‘Saturday Night Live’ Recap: Tiffany Haddish Slays, Serves Up Sage Advice For Would-Be Sexual Harassers

Say what you will about Alec Baldwin’s Donald Trump, but at least when he’s in the Saturday Night Live cold open, the sketches have a focal point.

The show used this week’s open to tackle the Roy Moore scandal, but never quite figured out how to approach it, taking a slipshod approach that came off flailing. Criticized a few weeks back for not addressing the Harvey Weinstein scandal as soon as it broke, this week’s cold open found them checking off the necessary boxes, including an obligatory Louis CK mention, without any comedic point of view.

The sketch opened with Beck Bennett’s Mike Pence speaking to Moore (Mikey Day) in the White House, telling him that given revelations he dated young girls, he’ll need to drop out of the race. A few shots at Moore and Alabama — and Moore, after Pence says he’ll need to do the right thing, saying that if he has to, he’ll marry the girl — paled next to the laugh Bennett got when Moore asks him to check with the boss, and Pence replies, I’m not calling Putin for this.

Pence leaves the room to let him think about dropping out of the race, and suddenly Jeff Sessions (Kate McKinnon) pops out of a cabinet where he’s been lurking and listening. Moore proves to be too much even for Sessions, who loves his work, but feels dating teenagers is a step too far even for him, After a minute, Day exits, and the sketch ends with Sessions talking to a raccoon like it’s his “daddy.” All in all, a disjointed cold open that missed several tremendous targets.

First time host and veteran stand-up comic Tiffany Haddish stuck to stand-up in her routine, addressing how she grew up in foster homes, and detailing her fight to get the other kids in the group homes to watch SNL when she was growing up. Haddish is a new celebrity, having just come to fame with this year’s Girls’s Trip, and she tackles the silliness of celebrity rituals by talking about how the dress she wore was also her red carpet dress, and while everyone told her she could never wear it again, she was gonna wear it everywhere — to her next wedding, to your wedding, and even in her casket when she dies. She also briefly addressed the recent harassment scandals, advising guys, “If you got your thing-thing out and she got her clothes on, you’re in the wrong. Wait til she take her own clothes off, then pull your thing-thing out.” Solid advice, and a strong monologue.

The first sketch takes us to a gamer convention, where Pete Davidson and Kenan Thompson prepare to compete in a vicious fighting game. Selecting their fighters, Davidson picks Day’s warrior Scorponox; Thompson accidentally clicks on Haddish’s Boo Boo Jeffries, who’s more of a party girl than a fighter. While Scorponox’s tagline is, “No mercy, only pain,” an always-dancing Jeffries introduces herself with, “Boo Boo Jeffries, yo, ya’ll know me, heyyyyy.” The fighter overview shows her special moves to be screaming “Rihanna!” and “Beyonce!” Her strength is her relationship with her mom, and her weakness is “fighting.” When the fight begins, turns out Boo Boo Jeffries isn’t much of a fighter. Surprisingly, she abhors violence. A funny turn for Haddish.

Next, the show brought back its recurring screen tests sketch, this time for the newly announced live action remake of The Lion King. A showcase for cast and host impressions, this was far from one of the show’s best, but had a few fun ones. Highlights: Thompson’s coy LL Cool J screwing up “Hakuna Matata” while reading for Pumba; Leslie Jones as Oprah auditioning for Rafiki, holding up a stuffed lion while yelling, “Today’s guest, Simbaaaaaa!!!!!!!”; and Chris Redd and Heidi Gardner as Sterling K. Brown and Kristen Schaal reading for Timon and Pumbaa. Both were excellent, with Gardner’s Schaal was the best impression of the sketch. At this rate, Redd and Gardner are showing their strengths and coming to prominence on the show quickly, much like Day and Alex Moffat did last season.

