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The cold open.

Saturday Night Live: Tina Fey hosts all-star season finale

This article is more than 5 years old

Seinfeld, Cumberbatch, Rock and De Niro were present and correct but the royal wedding costumes stole the show

A modest diner in New Jersey. Donald Trump (Alec Baldwin) enters, asks the waitress (Heidi Gardner) if HPV is different from HIV, and puts Don’t Stop Believing by Journey on the jukebox.

Rudy Giuliani (Kate McKinnon) enters.

“Rudy,” says the president, “did you go on Fox News last night?”

“Yes,” says Giuliani, “I said you colluded with Russia, like, 20 times.”

Michael Cohen (Ben Stiller) joins them.

“They said I might get 20 years unless I give you up!”

“‘I hear gym’s fun,” says Trump, “it’s like camp.”

“You can get a real law degree,” says Giuliani.

Don Jr (Mikey Day) arrives.

“You know, I couldn’t think of three people I’d rather be here with tonight,” says Trump. “My best son, and two of my last 15 lawyers.”

Robert Mueller (Robert De Niro) enters and sits at a table behind the hapless crew. He walks past on the way to the bathroom and silently waggles his fingers at Trump. Then there’s an awkward cut and … live from New York, it’s the last Saturday Night Live of the season.

Tina Fey is the host.

“I realized it’s been 20 years since I started working here,” she says, “and I got here on Monday and people on the crew came up to me in the studio and said, ‘Welcome home,’ and it made me feel so … bad that I didn’t remember their names.”

It’s her birthday this week, and she’s telling everyone she’s 60, so they’ll be impressed by how good she looks. (Googled it for you – she’s 48).

She takes some questions. Jerry Seinfeld is first. “Do you think the show has too many celebrity cameos these days?”

Benedict Cumberbatch is next. “Is Kenan Thompson going to be on the show tonight? He’s great, but have you ever thought about replacing Kenan with a slightly more famous person? Could be fun?”

Chris Rock is next. “Never mind,” he says.

And DeNiro: “With all the makeup, could you tell that I was Robert Mueller?”

Fred Armisen: “Do you think it’s weird that so many former cast members hang around the show all the time?”

“Does it seem weird to you?” says Fey.

“No, I think it’s great,” says Armisen. Then he gives a brief lecture about juicing and fiber.

Anne Hathaway: “So that was actually Robert De Niro? Wow.”

Donald Glover: “I was here a couple of weeks ago and I forgot my hat.”

And finally, Tracy Morgan, to give her a special birthday wish.

“My birthday was actually yesterday, though,” Tina says.

“Well, surprise girl,” says Tracy. “You’re 60, baby. That’s gross but I love you.”

Tina Fey takes questions.

The royal wedding reception! Very impressive that Day is wearing an accurate version of Harry’s outfit from the morning. “Meghan’s out in the hallway trying to stop some of her white relatives from coming in, because they’re mental,” he says.

Thompson is Meghan’s great-uncle, talking to the Queen in her lime green hat and suit, played by McKinnon. Incredible props to the SNL wardrobe department for turning these around so quickly. He’s telling her to watch The Crown because “they make her a bitch on that show”. She looks slightly appalled. “He wants me to go to Philadelphia,” she says.

Harry goes through to the “rando table” where he meets one of Meghan’s Deal or No Deal colleagues, played by Gardner. “I brought the briefcase!” she says.

Fey is a duchess who is “both your aunt and your niece”. And Aidy Bryant does a good Elton John: “Hold me closer, tiny ginger,” she sings.

Morning Joe: McKinnon is Mika and Alex Moffat is Joe.

“Welcome to Morning Joe,” he says, “it’s like Crossfire if it came from the cafe car on an Amtrak.” Day is there as Willie Geist.

“The White House still hasn’t apologized for the outrageous remarks about Senator John McCain,” Joe says, while Mika gasps. They cut to an interview with Meghan McCain, played by Bryant, and talk over her before cutting the interview and heavily flirting.

Next, Fey is the Russian lawyer who took the meeting with Don Jr about Hillary Clinton. It’s a little light. And then: Mean Girls the Musical: a documentary about Fey starring in her own show even though “she has a really tiny head”. She fails at rehearsals.

“Ultimately I realized that Broadway is hard, and the people who do that are super talented,” she says, wearing her arm in a sling, “Maybe I can’t be like Lin-Manuel and jam myself into my show.” Cut to Lin-Manuel Miranda, who starts writing a rap “about this tiny-headed bitch named Tina”.

Fey introduces Nicki Minaj. She sings Chun-Li under a neon pagoda with dancers clad in various east Asian motifs. Is it cultural appropriation if the song is about a character in Street Fighter?

Weekend Update. Colin Jost and Michael Che are marking the first anniversary of the Mueller investigation – “the first anniversary that Trump remembered”.

“What you think about the investigation really depends on what you think of Trump,” says Jost, pointing to a Yanni/Laurel meme. “Some people hear Laurel while some idiots hear Yanny.”

“It’s not every day that a black man can root for the feds but I am really enjoying this,” says Che, “I feel like I’m watching Rachel Dolezal get kicked out of a Starbucks.”

Eric and Donald Trump Jr are here (Moffat and Day) to talk about the infamous Russian lawyer meeting.

“Many in the media are speculating that calls made to a blocked number before your meeting … were actually calls made to your father,” Jost comments.

“This may sounds crazy,” says Don Jr, “but the dishonest media is being dishonest.”

Comparing the situation to a scenario from their youth, Don says of their father: “He sat us down, he showed us the designs for Trump Tower and said …”

“Look at all the hidden swastikas!” Eric interrupts. Don quiets him by giving him some Play-Do. Eric starts eating it.

Che on the royal wedding: “Earlier today Suits actress Meghan Markle married some unemployed guy who still lives with his grandma.”

Thompson arrives as Bishop Michael Curry, who gave the sermon at the wedding. “It’s good to be around black people again,” he says. “It felt kind of like somebody opened up a chicken and waffles kiosk in the middle of a Pottery Barn.”

Since it’s the end of the year, they’ve decided to do some of the jokes that were previously deemed too offensive to tell on air. “Pennsylvania police arrested a one-armed woman who was trying to rob a bank … police said the hardest thing was figuring out how to handcuff her.” They are, admittedly, funny jokes.

Pervert Hunters: Fey is the host. “This creep thinks he’s meeting a Romanian prostitute … let’s see what happens when he meets me instead,” she says. The creep is played by Bennett. They cut and reset, following instructions from the director, played by Day. But his direction is undermined by the creep’s bad acting and blocking.

Fey is back as Sarah Palin! “Politics is a wild ride,” she says, “one minute you’re on top and the next you’re gone in the blink of a Scaramucci.” She begins to sing What I Did For Love from A Chorus Line, rewritten as What I Did For Trump.

Sarah Sanders (Bryant) joins her. “All my friends are gone,” she says. “It’s like Saved By The Bell: The New Class and I’m Screech and I’m still there for some reason.”

Kellyanne Conway (McKinnon) descends from the ceiling and sings her own verse. Armisen returns as Michael Wolff: “I’m going to be back because I’m writing a book about Jared and Ivanka,” he says, and then sings a verse about lying.

Cecily Strong is carried in as Stormy Daniels: she sings a song about how she’ll be remembered and then plugs her Ted Talk. John Goodman arrives as Rex Tillerson: “I’m the only man ever to go into a situation scathed and come out unscathed!” he says. Leslie Jones sings as Omarosa while the company hums along before they join in for the big finish.

Nicki Minaj returns for her second song, Poke It Out, with Playboi Carti. It’s a bop.

Livingston high school talent show! Fey and Melissa Villasenor are a PTA mom and a goth teen performing “the very same routine we performed at her first-grade talent show!” It’s a rendition of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. It feels pretty dated.

Finally: a new Dick Wolf drama, Chicago Improv. Dialogue ripped from real-life improv classes … watch as people wearing plaid balance love and ambition in America’s third-ranked comedy market.”

And that’s a season! Bryant attends the farewell dressed as America’s Worst White Lady, Jennifer Schulte. And now we can but look ahead at the months of ridiculousness that lie ahead and ask ourselves: is America funny if Saturday Night Live is on hiatus?

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