It should come as no surprise that Saturday Night Live, marking its
return with a Thursday mini-spinoff last night, has managed to make the
already-tired week-long spotlight on Joe Wilson’s
five-second moment seem newly hilarious. Re-imagining the
behind-the-scenes planning of the “You Lie!” cry, SNL satirizes a team
of uniformly Southern-drawled, blue-tie-wearing Republican senators, and
finally gives us a more reasonable explanation for Wilson’s comment. As
with the Tina Fey as Sarah Palin
sketches last season, the laughs come not from hyperbole, but from
the eerie accuracy to real events–and even though Palin is now out of
the picture, Kristen Wiig as Michele Bachmann provides a preview of what
might become material for a whole season.

—Fernanda Diaz

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