Aubrey Plaza reunites with Parks And Recreation co-star Amy Poehler during SNL hosting debut

Aubrey Plaza celebrated her Saturday Night Live hosting debut by reuniting with her Parks And Recreation co-star Amy Poehler.

Amy, 51, achieved national fame as a cast member on Saturday Night Live before leading the cast of Parks And Recreation, which made Aubrey, 38, a star.

This weekend Aubrey amassed a dazzling array of top-flight guest stars, including Sharon Stone, the Property Brothers, Tony Hawk and U.S. President Joe Biden.

Biden’s cameo came during Aubrey’s opening monologue after she joked: ‘I was actually voted the most famous person from Delaware. I beat Joe Biden, in fact. That’s a fact, and he was pissed! He was livid! Look at this video he sent me!’

The president appeared in a pre-recorded clip saying: ‘Aubrey, you’re the most famous person out of Delaware and there’s no question about that. We’re just grateful you made it out of White Lotus alive.’

During her monologue Aubrey also reminded the audience that in her early career, before she was famous, she was an NBC page.

One of the tasks of a page was to lead tours around 30 Rock – and so in honor of her return to the building, she led the cameras on just such a tour.

She even got back into her page uniform with the help of a couple of current pages, whom she taunted with the possibility that they too could be in her position one day.

‘Right here, we have the SNL page desk,’ said Aubrey. ‘Now, this is one of the most important jobs of the show, which is why I was never put here. I was what they called a “bad page” with “terrible phone etiquette,” which was not true by the way.’

The phone rang and she answered: ‘Um, hello, Studio 8H?’ before hearing who was calling and switching to a comically exaggerated Cockney accent. 

‘Ho, you want to talk to Lorne Michaels, do you? Lorne Michaels ain’t here, is he? So toodle-oo back to you, innit? Yeah!’ she said, hanging up.

Reverting back to her real American accent, Aubrey deadpanned: ‘That was Sir Paul McCartney,’ and instructed a page: ‘And that’s how you do it!’

She confided: ‘Oh, here’s a little studio secret. So there used to be this storage closet and when I was too hungover to finish a tour I’d be like: “Just wait in here and you can meet Kristin Wiig,” and then I’d go puke in the bathroom and go home.’

Coming upon a cupboard, she said: ‘Oh, look, here it is!’ only to open it and find skeletons inside. ‘Oh, well, I guess Kristin never showed up. That’s on her.’

As she made her way through the set, she ran into longtime Saturday Night Live cast member Kenan Thomspon, who said he was ‘still waiting on my Starbucks order.’

‘Okay, Kenan, well it’s Aubrey and I’m hosting now, I am not a page anymore,’ said she, to which he replied: ‘I know, I ordered it in 2004.’

‘Next up on the tour is the set design department where I used to work,’ said Aubrey. ‘So, on every tour people would ask the same question: “Are we gonna see a celebrity?” No, you’re gonna see an old security guy eating a sandwich or a writing crying because their sketch got cut. Famous people don’t just walk – ‘

She found herself proven instantly wrong when she ran into Amy, one of the most celebrated cast members in Saturday Night Live history.

‘So, Aubrey, I see that you’re wearing your page jacket,,’ said Amy after effusively greeting her old co-star. ‘Are you drinking again?’

‘I am, and I was just going to the set design office to see those old perverts,’ said Aubrey, prompting Amy to admonish her that ‘it’s not nice to call people old!’ 

Coming upon a phalanx of set department workers, Aubrey got them to bow to ‘your queen’ and groaned: ‘Ugh, that feels so good!’ 

The men then pulled apart the wall behind Aubrey to reveal the Saturday Night Live hosting stage, ready for her to step onto it.

She gushed that the set department workers ‘work miracles, and the biggest miracle of all is that they let me back in the building! Oh my God! I am so happy to be here. I really did work here and I dreamed my entire life of standing on this stage and saying we’ve got a great show for you tonight!’  

Aubrey then gave way to the first sketch, a Miss Universe pageant hosted by a somewhat bewildered compere played by Kenan.

When he asked the women to introduce themselves by country, they all either shrieked or roared the names of the places they were representing.

Molly Kearney for example roared: ‘Denmark!’ while Heidi Gardner chirped: ‘Belgique!’ and Aubrey madly shrieked: ‘FRANCE!’

Kenan interviewed the contestants about their favorite food, eliciting replies like ‘Uber Eats!’ from Miss Barbados (Punkie Johnson) and ‘FROG!’ from Miss France.

When a concerned Kenan inquired of Miss France if she was ‘okay,’ the only answer he got was a faintly unhinged stare complete with a twitching eye. 

He then asked  where they see themselves in five years, to which Denmark deadpanned: ‘Dead,’ eventually specifying: ‘Skydiving accident, sir!’