Ironically, the next sketch, a celebratory video from the Democratic National Committee for this week’s electoral victories, might have been as good a showcase for impressions, if not better. Taking shots at the party for their aging, out of touch leadership, Moffat’s Chuck Schumer and Cecily Strong’s Dianne Feinstein perfectly capture their stiff nerdiness, alongside McKinnon’s stone faced Nancy Pelosi and Day’s Tim Kaine. McKinnon’s Hillary Clinton and Larry David’s Bernie Sanders get thrown in the mix as well, along with Leslie Jones’ “I will destroy all of this” Donna Brazile. Not great satire, but does feature a few fun moments.

Next comes a short video blending the ongoing relationship storyline between Jones and Mooney, the Weekend Update flirtation between Jones and Colin Jost, and the real life friendship between Bennett and Mooney, turning it all into one big love quadrangle that ends in Jost getting beaten by all involved, including Haddish and Lorne Michaels. More cute than funny, but good to see Mooney getting some genuine screen time.

The most on-the-nose joke from “Weekend Update” wasn’t a joke at all, but rather a statement, by Jost: “It’s a good weekend to stay inside, since it’s 20 degrees out, and everyone you ever heard of is a sex monster.” Noting the cowboy outfit Roy Moore wore at a recent rally, Jost says he looks like the guy who shows up at Westworld and says, “Hey, can someone show me where the middle school is?” He followed that with, “How are we still surprised that a guy who puts the Ten Commandments up everywhere doesn’t follow them? What’s next, it turns out the guy who always jokes about masturbating wasn’t joking about masturbating?” Louis CK’s picture appeared for that one.

At the desk, Strong played “Claire from HR,” there to offer clearly much-needed sexual harassment guidelines. Claire is pretty much out of her mind after this week, forced to ask multiple choice questions that amount to, “When talking to co-workers, where should you put your penis?” Sadly, she says as she squirts hand sanitizer into her mouth so she can feel clean again, too many guys get this wrong. Jost pasts the test, but don’t worry, says Claire – at this point, I’ll be back every week.

Thompson’s LaVar Ball made a return to the desk, bragging about his son, Lonzo Ball, who, he says, will be so great, he’ll even be named America’s Next Top Model.

In the next sketch, Haddish plays a black unicorn who can see the future. When a few kids discover her, she tells their fortunes, and it’s not all pretty. While Bennett and Melissa Villasenor have happiness ahead, Aidy Bryant will have five kids with five different fathers. “For a few years, you’re just conceiving and birthing, back to back to back to back – if you ain’t getting it in, you’re getting it out.” While the first couple will have a child who’s an excellent painter, one of Bryant’s kids will be involved with paint as well – huffing it.

Next, Jones plays the host of “Get Woke with Tamika,” an intimate talk show that first appears to be about progressive topics. But after talking women’s rights with Bryant’s author/advocate in a conversation that flusters both, we learn that the show is sponsored by Breitbart News. Next comes Haddish as an Instagram model turned film reviewer, but there isn’t a chair for her. By this point, Jones has flubbed several lines and dropped her mic, but also, the show’s incompetence is part of the sketch. By the time she announces her next sponsor, Russia, the sketch has lost any semblance of direction, and it’s hard to tell if this is a parody of a bad talk show, a sketch that sincerely fell apart, or both. By the end, I had no idea what this sketch was supposed to be.

Next came a funny short film with McKinnon and Bryant playing two elderly scientists, recalling the time they tried to teach a dolphin to speak. The dolphin would get agitated, and so to help them complete their scientific inquiries, they took to providing the dolphin with manual release. Soon, the dolphin began to speak, uttering the phrases, “Hand!’ and “Now!” Haddish plays their fellow scientist who recalls how nasty she thought the whole thing was.

For the final sketch, McKinnon brought back the lesbian, cat-loving host of “Whiskers R We,” this time with Haddish as her fellow cat lover. As usual with this sketch, the two play with real cats, and Haddish gets some groping in. While they’ve done this a few times, it seems a weird week for an unsolicited-groping sketch. With a special appearance by Redd as Katt Williams, who nails it.

SNL returns next week with host Chance the Rapper, and musical guest Eminem.

Larry Getlen is the author of the book Conversations with Carlin. His greatest wish is to see Stefon enjoy a cheeseburger at John Belushi’s diner. Follow him on Twitter at @larrygetlen.

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