‘Saturday Night Live’ had a lot to work with this week.
In one sketch, starring Ego Nwodim and Kenan Thompson, Jordan Peele’s ‘Us’ meets those Discovery commercials that advertise how the company gives customers ‘real’ people to talk to.
In this case, the real person is one of the film’s tethered.
“Good luck, you’ll just be talking to a robot,” Thompson’s character quips as Nwodim calls Discovery to check on suspicious activity. “Nope, with Discover card you get to talk to a real person who is just like you,” she replies.
Immediately she’s met on the other side of the phone by her very creepy doppelgänger, channeling Lupita Nyong’o’s performance.
When Nwodim complains that she’s not getting through to the customer services representative, Thompson insists on taking over the call. Instead of a creepy voice he’s greeted with a huge yelp, just like how Winston Duke’s doppelgänger communicates in the film.
In another, Chris Redd reprises his portrayal of Jussie Smollett getting fired from ‘Empire’ after his charges got dropped.
The sketch starts with the executives fuming over Smollett being two hours late for the meeting, and Oh’s manager jumping to his defense. “Jussie Smollett was a victim,” she says, vowing that there is a reasonable explanation for the delay just as Redd as Smollett bursts in, wearing a Make America Great Again hat and claiming that he had been attacked again.
When no one buys his story, Smollett (Redd) pulls out a large plastic bag — “a bag of clues” — and takes out a box of Crest Whitestrips, three red letters K that spell KKK, a receipt (“I need that,” he murmurs ), car keys and “the gay” purple Teletubby.
After he continues to insist that he had been attacked, the Fox exes offer to call the police, which Smollett refuses, saying that he is not allowed to; “it was part of the deal.”
Fox and the Empire producers have stood by Smollett during the controversy, saying in a statement earlier this week that “we are gratified that all charges against him have been dismissed.”
“Jussie, you know we’ve got to fire you, right?,” Thompson’s Daniels says.
Rudd’s Smollett is defiant, “I made this show. I am the gay Lee Daniels!,” he exclaims, to which Daniels responds, “I am the gay Lee Daniels. (Smollett’s Empire character was inspired by Daniels’ experiences as a young gay man.)
Watch both skits below.
