WATCH: SNL Sends Up LSU Controversy With Trash-Talking Angel Reese Visit To Weekend Update

Saturday Night Live‘s Weekend Update got a visit from their version of LSU star Angel Reese to lampoon the various controversies around the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship that included a taunting double-standard, an ill-advised invitation for losing Iowa from First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, and acceptance of President Joe Biden’s invitation for the winners only.

A major subplot of that tournament and final was the uproar over a taunt that Reese made during the game that mimicked a taunt by Iowa star Caitlin Clark in a previous game — and the disparate treatment of those events by media observers that many called out as a racist double standard. Another was Dr. Biden’s cheerful but poorly-received suggestion that both teams visit the White House, and then the President’s solo invitation and the team’s acceptance of it.

Molly Shannon was the guest host on this week’s edition of Saturday Night Live — The Jonas Brothers were the musical guest.

But many fans of the sketch show wait around just to see the musical guest, and then catch the weekly nightly news parody currently anchored by Colin Jost and Michael Che.

Weekend Update became a mainstay of SNL from the very first episode — on October 11, 1975 — of what was then called simply NBC’s Saturday Night. Chevy Chase anchored solo, and opened the sketch with a gag about disappeared Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa. It has since evolved into a less-faithful imitation of news show that instead has developed and adopted its own rhythms and conventions.

The news parody has become a tentpole of the show. In a recent interview from Chris Wallace’s series Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace on HBO Max, onetime producer Dick Ebersol told Wallace that Weekend Update was key to keeping viewers tuned in late into the show.

One feature that has come to comprise half of the Update show-within-the-show — or more — are character pieces that feature guest commentators that you really don’t see on the news these days, but used to punctuate local broadcasts in the days of Gilda Radner‘s legendary bits.

The show also often welcomes a cast member to deliver a comic bit as themselves to deliver a comedy bit — sometimes straightforwardly, sometimes in the form of commentary, and sometimes as a stylized version of themselves. The castmember bits date back to early SNL, as well, and have become a regular feature of Weekend Update.

This week, Che and Jost were visited by Angel Reese by way of cast member Punky Johnson, a characterization that leaned heavily into trash talk as “Reese” quickly recapped the controversies and moved on to a set of endorsement pitches.

Watch above via NBC’s Saturday Night Live.