Who is Hosting Saturday Night Live Tonight: June 20, 2020

at
Share This Post

Cheers anglophiles! Tonight’s Saturday Night Live rerun is hosted by the new Queen of British Comedy, “Fleabag” star Phoebe Waller-Bridge!

While Saturday Night Live is in its summer hiatus, the show is dipping deep into last season’s episodes to air again. Tonight at 11:30pm et on NBC, SNL goes all the way back to the second show of SNL – Season 45 for tonight’s repeat. This evening’s SNL encore is hosted by the creative force behind the Emmy award winning BBC and Amazon Prime comedy-drama “Fleabag“, Phoebe Waller-Bridge. This show originally aired on Saturday, October 5, 2019.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge was really riding a high when she hosted SNL last fall. Her BBC series “Fleabag” which had been purchased by Amazon Prime for American viewers, had cleaned up at the Primetime Emmy Awards. Less than a month before getting to host Saturday Night Live, Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s show won 6 Primetime Emmy Awards including Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for herself.

It will be fun to watch this episode of SNL again tonight which was broadcast from Studio 8-H with a jam-packed live audience. This will take us back to a very different time in the country before the pandemic and when our President was still facing an inquiry into an impeachment trial he was sure to win. This was long before Donald Trump would consider anyone wearing P.P.E. to protect their own lives, a personal insult hurled his way.

The SNL – Cold Open for tonight’s replay involves last year’s impeachment inquiry, but did not include Alec Baldwin as President Trump. The SNL cast members handled the impeachment-themed cold open with Beck Bennett playing his always stiff VP Mike Pence, Kate McKinnon playing a ghoulish version of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Aidy Bryant who had moved on from playing Trump Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to playing White House Attorney General Bill Barr in this opening sketch.

The three sycophants try in vain to come up with a decent impeachment strategy for the President. Not that it mattered with a jury stacked with U.S. Senators scared to death of Trump. For some extra help, SNL‘s Pence, Barr and Giuliani (great law firm name) call in Secretary of State Mike Pompeo which adds a new player to Saturday Night Live‘s version of the Trump Administration. It’s none other than Matthew Broderick whose impression of Pompeo is really just “what if Ferris Bueller went on to become Secretary of State!?”, which he probably could have done.

Moving on to tonight’s monologue, host Phoebe Waller-Bridge clues in the American audience watching SNL on her British dramedy “Fleabag“and explains what it’s all about. She also discusses the other British series she produces, “Killing Eve” starring Sandra Oh, which is available on BBC America and AMC.

Quick fast-forward from last October’s SNL to now: We’ve found out since then that there won’t be a third season of “Fleabag“. Phoebe Waller-Bridge announced that she is retiring her award winning character. However, she has signed a developmental deal with Amazon Prime to create more content for the streaming platform.

Plus, you’ll see her fingerprints all over the new James Bond movie, “No Time to Die” due out Friday, November 20, 2020. The Bond film starring Daniel Craig has had its release date pushed back due to the Covid shutdown. Phoebe Waller-Bridge won’t be appearing in “No Time to Die“, but she was brought in to punch up the script with some humor and to help handle Bond’s rich history of misogyny and update this Bond adventure for the #MeToo era.

Back to tonight’s SNL repeat, if you can’t get enough of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s lovable British accent in the monologue tonight, there’s plenty of material in this evening’s Saturday Night Live replay where the cast tries to properly speak the Queen’s English right along with the host.

One of these moments includes the return of a very funny sketch on SNL called “The War in Words.” In this edition of the sketch, cast member Mike Day plays a British soldier named William who writes to his beloved Lydia back home in England. The soldier doesn’t quite get the responses he was hoping for and then regrets prying Lydia for more information.

Another British themed sketch in tonight’s SNL rerun includes a BBC special event called “Royal Romances” featuring Kate McKinnon as Prentis Popplewell, (see, it’s funny to say British names) and host Phoebe Waller-Bridge as Abigail, the Duchess of Clerkenwell who takes an American lover named Jimmy Jay Robinson who’s better known as Thunderstick. You’ll see this takes a lot of inspiration from Eddie Murphy’s movie released last fall, “Dolemite Is My Name.”

