<em>SNL</em> Runs an Ad for Elizabeth Warren

On the question of why it took so long for Warren to unveil her Medicare for All funding scheme, McKinnon’s character noted a double standard in how she and Bernie Sanders are judged. She then used a poster to show her three-point plan to pay for universal health care: Cut military spending, tax Amazon, and tax banks—all of which are actual proposals of Warren’s. On the question of whether her plans were too radical for most Americans, McKinnon’s Warren replied with a line I could have sworn I’d heard at one of the Democratic debates: “You know why lobbyists are so against universal health care? They’re afraid you’re going to like it. ‘Cause it’s awesome!”

There were, to be sure, stabs at satire—directed toward both Warren and other Democrats—within the amplification of talking points. McKinnon’s character argued, for example, that Sanders is treated like the fun dad with whom “you eat birthday cake for breakfast then go to Six Flags,” while Warren is the mom who holds “your hand while you throw up in my purse.” When asked to explain her math, McKinnon’s Warren unveiled a complicated-looking board of charts and graphs and said, with hilarious matter-of-factness, “you’d die” if she tried to explain it. Regarding experts’ disagreements on the cost of her plans, she said, “When the numbers are this big, they’re just pretend.”

Late in the sketch, an audience member, played by Chloe Fineman, said she was nervous to lose her private insurance. McKinnon’s Warren made like a TV relationship coach, comparing Blue Cross Blue Shield to a “bad boyfriend” she should leave. Fineman’s character broke down, admitting that she was indeed “settling.” The bit wasn’t very funny, but it was forceful: an attempt at putting dramatic reform proposals in warm, human terms. Not incidentally, that’s also a challenge Warren’s campaign faces. Did Liz win that woman’s vote? “I don’t know,” Fineman shrugged. “Pete Buttigieg seems nice!”

For the rest of the episode, the host Kristen Stewart brought her blasé charisma to bear with mixed results. Many skits were solidly in SNL’s recent drunken- nonsense mode, involving not one big joke but a bunch of surreal, disconnected ones. A highlight: Aidy Bryant as a woman who buys an overpriced paint brand from the United Kingdom and pronounces the u in colour. On “Weekend Update,” Melissa Villaseñor and Heidi Gardner made an impression as an overrated child genius and her unloving stage mom.

The episode’s best moment of real-world commentary actually made no mention of presidential candidates, though it seemed oddly in line with the subtexts of the Democratic primary. It was a pop-punk music video in which the singers shout slogans against corporate capitalism but, over the course of the song, are seduced by the logic of office-drone ladder climbing. McKinnon’s Warren might shiver at its telling of a timeless tale: big structural change thwarted by the existing structures’ itty-bitty tricks.

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Spencer Kornhaber is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he covers pop culture and music.