This week’s SNL opened with a reboot of the show’s Fox & Friends parody. Taking the reigns from Taran Killam and Bobby Moynihan, Alex Moffat and Beck Bennett play Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade, while Heidi Gardner play the show’s current female correspondent, Ainsley Earhardt.

At the outset, Earhardt wishes a happy morning to all their viewers, from those getting ready for work to those “laying in the Lincoln Bedroom tweeting with an Egg McMuffin on your chest.” After sufficiently praising the president, as they do, they introduce White House Communications Director Hope Hicks, played by Cecily Strong.

She’s there to talk about the Nunes memo, but the segment, marred by camera difficulties, flails as Hicks turns into the White House Gossip Girl. Too early to tell if Strong will turn this into a regular character, but there wasn’t much to it here, and it died on the vine.

Taking on the Devin Nunes memo, they rail against the “deep state,” and bring on someone who agrees – Minister Louis Farrakhan. On one hand, given the bizarre scenario we find ourselves in – where the GOP and conservatives are the ones railing against law enforcement, trying to paint the always-conservative FBI as liberal – the Farrakhan reference is a clever one. Then again, given that it’s been decades since he’s been a regular figure in the news, you have to imagine many viewers won’t get the reference, and the reaction from the studio audience was muted at best. Still, Chris Redd had fun with it, telling the white commentators they’re all going to die as they look on confused.

Then, they cut to a special guest on the phone. It’s the president, played by Alec Baldwin, calling from bed, where he’s eating an Egg McMuffin. He says he’s getting his daily intelligence briefing. When they ask from who, he says, “from you.” Then, he brags about how 10 billion people watched his State of the Union.

There is potential in SNL‘s new Fox & Friends roster. Moffat is as appropriately bland and transparent for Doocy as Killam was, and while Bennett’s Kilmeade can’t hold a candle to Moynihan’s dunce-y version, Gardner nails the role of the sycophant presidential admirer. Some weird timing, technical issues, and decisions in this segment, but would love to see this line-up get another shot at it.

Host Natalie Portman basically donated her monologue to NBC’s Winter Olympics promotion fund. At once mocking NBC’s Olympic fever and serving it, she joked about being goaded into talking about the games by NBC before Kenan Thompson and Kate McKinnon appeared as Olympic commentators, picking apart her monologue as if she was an Olympic athlete. The show is already heavily cross-promoted with the event, as cast member Leslie Jones will be commenting on the games from Korea, so Jones came out to comment on the monologue, and express her fear in learning that North Korea is right next to South Korea. All in all, a lot of effort for a middling monologue segment.

Next came a clever sketch from 1775, where the colonists in Philadelphia get news of a victory in Bunker Hill from colonists in Boston. Despite the good news, the Philadelphia colonists are not happy, as they “now have to hear the boasting from the patriots of New England.” The New England colonists then burst in, goblets of drink in hand, former cast member Rachel Dratch among them. Aside from some new entrants in the “is that really supposed to be a Boston accent?” Hall of Fame – welcome, Natalie – the sketch, with Dratch basically playing the great-great-great-add a few more greats-grandmother to her Denise character from the Denise and Sully sketches with Jimmy Fallon, was a fun approach to Super Bowl Sunday, with the New Englanders drunkenly boasting about their many victories while somehow throwing in a plug for Dunkin Donuts. And just when the New Englanders seem to have won the boasting battle, the delegation from Philadelphia enters, led by Philly native Tina Fey. By the end, this was a diss battle between Dratch and Fey, and my only critique is that it should have been longer.

Next we get a Stranger Things parody – a sneak peak at Stranger Things 3. Portman plays Eleven while Mikey Day is Mike, always trying for a kiss. They meet with a succession of kids who, like Eleven, have special powers with embarrassing side effects. Bennett can start fires with his mind, but it makes him throw up in his mouth. Strong can read people’s minds, but it makes her fart. Pete Davidson can run fast, but it gives him a boner. It’s not a good power; he’s been kicked off the track team twice. As they go, the powers get lamer. Can say similar for this sketch. It had a few laughs, but never really took off.

