SNL‘s Weekend Update is where the show tackles the news of the week that was, and unfortunately that hasn’t been very good news lately. While vaccines continue to go into arms, coronavirus cases are rising in many places and news outside of the disease has been just as harrowing. A number of mass shootings and attacks against Asian-Americans have had many calling for change, and SNL added to that call on Saturday night.
The segment started with Colin Jost and Michael Che talking about Joe Biden’s calls for gun control after more mass shootings, blasting Republicans for not caring about human beings after more senseless deaths due to lax firearm regulations and Second Amendment advocates.
“Republicans please stop calling this a Second Amendment issue and just admit that you love guns more than people you don’t know,” Jost said showing off political ads from Republicans holding various weapons. “Look at them. You look like you’re running for president of ISIS.”
The segment also addressed Joe Biden falling up the stairs of Air Force One, which is fitting considering the show made a meal of Gerald Ford’s similar mishap decades earlier. Ford, however, didn’t get a dance remix in reverse. Other jokes during the segment include a riff about Peeps Pepsi, and diversity among the Sesame Street puppets.
Cecily Strong also appeared to play former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, who is being sued by Dominion Voting Systems for so much money she’s claiming no one should trust anything she says as a legal defense.
In another powerful segment, Bowen Yang spoke openly and honestly about the recent rise in very public anti-Asian hate crimes in America and what needs to be done to make life for Asian-Americans better amid racism and hate.
Alternating between funny, heartbreaking and inspiring, it was a good note to end the segment on and a good reminder that we can all be a bit better in an effort to help others who are experiencing suffering around us.