Saturday Night Live hopes for Melissa McCarthy, HAIM, Alec Baldwin

Tonight, Saturday Night Live airs the penultimate episode of the season with HAIM, Melissa McCarhty, and seemingly Alec Baldwin. What a season it’s been.

The reason Alec Baldwin is included is because all signs, including quotes from Alec himself, suggest that he will be featured on the show tonight in some capacity. Who knows what the main point of discussion will be? Well, it probably starts with “James” and ends with “Comey,” given that this whole scandal started off a whirling dervish around the White House that is still going strong. SNL will surely want to jump all over this and the President’s role in stoking a few of the assorted fires going on out there.

As for some of the other things that you can expect from the show, be prepared for McCarthy to bust out Sean Spicer, but not for it to be the only defining thing about her appearance on the show. The funny thing is that McCarthy is starting to become known for doing only one thing even though this is technically her fifth time hosting the show coming up. She’s always been great on the show in terms of giving broad physical comedy and big, over-the-top characters. The majority of her humor is far from subtle, but that’s okay since she does have a tendency since it’s expected going into the show. You wouldn’t tell someone known for being soft-spoken to start screaming at the top of their lungs, would you?

When it comes to HAIM as the musical guest, the band should be reasonably familiar to SNL viewers; outside of the show, though, this is not a group that this writer has a great understanding of. Kudos to them for being funny enough in the promo below, though it is somewhat odd that the writers effectively decided to give two different takes on the same thing here: The attempt of McCarthy and Aidy Bryant to try and join the band.

Other news items, if you missed them

The first promo for this episode featured McCarthy going into her Sean Spicer transformation. For those who want to have a little more fun set to “I Feel Pretty,” this is a promo for you!

Meanwhile, there is also another viral video from yesterday featuring McCarthy as Spicer tooling around New York City on her podium. This is a must-watch just from sheer ridiculousness alone. (Photo: NBC.)