And the one SNL Short this week is all British accents. It’s a parody spot for “Love Island,” a British dating reality show featuring hook-ups and make-outs with contestants from small towns around England with dialects so off-putting, they can’t even understand each other.

The British accents get thrown out in favor of some hardcore American ones in the last sketch of the night, “Kaylee, Crystal & Janetta.” The sketch features Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant, Cecily Strong and host Phoebe Waller-Bridge as some redneck women out to party and commiserate over man problems at Buddy’s State Line Bar. The best parts of this sketch are the women of SNL and their host trying to make each other break with their over-the-top characters and cast member Beck Bennett as the ex who’s dated them all and is the object of their affection, Gerald from Guitar Center.

One sketch in tonight’s repeat from last fall actually feels more timely today than it did when it originally aired. It’s called “Mid-Day News,” and it features a 4 person bi-racial news team made up of Phoebe Waller-Bridge and cast members Alex Moffat, Kenan Thompson and Ego Nwodim. As news stories come up on the broadcast, the members of the Channel 7 Mid-Day News team can’t hide their enthusiasm when the crime is blamed on a person of a different race.

In tonight’s repeat, we also get the return of the popular game show sketch, “What’s Wrong With This Picture?“, hosted by cast member Kenan Thompson as the ever-frustrated Elliot Pants. The contestants are compromised of Aidy Bryant, Kyle Mooney and host Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Even “Harvey Weinstein” gets a shout out in this sketch. Hope he watching this evening’s rerun.

The Weekend Update news team of Colin Jost & Michael Che are verbally beating President Trump like an impeached piñata in this evening’s SNL replay. At this point in history, Trump is still facing impeachment and Jost & Che are really enjoying it. They report on the President’s ongoing fight with the media, incriminating text messages, and his constant use of the phrase “No quid pro quo.” Tonight, Michael Che sums it up by saying, “Trump keeps saying there was no quid pro quo which can only mean there was mad quid pro quo.”

Trump seems so inane back then that at one point in this SNL newscast, Michael Che asks, “Are we sure it’s okay to make fun of this guy?”. Che, if you think that the Trump from last October was bad, you should see him in June 2020 trying to drink water and walk down a very gradual ramp.

Other topics covered by Weekend Update this evening include Bernie Sander’s heart attack, plant-based dog food, R. Kelly’s prison visits from his girlfriends, a study about fathers-to-be and drinking, an aloof cat study, pet horse complaints on Staten Island, a billboard displaying porn, and a man suing after he got hit in his acorns by a 75 mph pitch at some batting cages.

There are plenty of names on the Weekend Update Recurring Character Roll Call in tonight’s repeat. First, Kate McKinnon is back on Update as Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) thanking the donors to her Presidential campaign and even taking the time to call some of them personally. Senator Warren is followed by another political character, featured cast member Bowen Yang as Chinese trade representative Chen Biao. The character that somehow isn’t considered a Chinese stereotype by SNL.

Then, we get a new character on Weekend Update. Mikey Day plays 110 year old Mort Fellner with the “Supercentenarian News.” This feel good news segment doesn’t feel all that great by the time Mort is done saluting his fellow super centenarians.

We have a promo available for tonight’s repeat episode of Saturday Night Live. In it, the SNL cast members welcome multiple Emmy Award winner Phoebe Waller-Bridge to Saturday Night Live. It’s pretty easy to spot that Phoebe is an Emmy Award winner, especially since she won’t put them down to even get a drink of water or push the button for the elevator. If we didn’t know better, we’d say expect a lot of “Primetime Emmy” humor in tonight’s show.

“Fleabag” star Phoebe Waller-Bridge hosts tonight’s encore presentation of Saturday Night Live. She’s joined by superstar musical guest Taylor Swift. This evening’s SNL replay begins tonight at 11:30pm et on NBC.

Read more comedy news.

Ernie Tripper

Ernie Tripper