Although he attempted to introduce the talent portion, he got the beauty queens only to name their skills instead of actually performing them.

‘Are your brains broken?’ Kenan marveled. ‘I mean I heard you girls backstage having the most thoughtful conversations, where did that go?’

Miss France teetered dangerously toward him and released an incoherent howl into his microphone, responding to his questions only with: ‘FROG!’

After some failed attempts to get to know the contestants – met only with wild screams – Kenan eventually deferred to the judges.

It emerged that the judges were none other than the Property Brothers – twins Jonathan and Drew Scott – and skating legend Tony Hawk.

While the Property Brothers as a unit voted for Miss France to win, Tony held up a sign with his own name and squealed: ‘TONY HAWK!’ just like the beauty queens.

Kenan incredulously announced Miss France the winner and asked if she has anything to say, getting her querulous reply: ‘Don’t take the vaccine!’

The next sketch was a rollicking parody of season two of The White Lotus – the show that propelled Aubrey back into the spotlight last year. 

Aubrey, having been on the actual series, did not appear in the parody, which was an ad for a race-swapped version called The Black Lotus.

‘All the decadence, all the intrigue, none of the foolishness,’ teased the intertitles, introducing: ‘Guests that have everything and a staff that’s had enough.’

Chloe Fineman delivered an uncanny impression of Jennifer Coolidge’s performance as the loopy heiress Tanya tottering into a sumptuous resort.

‘It’s just, Oh, gosh, I forgot my credit card!’ she told the concierge. ‘I must’ve left it in the limousine! Is that okay? Can you trust me?’

The no-nonsense concierge played by Kenan Thompson refused to trust her and orders her to come back whenever she recovers her method of payment.

Another scene in the parody took aim at a scene on The White Lotus where Michael Imperioli’s character asks the manager to give two prostitutes the key to his room.

Ego Nwodim, playing the manager in the sketch, called out to a subordinate: ‘Hey, William! Give these whores a spare key to the room!’

Indicating her guest without a hint of discretion, she said: ‘See this man right here? He didn’t come with nobody so he wants these hoes to come and go as they please.’

Over the guest’s pleas that she try to protect his privacy, Ego’s character announced: ‘Everybody, treat these hoes like they’re regular people!’

Punkie played a server who approached a guest and asked: ‘Will your friend be joining us or is he still upstairs f***ing your wife?’

In a scenario fans of the show will recognize, a giggling young American woman sidled up to the concierge desk with an Englishman she has just met.

The staff agreed to give them transportation for a trip they are taking together – but after the guests left, Ego told Kenan: ‘He gonna kill her.’

Another white guest tried to commiserate with a Latina bartender played by Aubrey about the fact that he got hustled by one of the prostitutes.

”For that kinda money I would let you take me for a throw,’ she mocked him pitilessly: ‘but you don’t know what to do with a real a**!’ 

She then punched an intransigent guest who calls Kenan a ‘moron’ while demanding the more luxurious room he booked rather than the lesser room where he wound up.

When the cops arrived asking about a corpse on the beach, the entire staff pretended not to know anything about it.

Their ironclad sense of omertà was typified by Ego’s manager character, who said: ‘Is the ocean the hotel? ‘Cause I work at the hotel.’

A game night sketch starred Ego, Kenan, Heidi and Michael Longfellow playing Taboo with their new neighbors, a couple called Sasha (Aubrey) and Ian (Mikey Day).

Handing Sasha a set of cards, Heidi’s character explained the rules of the game, in which the players are sorted into teams of two.

Ian and Sasha were one team, and since Sasha had the cards, Ian was the one who had to guess what word was written on top of each one.

‘So remember you need him to guess the word on top without using any of the words underneath it,’ said Heidi, adding: ‘If you do you get buzzed!’

To the other players’ mounting horror, Sasha and Ian began to reveal quirks of her personality that grew wilder and wilder with each card.

When she asked him to name an item she frequently purchases on the internet and has an inordinate supply of, his correct answer was a gun.

Sasha was ‘really cranky in the morning until I’ve had my…,’ she said, to which her husband victoriously announced: ‘Acid!’ 

Another round uncovered her nicknames for his penis, which apparently included not only ‘Tiny Tim’ but also the even blunter ‘garbage.’

The next answer unveiled what the personality test she took during couple’s therapy revealed she was: ‘Sociopath!’

‘The night we met I was on….’ Sasha prompted, and Ian began ‘ketamine’ and ‘parole’ but kept getting egged on until finally he arrived at: ‘On fire!’

‘I am not legally allowed back in this state,’ Sasha said, an Ian listed a string of states until she exasperatedly gave up and said: ‘Skip!’

