This was a difficult week for New York, a week full of emergencies and sadness and fear and frenzy and loss.
The lights are coming back on, but things still don’t feel normal yet post-Sandy.
It’ll take time for the region – and the country – to find its new normal again.
Amid the sadness, life goes on. Days pile up. Distractions help us move past the tough times.
So this week’s episode of “Saturday Night Live” carried extra importance, a chance for the city to laugh through its tears – and laugh at itself a bit, too.
Comedian Louis C.K., star of FX’s “Louie” and a longtime New York resident, was a fitting host, turning Rockefeller Center into a laugh factory with his sharp humor.
Superstorm Sandy’s impact was felt in the show’s open, a mock press conference showing Mayor Bloomberg (played by Fred Armisen) and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (Bobby Moynihan).
The real star of the skit? Bloomberg’s sign-language interpreter Lydia Callis, played by cast member Cecily Strong. Callis’s animated gestures have become one of the storm’s notable distractions, and “Saturday Night Live” played off of that, with Callis holding an imaginary hose and firing invisible guns to represent firefighters and police officers.
Moynihan’s “Sopranos”-themed Christie, meanwhile, threatened Atlantic City Mayor Lorenzo Langford – highlighting the politicians’ real-life feud – and discussed his newfound kinship with President Obama after the pair toured storm-damaged New Jersey together.
“I’ll vote for Romney, but I’m gonna hate it,” ‘Christie’ said.
Louis C.K.’s monologue followed, basically an eight-minute standup set, microphone and all. He spent the monologue analyzing a recent airport encounter with an elderly woman who had fallen on the ground.
“Now I have a working knowledge of lingerie from the 1920s,” he said. “You wait one second to see if anyone will help, but no one was helping her.
“It was a game of ‘decency chicken,’ and I lost this particular game.”
The episode’s artistic and comedic high points came with the host donning an Abraham Lincoln costume, wart and all, for a “Louie”-themed Lincoln skit. The segment shows our 16th president trying to buddy up with black people, hitting the comedy club then interacting with wife Mary Todd (Aidy Bryant).
Something about a top hat-clad Abe riding the subway and eating pizza makes you laugh, a brilliantly quirky history mishmash. Daniel Day-Lewis has seemingly done a wonderful job bringing Lincoln to life on the silver screen. But this is a Lincoln that we’ve never seen before, a portly president whose comedy is full of foreshadowed irony.
“I’m married now, and my wife is crazy,” C.K.’s Lincoln tells the comedy crowd. “She’s really historically insane.”
Lincoln’s death is also discussed.
“One thing I’m really sure of is that someone’s going to murder me. I just know I’m totally getting murdered,” he says.
“Y’know who I feel bad for? The detective who has to try to solve my murder, because they’re gonna go, ‘let’s see who might have done it.’ Oh, I don’t know, everyone from the middle of the country down?”
C.K. even brought humor as he tossed to the night’s musical act – missing his cue, laughing nervously, shushing the audience with his hand and finally introducing Fun.
With election day fast approaching, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney (Jason Sudeikis) appeared on Weekend Update, reminding voters about his candidacy and President Obama’s poor showing in the first presidential debate.
“That first one, oh boy … was I feeling it that night? And the president, a real stink-a-rooney,” Romney says.
“I will say, that debate seems like awhile ago,” Weekend Update anchor Seth Meyers responded.
“Not to me Seth. Still have it on the old TiVo.”
Not all of the skits were home runs. “Australian screen legends” was a one-note flat-liner with a “Brokeback Mountain” twist. But it was still a chance to think about other things for a little while, a diversion from all the suffering, an opportunity to laugh through the tears, the perfect distraction during a difficult week.