Saturday Night Live Recap: Amy Poehler Is a Great Hang

Following a shaky start to its 51st season, *Saturday Night Live* really needed a strong episode to prove it still had its touch. Amy Poehler was a perfect choice – she’s a consistently funny host who always delivers. While Bad Bunny brought some energy to the show, Poehler is a seasoned sketch performer, making her ideal for the job. It felt especially right to have her host during the show’s 50th anniversary celebration.

Amy Poehler isn’t promoting a new project; she’s here to talk about her popular podcast, *Good Hang with Amy Poehler*, which launched earlier this year. She playfully joked that becoming a podcaster might be a sign of the times. During a lighthearted introduction, she fondly remembered watching *Saturday Night Live* and even playfully feuded with Tilly Norwood, an AI performer. Poehler maintained that positive and engaging energy throughout the entire episode, regardless of how the jokes landed.

Look, I really appreciated that the show didn’t just lean on nostalgia and bring back old sketches. Instead, they smartly gave Amy Poehler fresh characters to play, and it *works*. She’s so good at playing these bold, spirited personalities, and they let her shine. The Rudemans sketch felt a little tired – that whole old-fashioned family dynamic has been done a lot – but Poehler, along with Sarah Sherman, managed to elevate it. Seeing them as Ashley Padilla’s subtly cutting mother and grandmother was a highlight – there’s a fantastic moment where Poehler, answering the phone, deadpans, “I’ll get the landline we randomly still have?” It’s a small detail, but it really landed for me.

This episode featured some big names, including Tina Fey who appeared in the opening sketch and on Weekend Update with Seth Meyers. Amy Poehler’s portrayal of Pam Bondi got things off to a good start, with a joke comparing Amy Klobuchar’s name to a Pokémon. However, it was Tina Fey as Kristi Noem who really stole the show, mainly with a darkly humorous bit about shooting her dog (“Dogs don’t just get shot. Heroes shoot them”). It was a simple joke, but it landed well with the audience.

Aubrey Plaza and her former *Parks & Recreation* colleague appeared together in the trailer for season two of *Hunting Wives*, cleverly highlighting the show’s ironic take on conservative lesbian themes. Meanwhile, Charli XCX made a quiet appearance, dancing during the first performance of Role Model’s upbeat and harmless summer songs. While cameos aren’t enough to carry *SNL*, these appearances helped make for a good episode, suggesting the show can continue to deliver consistently enjoyable, if not groundbreaking, content this season.

Here are the highlights:

Psychic Talk Show

https://youtube.com/watch?v=watch?v=TkHdLirSOrw

Sometimes when you realize a performance is built around a single, silly idea, it actually becomes more enjoyable, and that’s true here. It’s a parody of the psychic Sylvia Browne – I recently saw a clip of her online and the resemblance is uncanny. The humor really takes off when you accept that the character, Miss Lycus, won’t offer anything more insightful than simply stating someone is deceased to her devoted, heartbroken followers. Some of the lines are genuinely funny, like going from “He drowned until he died” to “He drowned, but he’s still alive. What’s dead is your marriage.” Surprisingly, the audience seems to love it.

Work Birth

https://youtube.com/watch?v=watch?v=jYphunIQIhg

Amy Poehler plays a determined corporate manager who’s determined to finalize a major deal, even while she’s nine months pregnant. The humor comes from her constantly shifting between professional focus and the onset of labor after her water breaks. It’s a fun surprise to see Ben Marshall as her doula, though I still find myself looking for the other members of the Please Don’t Destroy comedy group in the scenes.

Weekend Update

https://youtube.com/watch?v=watch?v=4A5GRpNQ-Xc

Colin Jost and Michael Che continued their playfully combative dynamic in this episode, with Che using the Sora AI tool to digitally place Jost into footage related to Trump and Epstein. Sarah Sherman delivered a strong performance as Rhonda LaCenzo, a concerned Long Island resident worried about the potential election of mayor Zohran Mamdani and jokingly mispronouncing “sharia law” as “shari-er lore” with her accent. The character is particularly funny because of her physical mannerisms, like her tense shoulders, and her constant offers of coffee – “Coffee, Che?”

https://youtube.com/watch?v=watch?v=XyMxQNmcpHM

The highlight of the show was definitely the Weekend Update Joke Off, where past anchors Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Seth Meyers teamed up with current hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che to joke about a 13-pound baby born in Tennessee. While not every joke landed, it was simply fun to see this group together, especially their playful use of improvised buzzer sounds. I would have happily watched them continue the segment for the entire Update.

Experienced Lawyers

https://youtube.com/watch?v=watch?v=Enb1qkoAcXI&t

This sketch was a highlight of the night. While Amy Poehler is reliably funny as the quirky lawyer Lachlan Mulchburger, the real genius lies in the escalating competition between injury attorneys, each claiming more experience than the last. The bit truly shines when it’s revealed there are multiple versions of each attorney—five Billsons and five Liebermans—and reaches peak absurdity with Andrew Yang’s cameo as Yggdrasil, a sacred tree who once represented Zeus.

Emo Mom

https://youtube.com/watch?v=watch?v=4ADCmY6lJ_8

Poehler builds a whole show around a simple idea: she plays a character who looks like a typical angsty teen, but complains about grown-up problems like parenting, elderly parents, and even forgetting her online account details. A quick shift where she briefly acts like a professional – she’s a school superintendent – during a phone call is a particularly funny moment.

Cut for Time

You told me two years ago on the show that my brother, despite being reported as drowned, was actually alive and doing well in Florida.

I have to say, Andrew Dismukes absolutely nailed it in that beer ad! It starts with him promoting non-alcoholic beer, which is clever enough, but then it brilliantly flips into an ad for a *very* strong brew – 96% alcohol, no less! The way they play with the concept of ‘non-alcoholic’ is just genius.

• Jeremy Culhane also makes a good showing this week. I’m less convinced of Tommy Brennan so far.

• Gotta love the review from A.I. Scott, “the robot now doing reviews for The New York Times.”

Jost’s family has celebrated National German-American Day since they quickly immigrated here in 1945, and the word ‘hastily’ really struck me as funny.

Grant and Alyssa, a surprisingly charming couple, recently appeared on Update to discuss dating in the fall (often called ‘cuffing season’) and Halloween. Alyssa joked that her costume idea – dressing as Sylvia Plath with a provocative twist – was a strong contender for the funniest line of the show.

• YggDrasil: Injury Attorney, Time Is An Illusion, We Are Shadows.

The theme songs masterclass sketch has some genuinely funny parts, especially the initial rap about *Severance* and the later switch to a sad, instrumental version of the *Fresh Prince of Bel-Air* theme. Bowen Yang’s character – a composer fixated on punishment – is more striking than Amy Poehler’s, and while the sketch doesn’t have a strong finish, it ultimately succeeds in being entertaining.

It was lovely to see Diane Keaton appear before the show ended. Ashley Padilla used to work as Keaton’s assistant, so this episode must have been particularly challenging for her, and she handled it wonderfully! Hopefully, the show will continue to give her roles that would have typically gone to Heidi Gardner and Ego Nwodim. Although she’s still a newer cast member, Padilla already seems to stand out from the rest.

2025-10-12 21:55