‘Who is this?’ Sasha said, contorting her face and mocking an inability to speak clearly – only for the answer to be their ‘daughter.’

When they switched roles, it transpired Sasha ‘always’ stole cars from hotels and that she threw a a plate, a mug, an iPad and various types of knives at him during a fight.

As she recounted the story of the argument, she became so aroused she demanded that he have sex with her right on ‘this ugly couch.’

Aubrey co-starred with Molly Kearney in a sketch about Catholic school where they played two nuns respectively called Sister Cecelia and Sister Clarence.

While Sister Clarence was fixated on the Monday morning announcement they were making, Sister Cecilia was in the midst of an existential crisis.

‘A hair dryer fell into the bathtub while I was in it, I died for two minutes and now I’m questioning everything,’ said Sister Cecelia at one point out of nowhere.

Sister Clarence at that point had been discussing watching A Star Is Born over the weekend under the misimpression it was about the Nativity.

Despite her attempts to focus the conversation on the day’s lunch specials, Sister Cecilia said: ‘When I was dead I didn’t see Heaven!’

In the full frenzy of a crisis of faith, Sister Cecilia declared she was ‘going to have sex tonight!’ and would even try ’69ing!’

She exhorted her colleague to join her in ‘the dark place,’ saying tantalizingly: ‘You’ve done it before, you can do it again!’

Sister Cecilia was about to throw herself into a multitude of sins, including ‘therapy’ and ‘laser tag,’ as she drifted further and further from her nun’s calling.

Crestfallen, Sister Clarence begged Sister Cecilia not to give her her faith as it would mean renouncing Sister Clarence, who regarded her as ‘my best friend.’

Sister Clarence said sadly that ‘I had it all planned out that after we died, we would go to Heaven and hang out everyday.’

Sister Clarence tries to persuade her friend Heaven exists by singing a religious rewrite of Lady Gaga’s number Shallow from A Star Is Born.

Sister Cecilia joined in, floating into her falsetto and expressing her emotional turmoil with the line about being off ‘the deep end.’

Next came a parody ad for a sequel to M3GAN, a sci-fi horror movie starring Allison Williams facing off against the titular female robots.

The spoof voiceover stressed how the first film had enraptured gay men, with tweets hailing the character as ‘a gay icon’ and ‘the definition of camp.’ 

Chloe Fineman played the original M3GAN, but Aubrey was cast as M3GAN 2.0 in a sequel that ‘promises to be even more gay.’

The action of the ‘trailer’ unfolded in a gay club where Bowen Yang and Kenan Thompson’s characters played two late-night patrons.

When Kenan tried to go home, M3GAN materialized and demanded: ‘Should you go home or should you go to the drag show at Mother Lode and get high off poppers?’

Rave reviews for M3GAN flashed across the screen, including one that pithily remarked: ‘It’s like Bros but for gays.’ 

However the first M3GAN shocked the bar by calling them ‘little homos,’ prompting M3GAN 2.0, played by Aubrey, to show up and unplug her.

‘But seriously, you guys are little homos,’ M3GAN 2.0 said mischievously, prompting the gays to applaud and say that this new model ‘can say it!’

The patrons of the gay club immediately began partying with M3GAN 2.0 as the voiceover said: ‘If there’s one thing gay men love, it’s unhinged plastic women.’

Allison Williams herself, reprising her role from the movie, then burst into the club to warn the men that M3GAN 2.0 was plotting to kill them.

However the bar patrons wind up just fawning over Allison for having been on Girls, and she succumbs giggling to their flattery and joins the party.

During the Weekend Update portion of the evening, hosted by Colin Jost and Michael Che, Aubrey and Amy reunited once again.

This time they got to reprise their civil servant roles from Parks And Recreation, Aubrey as April Ludgate and Amy as Leslie Knope.

While being interviewed about her profession, April half-heartedly encouraged the audience to ‘get involved’ and offers being a ‘garbage man’ as an example.

‘Drive a bus – you don’t have to be on time, nobody cares,’ she said. ‘When you work for the local government, doing the bare minimum is doing your part.’

Leslie arrived and, brimming with forced enthusiasm, asked Colin about his profession, including if he and his colleagues constantly left each other laughing.

In the process she made a crack about how Weekend Update used to be hosted by Seth Meyers alone ‘with no one else.’

During Seth’s heyday as the host of Weekend Update, Amy was also a regular cast members on Saturday Night Live, along with such names as Tina Fey.

Another sketch followed parodying the new Avatar sequel, with Kenan Thompson and Mikey Day playing blue Naʼvi aliens.

Mikey’s character was Jake Sully, the character played by Sam Worthington in the films – a human who becomes one of the aliens.

