‘Saturday Night Live’ Recap: Aziz Ansari Ably Helms a Trump-less Show

Despite this being the first SNL with Donald Trump as president, there was no Trump to be seen this episode — though the show’s resident Trump, Alec Baldwin, did do his impression at a protest a couple days ago in New York. Of course, that didn’t mean he wasn’t the main target of the day. Host Aziz Ansari — a strong and consistent presence throughout the show — spent most of his opening monologue talked about our new Commander-in-Chief.

Likewise, the cold open featured Beck Bennett as Vladimir Putin mocking Trump, the Inauguration, and extolling the virtues of Russia. Kate McKinnon’s Olya Povlatsky makes an appearance, darting off with her pension — a dead fish — before sneaking back and donning one of the pink pussy hats that dotted the women’s marches earlier in the day.

Bennett’s Putin is little more than an accent and a bare torso at this point, but hopefully Bennett will begin adding layers to the character like Kate McKinnon’s done with her Kellyanne Conway (more on that below). Or maybe what we should be hoping for is for Bennett to not have to flesh out the character because Putin ceases to be an important figure in the news?

The final segment of the night was a farewell to outgoing President Obama in the form of Cecily Strong and Sasheer Zamata singing “To Sir, With Love.” On the one hand, it’s odd because there’s no attempt to be at all comedic — even when McKinnon performed “Hallelujah” as a tribute a couple months back, she did it as Hillary Clinton, so it barely qualified as a sketch. On the other hand, SNL is technically a variety show — one that used to have stage magic and Muppets. Odds are, anyone who would take issue shut it off as soon as the segment opened with a picture of Mr. Obama right at the top.

Best/Worst Sketch of the Night: “Pizza Town”

This sketch is just Kevin Roberts meets David S. Pumpkins — half the laughs come from the janky robot motion, half come from the terribly hokey song. It’s clear they’re trying to replicate their fluke success with Tom Hanks and the segment feels like it only exists to make and sell t-shirts at Target. This is an objectively bad sketch.

But there are a lot of people who grew up with weird, animatronic cartoon characters singing to them at birthday parties all through their childhood — and for those people, the haunting refrain “I like that pizza pizza,” will be stuck in their head for weeks. Mikey Day, Bobby Moynihan, Aidy Bryant, and Ansari nail the awful weirdness of pizzeria robots, and the music is absolutely indistinguishable from a Showbiz or Chuck E. Cheese original. This is an amazing sketch and in the running for best of the season. So did you love or hate this sketch? Better decide now, because your social media feeds are about to be filled with people arguing about it.

Best Use of Aziz Ansari: “Attorney Ad”

Ansari is a master of indignation, and here he gets to display the full range of this emotion. From a muted, “Wait…” to a full-throated, “I’m not sure Ganz did a good job here!” this is his sweet spot as a comedic actor. If only all of his characters were buried in cement for three days.

Episode MVP: Kate McKinnon

McKinnon is great in “Attorney Ad” and her Olya Povlatsky is always welcome. But she could have been won the episode MVP with this sketch alone: A Chicago-esque Bob Fosse number that never was. We’ve seen her Kellyanne Conway run the gamut from despair to exasperation to relief, but here, we get to see Conway triumphant and it’s McKinnon at her scene-chewing, spotlight-stealing best.

Honorable mentions:

Five Stars: Two needy people (Ansari, Moynihan) make a connection in a rideshare. Funny and a little tender, this is fantastic stuff.

Weekend Update: Jake Rocheck: Is anybody still talking about the friend zone? This feels as dated as a Tamatchi sketch.

Bedroom: Melissa Villasenor has a rictus grin throughout the entire sketch. Other than that, it’s a good sketch, so… maybe we call it a character choice and let it be?

Saturday Night Live airs Saturdays at 11:35 p.m. on NBC. Watch clips and full episodes of SNL for free on Yahoo View.