Saturday Night Live knew it was airing right before Hillary Clinton was going to announce that she was going to run for President in 2016–so it was no surprise when SNL opened with a goof on the week’s biggest political announcement. That also kind of makes the sketch an inherent highlight. It wasn’t bad, although we doubt that Kate McKinnon will be allowed to play the former First Lady as savagely once Hillary becomes the Democratic candidate.
Otherwise, SNL was reliably uninspired by Empire star Taraji P. Henson as the host. It was nice to see a Muppet return to the show, since a lot of people don’t know that Jim Henson’s (non-Sesame Street) creations were stars in the first season. The SNL writers still couldn’t come up with anything better than Empire‘s monstrous Cookie meeting the Cookie Monster.
Also, it’s a little weird how SNL added all those African-American cast members just to do stereotypical “black” parodies of things. Last night was Black Game of Thrones, and you have to wonder about the enthusiasm for those kinds of sketches. Also, Taraji’s musical monologue sketch had to go gospel instead of show tune. Oh, well. Anyway, here’s the Hillary sketch. It’s in the news…