Posted in: NBC, Peacock, TV | Tagged: saturday night live, snl

SNL 50 Cold Open: Carvey's Church Lady Returns; Spade as Hunter Biden

Tonight's SNL cold open featured Dana Carvey reprising The Church Lady, with David Spade returning to portray Hunter Biden and much more.

NBC's Saturday Night Live returned tonight with host Paul Mescal (Gladiator II) and musical guest Shaboozey, and it wasted little time reminding everyone that this is the long-running late-night sketch comedy and music series' milestone 50th season by blending a beloved character from SNL's past with some very modern satirical targets. Dana Carvey returned as The Church Lady with a cold open that was far from the painful nostalgia-fest that I feared it would be. In fact, Carvey was in fine form overall, giving the popular character an energized vibe. Of course, The Church Lady is only as good as her guests – thankfully, her lineup included Matt Gaetz (Sarah Sherman, who looked positively demonic in all the right ways possible), Hunter Biden (David Spade, who we almost didn't recognize), and Juan Soto (Marcello Hernandez).

With Gaetz, the target was obvious: the House of Representatives ethics report that may or may not make Gaetz look bad when it comes to the ages of the women he may or may not like to associate with – allegedly. With Biden, it was about him getting pardoned by his dad, President Joseph Biden – with a great Jesus/God joke that was a nice knife-twister. But our favorite part was the early exchange between the two where they treaded on "the fourth wall" a bit (Spade/Biden: I haven't been here in a while. I have been laying low a little bit." / The Church Lady/Carvey: "Oh, I think that's okay. At least you haven't been doing a podcast" (a reference to their Fly on the Wall podcast). And then there was Soto, who almost passed The Church Lady's test when he spoke about how often he went to church – but it all went south when The Church Lady reminded him that "money is the root of all evil" and Soto responded that he planned on being the most evil MLB baseball player playing the game today. After a lot of verbal fire and brimstone to her three guests, The Church Lady ended her show (and the cold open) with a little song about how Satan has had a pretty damn good year – with a large chunk of the cast out on the stage before we hit to the "LIVE FROM NEW YORK, IT'S SATURDAY NIGHT!"

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