Dear Gossips,

Saturday Night Live returns this weekend with Chris Rock as the guest host and Megan Thee Stallion the musical guest. And it’ll be in front of a live audience. Vulture has all the details about how the show is getting audience members in and out of the studio safely but specifically I want to focus on the fact that COVID-19 tests will be administered on site because this has been my whole sh-t the last few weeks.

Here’s how it works – if you’ve been selected to be part of the live studio audience, you’ll be “required to take a mandatory COVID-19 test upon arrival. This is a self-administered lower nasal antigen test with results yielded before the show.”

As it is in many other parts of the world, here in Canada, where I live, there’s been a spike in new COVID cases. Yesterday Ontario set a single day record with 700 new cases reported and while they’ve been testing more than ever, wait times are still quite long. I’ve known people who’ve had to queue for up to three hours. And it’s not like if you’re in isolation when you’re waiting to get tested. If it’s going to be a while before a vaccine is available, rapid testing – and more convenient testing – needs to happen. The comparison I’ve been using is that there should be a COVID-19 test like the morning after pill or a pregnancy test. Get it from your local drug store, bring it home, find out fast. I mean this seems to be what they’re doing for the SNL audience so how much longer do we have to wait before it becomes mass market?

While it hasn’t been made clear just how many audience members SNL will have in studio (likely not the way it used to be, and people will probably be spread out), people are able to request as many as nine tickets for people in their social bubble and, of course, masks are mandatory at all times. So those audience cutaway shots are going to require a lot of … smizing.

All of last season’s cast members are returning and Jim Carrey has been confirmed as Joe Biden with Maya Rudolph, fresh off her Emmy win, back as Kamala Harris. The way she says “you coulda had a bad bitch” here gives me so much life. Get the wind machine ready!

Yours in gossip,

Lainey

Chris Rock Gossip

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