Kate McKinnon Breaks Character on ‘SNL’ Weekend Update

McKinnon along with Weekend Update host Colin Jost spoke to the ongoing pandemic and upcoming election.

Standup comedian Bill Burr hosted the second episode of Saturday Night Live’s 46th season, which opened with simultaneous spoofs of the vice presidential debate and the movie The Fly.

As for Weekend Update, this week’s topics dove back into Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis again, with Colin Jost saying that the president broke out of the hospital, Terminator-style. “Trump claims to have survived coronavirus,” Michael Che said and then followed with a lackluster “yay.”

But the highlight of the episode was Kate McKinnon appearing at the desk as “Dr. Wayne Weknowdis” to give a second opinion on Trump’s medical examination — repeatedly saying the phrase “we know this.”

McKinnon ended up breaking her character, with both her and Jost devolving into laughter.

“Kate are you okay?” Jost asked as she giggled continuously, pretending to check his blood pressure. “Obviously, I’m not,” McKinnon answered.

McKinnon then turned to the audience in Studio 8H as well as those watching at home, sharing how hard it is to grasp that we do not know what will happen with the ongoing pandemic or the upcoming election.

“It’s such a crazy time and this is something I started doing to cope,” McKinnon shared, referencing her sketch costume. “It’s refreshing to play a character who ‘know this.'”

“I know that it’s very stressful,” Jost said to McKinnon and viewers. “I know this is very hard right now. I know people are being very resilient about it. I know even though it doesn’t seem good, don’t worry. You can figure this out, we can do this.”

Sketches throughout the episode touched on performative activism, racism, the pandemic, and more. In a digital sketch, Beck Bennett made fun of influencer-celebrities making political videos. He recorded a shirtless front-facing video of himself singing a song called “Enough is Enough” addressed to Trump, but then his management asked him to take it down. Jason Momoa then called him to ask him to untag him from the video.

In an NFL talk show sketch, Burr played a Chicago Bears-loving white correspondent who started pretending he watched the news the night before instead of watching the game after his co-hosts played by Kenan Thompson and Ego Nwodim addressed recent police brutality against Black people. Burr’s character continued to be completely insensitive and ignorant, especially since he had pre-planned a series of pranks at his co-host’s expense. In another sketch, Burr also played a mafia leader being criticized for using homophobic and racist language.

Jack White served as the musical guest for the episode, replacing Morgan Wallen, who was dropped after breaking COVID-19 safety protocols according to SNL boss Lorne Michaels on the Today show.