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SNL Separation Anxiety: When SNL Season 38 Tackled Homer's The Odyssey

SNL Separation Anxiety: This week, we look back at Season 38 Episode 4 (October 13th, 2012) and SNL's own take on Homer's The Odyssey.

Published Sat, 18 Jul 2026 22:37:10 -0500

by Ray Flook

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Article Summary

SNL Separation Anxiety revisits Season 38, Episode 4, with Christina Applegate hosting and Passion Pit as musical guest.
The focus is SNL’s “Odysseus and the Sirens,” a Homer-inspired sketch timed to buzz around Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.
Jason Sudeikis leads Odysseus and his crew, with Fred Armisen, Taran Killam, and Bobby Moynihan aboard the doomed ship.
SNL’s sirens, played by Applegate, Kate McKinnon, and Cecily Strong, derail the mission with irresistible ’90s pop hits.

Welcome back to our (mostly) weekly SNL Separation Anxiety, our update on how things are going with NBC's Saturday Night Live and Sky's Saturday Night Live UK as they head toward their respective Fall returns (with SNL UK set to kick off Season 2 in September). Earlier this week, we got a ten-ton sign that SNL was finalizing its Season 52 cast, with Chloe Fineman announcing on social media that she was departing the series after seven seasons. While we await official return dates for both shows, we're taking a trip back in time to October 13th, 2012 – or, in SNL-speak, Season 38 Episode 4 (with Christina Applegate hosting and Passion Pit serving as the musical guest). In honor of Christopher Nolan's upcoming cinematic epic, The Odyssey, we decided to revisit the time when SNL offered its own take on Homer.

Image: SNL/NBCUniversal YouTube/TikTok Screencaps

In the sketch "Odysseus and the Sirens," Jason Sudeikis' Odysseus has a plan to navigate his ship and his crew (including Fred Armisen, Taran Killam, and Bobby Moynihan) safely through the lair of the dangerously seductive sirens (Applegate, Kate McKinnon, and Cecily Strong). Not only will Odysseus tie himself to the mast to keep himself from steering the ships into the rocks, but he also orders his crew to plug their ears to avoid the sirens' calling. Except, there was one thing that they never saw coming – something that Odysseus himself can't help but fall prey to. Yup, the sirens hit them with some very cool and incredibly popular 1990s pop songs. And they bring out the big guns, too – including Shania Twain's "That Don't Impress Me Much," TLC's "No Scrubs," and Lisa Loeb's "Stay (I Missed You)." We won't spoil where things go from there, but it's a great sketch that showcases some major comedic forces proving they know how to bring the "funny" – here's a look: