Dear Gossips,

Solid Saturday Night Live episode this weekend hosted by the reliable and always game Jason Bateman… but in my mind, the reason for the extra jolt of energy is because Cecily Strong was back.

As I mentioned on Friday in What Else?, it had to be Cecily to play Rudy Giuliani’s “star witness”, Mellisa Carone, and obviously I wasn’t the only person who called it. Who else could it be? Cecily was perfect. SNL is always better for me when Cecily’s on the show.

And I’m not really sure why she remains underrated? I started the pandemic talking about how underrated she is and almost exactly two years ago, in this space, after a strong SNL episode, I posted about how underrated she is. In that episode, back in 2018, hosted by Matt Damon, there was also a sketch of Cecily playing a lounge singer, just as there was in this most recent one in 2020. She is spectacular in these Liza Minelli-type roles, a modern woman who can slip easily into the cadences of a previous time, anchoring her performance with just enough recognition that it finds exactly the right balance between over-the-top and straight dull mimicry. What she does so well is capture the moody sketch – and the mood here is about missing things, the way lounge singers always seem to be nostalgic for something, and that obviously fits right into what we’re all experiencing now.

God she’s been missed. And she is so f-cking good, it’s time for a deep-dive Cecily Strong profile. Who’s going to write it?

Yours in gossip,

Lainey

Cecily Strong Gossip

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