Saturday Night Live: Simu Liu and a returning Trump celebrate Thanksgiving - The Guardian

The Shang-Chi star made his SNL debut in a hit-and-miss episode that saw James Austin Johnson as the former president.

The rightwing pundit (Cecile Strong) invites on “fellow judge” Bruce Schroeder (Mikey Day), who defends his disgraceful handling of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, noting that he “did not give my client an unfair advantage in any way”; two NPR hosts, one white and outraged (Chloe Fineman) over the verdict, the other black and unsurprised (Chris Redd); and finally, Donald Trump (James Austin Johnson).

The show clearly knows they have a winner on their hands with Johnson’s Trump, although it’s going to be hard to justify inserting him into the show every other week when the real Trump is not actually in any of the big headlines.

In Walking in Staten, the extoll the virtues of “the land of Colin Jost and the legendary Wu-Tang”, home to “a lot of cops and a ton of pills”, the ghost of Robbert Loggia and strip clubs that used to be McDonald’s.

Unfortunately, the segment’s respective guests – Baby Yoda (Kyle Mooney) and Mother Earth (Aidy Bryant) – make for some of the weaker moments in the entire episode, the latter grating and played out, the other too half-cooked an idea to strike the apocalyptic tone it’s going for.

As Ego Nwodim’s exasperated emergency operator puts it, “old people gotta stop smoking new weed.” It’s a laid-back closer that still feels somewhat rushed.

Still, it’s an improvement from last week’s episode and a good note to go out on before the holiday hiatus