Saturday Night Live review: Emma Stone shines as real Donald Trump weighs in

It’s easy to tell from the very start when a celebrity has the goods to be a great Saturday Night Live host – are they smart, goofy, and willing to make fun of themselves and their friends?

When someone fits the bill, the show will bring that person back often, and Emma Stone seems poised to becoming a regular. In her third hosting gig, she fit so perfectly into sketches that she felt like a cast member, while bringing star power when it was needed.

At first glance, it seemed like the cold open was going to dodge politics entirely by beginning in a high school classroom, but it ended up focusing on a dim 16-year-old who Donald Trump had retweeted – a real-life occurrence, the show went out of its way to point out.

The scene reiterated the show’s only take on the president-elect – he’s incompetent and uninterested in governing, constantly retweeting random people while his team desperately tried to make him pay attention to a security briefing.

The show – via Kate McKinnon’s always brilliant Kellyanne Conway impression – seems to subscribe to the theory that Trump tweets to distract from damaging news, although Alec Baldwin’s Trump argued that he’s simply got a “bad” brain.

Kenan Thompson’s disgusted reaction to the realization that Trump’s inauguration is only seven weeks away was the most honest and funniest moment, even beating the sketch’s reveal of the arrival of Steve Bannon as a literal demon.

Returning host Stone used her monologue to revel in her familiarity with the show, which she likened to returning to her high school in a charming if unmemorable opening segment. It bled easily into a high school theatrical performance, where the black-clad actors determined that, “now more than ever”, they must do their part to improve the world with heavy-handed scenes about fascism and gay rights. A smart, honest commentary on mindless liberalism, the sketch worked entirely due to Thompson and Vanessa Bayer as audience parents who could see through the bullshit. (It’s almost certainly not a coincidence that the stage looked eerily similar to the Second City stage, which has come under some controversy lately.

Though relatively insubstantial, Christmas musical segments are historically some of the show’s strongest (Dick in a Box, Santa’s My Boyfriend) and this year’s was solid – an ode to a peach candle that’s endlessly re-gifted “to every woman and most gays”.

The other big highlight was the bigfoot-style hunt for Hillary Clinton in the hills of Chappaqua, an attempt “find her, trap her, and thank her”, as so many people seem to be doing these days. Shouting out to her with her via an obviously fake laugh, the hunters hoped to entice her with an article about the Wisconsin recount, but they never manage to capture the elusive former secretary of state.

Weekend Update seems to be finding a mid-level groove – nowhere near its high point, but not at the depths that befell the writing after Seth Meyers and his team left the show. Michael Che’s joke about Trump not knowing the difference between China and Taiwan seemed to upset the audience, as did Colin Jost’s joke about Clinton’s campaign helping Trump get elected.

It’s hard to see where either was particularly objectionable. Jost seemed genuinely passionate while defending the protesters at Standing Rock, while Che made some smart points about the detrimental effects of the new smoking ban in public housing, an issue that clearly resonated with him. Finishing off with a self-serving but still amusing Jennifer Aniston cameo, the segment overall had a strong perspective and enough good jokes to make it worthwhile.

The final sketch of the night was a smart take on the virgin birth, told from the perspective of Mary (Stone), who had some legitimate complaints about her lot in life. It worked solely because Stone sold it so well – the show is lucky to have such vibrant guests hosts who are willing to commit so strongly. Here’s hoping by 20 January, they’ll have more to say about our next president.