SNL

Mother’s Day

One of the stronger hosts this year was Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness star Benedict Cumberbatch, who totally embraced his silly side. He played the gleeful husband to Aidy Bryant’s stereotypical mom character who gets inundated with wooden signs that have increasingly specific and insulting sayings on them for Mother's Day. Bryant’s troubled reactions to these handcrafted and wine-focused signs truly never get old. “Oh look, it’s wine o’clock. I just love watching the sun rise,” one sign reads, to which she responds in a panic, “Is that implying that I’m getting drunk at dawn?”

“Roe v. Wade Cold Open” (May 8, 2022)

If a conservative Supreme Court is going to cite a 13th century precedent to overturn women’s right to abortion, then SNL heading back to the source for a rebuttal is potent, acidly funny stuff. Host Benedict Cumberbatch presides over a court where people poop out of windows, drill skull-holes to let the demons out, and throw left-handed children in the Thames, so naturally he and his nobles have some thoughts on a women’s right to choose. There’s a Blackadder-esque wickedness to the historical satire, Cumberbatch’s airy assurance that 1235 has all the answers countered by serving wench Cecily Strong and seer Kate McKinnon’s objections that a society where women were burned as witches might just have a few issues with women.