Portman then gave us a sequel to her profane rap on the show from 2006. With Bennett instead of Chris Parnell serving as interviewer, wanting to know what’s new in her life, Portman lays down a tale of sex, drugs, and violence, including pulling a gun on Moffat for not loving the Star Wars prequels. The sequence with her defiantly giving birth while smoking a blunt as her water breaks in waves, slamming into the doctor’s face, was a highlight, as was Andy Samberg’s return to reckon with the aftermath of their rap 12 years ago – a kid.

In an inspired pairing, Strong and McKinnon came to the Update desk as legendary French actresses Brigitte Bardot and Catherine Deneuve, who both made public statements recently opposing the #MeToo movement. Deneuve talks about how she doesn’t want romance to die, while Bardot, when not drifting off into space, says “Free Harvey Weinstein” as her pal Deneuve tries to keep her crazy under wraps. “Why does woman have a breast?” Bardot asks. “It is for a man to grab and pull.” As she gets increasingly nuttier, Deneuve questions her judgement for pairing with her. By the end, Bardot is imitating a cat in heat. Any excuse to pair McKinnon and Strong is usually a good one. This was excellent. Hope we see more.

Davidson also came to the desk, in a segment tied oh-so-loosely to the Super Bowl. Since commercials are a big deal on Super Bowl Sunday, Davidson was there to talk about a recent commercial he filmed for Dockers. He had to get people on the street to take their pants off, and wound up interacting with a man whose daughter had cancer. This began promising, as many of Davidson’s desk pieces have been, but wound up fading, segueing awkwardly into talking about his punching a door. There was a germ of a decent idea here, but it wasn’t developed.

The final desk piece brought Thompson back as Willie, Che’s down on his luck neighbor who always makes the best of horrific situations. Here, he brags about his new sex doll, which it turns out was really a corpse, and how his dog is a puppy molester. Less to this than usual, Willie has had some excellent segments, but this came off as filler.

The next sketch featured Bennett as a blue-faced alien whose butt is his face and his face is his butt, or so he says, and he’s about to have sex with human being Portman. This was a sketch about having Bennett flex his ass cheeks for three minutes, hoping the audience would find it hilarious. It worked about 25 percent of the time. Also, they did not have sex at the end.

Next comes a parody of the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards pre-show, where commentator Portman, after screaming with kids, loses her voice, but has to keep her enthusiasm level at 11. With McKinnon appearing as Ellen Degeneres, Portman solves her problem with a vocalizer that makes her sound like Darth Vader. A few quick laughs here.

In a sketch that should have been both earlier and funnier, Strong plays Melania Trump, trying to figure out how to deal with attending the State of the Union speech in the wake of her Stormy Daniels embarrassment. She is visited by several other first ladies, with McKinnon bringing back Hillary Clinton, and Portman playing Jackie Kennedy as she did in a 2016 film. Also on hand are Jones as Michelle Obama, and Aidy Bryant as Martha Washington. They try to provide Melania with words of comfort, but something here just didn’t work. It’s amazing to see how devalued McKinnon’s Hillary impression has become, since it was the most acclaimed impression on the show for so long. Now, she’s relegated to the final half-hour. She got a strong round of applause on her entrance, but provided few laughs. The same could be said of this sketch overall.

The final sketch of the night found single women Portman, Strong, and Gardner lamenting about dating in a bar, as gross old lady Bryant interfered. She can’t understand why men today are all circumcised, and she’s got a strong catfishing game in the works. Bryant hasn’t had a solid new character in a while. This had potential, but also seemed too reminiscent of McKinnon’s desperate barfly sketch which often aired in the 12:50 slot. Should be interesting to see if this returns.

SNL now takes a month off as NBC delves into Olympic coverage, returning March 3 with host Charles Barkley and musical guest Migos.

Watch the Natalie Portman/Dua Lipa episode of SNL on Hulu