not effigy.
Adam Sandler was the night’s emotional highlight. He was introduced by Jack Nicholson, who doesn’t get out much these days. His song was a love letter to the family of cast and crew whose lives were changed by the show. He called out Tuesday late-night pizza. The nurse Theresa who took care of them with Pepto Bismol. Drunk Wally holding upside down cue cards. Interns like Martin Scorsese’s kid or Nora Ephron’s kid or Randy Newman’s kid. Overserved writers at the afterparty opining that Jaws is overrated. A tradition of crank calling New York magazine critics. When Sandler got to the line about Chris Farley and Norm Macdonald, his voice caught in his throat. “Fifty years of one of us getting to say Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!” he sang. “Fifty years of standing on home base, waving good night and goodbye. Fifty years of the best times of our lives.” The audience leapt to their feet in standing ovation. What a mensch.