The Naʼvi were distressed to hear that there are humans in their midst, and have heard them described as ‘two butch ladies from Arizona.’

Heidi and Aubrey played the clear culprits, a pair of short-haired blue ladies cheerfully smoking an unspecified substance.

Kenan’s character tried to impress upon the Jake Sully spoof that Heidi and Aubrey’s characters were ‘obviously’ the two women from Arizona.

Other Na’vi begin to notice signs the Arizona ladies might be human, such as their tendency to survey their own blue forms and remark that ‘this is crazy.’

Another telltale sign on the part of the Arizona women was that they kept mispronouncing the native names as food words like Frito and Cheeseburger.

The obvious humans start playing basketball, and Kenan’s character Friote – whom the Arizona women called ‘Frito’ – found himself at the end of his rope.

While trying to convince Jake, Friote accidentally outed himself as an ex-human – and then so did the Arizona ladies, whereupon they fled.

Aubrey then starred as the harried director of a commercial for a drug treatment meant to help people living with HIV.

The commercial was set in a gay bar, with Mikey Day playing a gay character dancing amid the patrons but doing so rather badly.

His director, anxious to take her lunch break before her ‘hot salad’ cooled off, criticized his dancing with increasing frustration each take.

However her biggest problem was an actor called Jamal played by Devon Walker, whose personal insecurities kept getting in the way of his performance.

In the first take, after saying the line the script required him to say, Jamal felt the need to add his own touch: ‘I ain’t gay though!’

Aubrey admonished him for having ‘ad-libbed,’ but he denied it – only to do so again in the next take, saying: ‘Fact – you can get HIV from a girl, that’s how I did it!’

When cut was called again, Jamal bewailed the fact it was not clear his character was heterosexual, to which his director explained that ‘he’s not.’

She attempted to impress upon him that the commercial was set in a gay bar, but the note only led to another improvisation in the next take. 

Jamal interrupted Mikey character’s line to say: ‘Fact, there be mad straight girls at the gay clubs and they be ready and that’s where I come in!’

He insisted that his character be straight, to which Aubrey offered to give his lines to another actor, while informing him he would in that case be left fired and unpaid.

In a last ditch effort to keep his paycheck and stick to his guns at the same time, Jamal pleaded: ‘Okay, what if my guy got HIV from basketball like Magic Johnson?’

Aubrey closed out the show in a spoof of Old Hollywood film noir, playing a classic femme fatale opposite James Austin Johnson’s hardboiled detective.

Her character was the ‘Black Widow’ whose octogenarian husband was the latest of five spouses she had buried in as many years.

She stormed into the detective’s office and tried to allay his suspicions about her by insisting her husbands all died simply because they were old. 

In her defense, she described her attraction to old men, saying: ‘When I meet a man with cataract glasses and pants up to his chest, I go head over heels!’

She cooed: ‘I like the way their kisses taste like a cough, how they can’t find their glasses, and the way they make love,’ with exclamations like: ‘Ouch!’ and: ‘Sorry!’

Her character asked: ‘Is it a crime to want a man who can eat a plum to completion, who begs me to drive him to church and then sleeps the whole time?’

The fed-up detective began shaking the ‘daffy broad,’ flummoxed at the common need of people to ‘tell everybody what their thing is these days.’

Aubrey’s character duly pulled a gun on him and demanded to know his ‘thing,’ resulting in the revelation that he had a fetish for pantyhose.

Just as a romance seemed on the verge of flowering between them, Sharon Stone marched in as the saucy mother of Aubrey’s character.

She beguiled the detective, gushing over him as a ‘scrumptious little snack’ and leaving him visibly enchanted by her.

When Aubrey’s character snapped: ‘You can’t have him mother!’ the mother cooed that she ‘just can’t resist a man with a deep voice and a big…nose.’

The detective also picked the mother for being ‘desperate and kooky,’ which is to say not the type to ‘give me a hard time about the booze’

When he tried to seize the gun from Aubrey’s character however, she shot him, ‘for reasons that would throw old Siggy Freud for a loop,’ he says in voiceover.

The musical guests on the latest episode of Saturday Night Live was nonbinary singer Sam Smith, who regaled the audience with two new numbers.

Swathed in a voluminous pink fluffy robe, Sam began by singing Unholy featuring Kim Petras, who was also on hand for the festivities.

Kim made a splash in a kinky pair of long white leather boots and a matching coat-dress, writhing between Sam’s legs.

Sam’s next number that night was Gloria, for which the Oscar-winner was decked out in a glittering gold ensemble.

However the true star of that performance was none other than Sharon Stone herself, who sprawled seductively on a divan in front of Sam.

Showcasing her still enviably taut figure in a clinging black cocktail dress, Sharon, 64, lent the look a splash of dazzle with streaks of gold fabric.