httpss://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_E6_exp-iA
As Lin-Manuel Miranda noted in his monologue, his presence on Saturday Night Live made a small number of people VERY happy and a much larger contingency shaking their heads.
Still, Miranda has the same quality that the best hosts have: One could imagine him as a regular cast member.
Having Alec Baldwin repeat, “Grab them by the pussy,” on live television shocked the in-sketch anchor, but it’s not as if the show had to invent the word in order to raise the shock factor of Trump’s statement.
Throw in Kate McKinnon’s increasingly jubilant Hillary Clinton and a sharp jab at the top of the sketch about the show’s “Baby steps” towards racial inclusion in its cast, and you had a strong sketch to kick off the evening.
I’m one of those annoying jerks that has seen Hamilton on Broadway, and knew most of the lyrics due to obsessively listening to it in the months leading up to seeing the show.
This wasn’t just a simple riff on the show so much as introducing Lin-Manuel Miranda to the audience that he even admitted does not know who he is.
So it served not only as catnip for those that know the musical but as a simple introduction to the dizzying energy and wordplay that Miranda brings to the table.
Much like it did with its portrayal of the Romneys in 2012, SNL manages to find a human angle through which to posit what a day in the life of someone who constantly has to defend statements she personally abhors might be like.