Saturday Night Live turned to the 2020 race once again for its cold open last night, but this time it boasted an abundance of riches. Pose’s Billy Porter was an excellent get to hype up the candidates at the show’s spin on CNN’s LGBTQ Town Hall. Lin Manuel Miranda’s presence in a room warms the temperature by 10 degrees, even if his lines as Julian Castro—“As a Democrat I want to apologize for not being gay, but I promise to do better in the future”—were better than his actual impersonation. Woody Harrelson returned as toothy, goofy Joe Biden, America’s creepy uncle who means well. But bow down bitches to Kate McKinnon’s Elizabeth Warren and her sensible pink jacket.

“I had some apple slices backstage and they are hitting me like cocaine!” she warned the audience, amped on fiber and foolproof plans to save the middle class. “Y’all know I’m not a lesbian but all the ingredients are there.” The reenactment of Warren’s viral moment this week, when she dunked on a question about a religious person’s belief that marriage should be between one man and one woman, was zinger after zinger glory. The climax of her response was a callback to RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Sasha Velour lifting up her wig so rose petals tumbled down to the floor. It was perfection, and McKinnon is having a ball playing this most earnest and virile of women.

Host David Harbour had an uneven night. He gave nifty Doubtfire energy as the object of Kate McKinnon’s horny Italian Grandpa’s desire and his digital short was sublime. But the folk trio and Little Miss Teacher’s Friend pageant sketches felt like throwaways. His monologue at least was a perfectly fine walk through a portal into the Stranger Things’ Upside Down. There was also the highlight was seeing Lorne Michaels in the low-status role as page and Kenan Thompson lambasting him for getting his McDonalds order wrong.

On his first night back of the season, Pete Davidson fared better in his brief appearance standing near an unmentioned llama in the Upside Down, a dimension that complements the S.N.L. prodigal son’s sexy pallor and weirdness, then he did later as a “Weekend Update” guest. Urging everyone to calm down about the rise of curable STDs like syphilis and gonorrhea—“Yeah, I don’t see the problem”—Davidson seemed bored himself by the material. It was too long of a bit, too unfocused in its delivery, and seemed only interested in the unfunny premise that of course the guy who bangs hot girls like it’s his job can’t be bothered to wear a condom.

Besides McKinnon’s joyful Warren, the highlight of the night was the sadly conceivable trailer for GROUCH, the next anti-hero origin story from the makers of JOKER and “the twisted minds at Sesame Workshop.” David Harbour is Oscar, another aggrieved man forced by the ills of society into his fate. “If everyone calls you trash, and everyone treats you like trash, why don’t you just become trash?” he pined moodily. Sesame Street has fallen on hard times. The Count is a pill head. A homeless beast bears a sign begging, “Need money for cookies.” Bert watches Ernie get shivved on the street for failing to give up his duckie to muggers. Word on the street is Harbour is already getting major Oscar buzz.

Bowen Yang is quickly revealing himself to be the season’s critical new hire. Last week he gave birth to Weekend Update’s “Trade Daddy” Chen Biao, who boasted of the “tig ol’ bitties” they got in China. This week he stole a Soul Cycle sketch, in which overzealous, pseudo-spiritual Nuun drinkers auditioned for instructor jobs. “My name is Flint, like the water,” he purred into his headset like a spoken word artist who’s taken a bar of Xanax and kind of resents his audience for showing up. “I live life with no regrets. Abraham Lincoln died. It didn’t have to happen, poor guy. If I would’ve been there I would’ve stopped it. But I wasn’t. Will you be? Let’s ride!” And later, tagging off from Harbour’s coked-up failed actor, Yang preaches in disaffected monotone, “I Googled racism and guess what, it bummed me out. And then I Googled gay racism—and that was even worse.” This guy is on a hot streak.

The music guest was Camila Cabello, she with the pretty voice and Disney hair. She and her dancers dressed up like Dangerous Liaisons for her first number of “Cry So Hard,” but why? It didn’t add to her performance and made one pine for old school Madonna.

Finally, if the harshest toke of the evening was the “Weekend Update” insane clip of Trump ripping into his imitation two FBI agents having sex, the final sketch of the evening, Dog Court, was an unhinged delight of a chaser. Watch it if only to see a little pug wriggle all over Cecily Strong’s Judge Connie’s neck, knocking her red glasses continually askew. Watch it for the jury of pups who deliver a death sentence to a man who creeped around dog park without a dog. Watch it on bad days, Mondays, big news days. You’ll need it in the week ahead.