Issa Rae was thrilled to be there. And SNL was surely thrilled to have Issa Rae.

The show is still working out some bugs. Sketches with good premises, like the 5-Hour Empathy sketch (on avoiding racial issues) and the militia sketch, just aren’t connecting, whether it’s due to unpolished writing or lack of rehearsal time. A Canadian news broadcast featuring “Drake Watch” and a strong performance from Bowen Yang as a bilingual anchor holding a side discussion with Kate McKinnon in what may or may not have been French left Mikey Day stranded in an explicable role as an American journalist. They’re also still trying to make Kyle Mooney’s “weird for the sake of weird” sketches reach a mainstream audience.

But Rae made the most of her screen time. Her monologue was a pleasant mix of funny and sweet. She and Chris Redd had fun with a sketch on a first date interrupted by a series of Rae’s unlikely series of exes — another good premise with some awkward writing and a predictable punch line. She nailed the punch line as a TV pundit trying to conjure reasons to vote for every Black candidate in fictional Chicago political races.

Race was a prominent theme throughout, including a cut for time sketch extolling the virtues of HBO’s Jim Crow saga Lovecraft Country, which Rae’s character described as “gender and Afro-futurism, which is, you know, the whole study of Black women in space.”

Funny how the episode with Issa Rae hosting did a much better job satirizing “woke” culture than Bill Burr’s episode last week. Imagine that.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump is the comedy gift that keeps on giving, but the cold open bogged down again. The first 5–6 minutes worked, as they flipped between the Trump and Biden town halls to catch Alec Baldwin’s Trump being flustered by tough questions from Savannah Guthrie (Kate McKinnon) and Jim Carrey’s Biden going into full Grandpa Simpson story-telling mode. But then Maya Rudolph popped up as Kamala Harris for some reason, and the sketch’s momentum just died.

I love Maya Rudolph. I named a beloved family pet after Maya Rudolph. But when you have a cast of 20 people, why bring her out when there’s no reason? She appeared again in the Chicago sketch. Meanwhile, Melissa Villaseñor had one line.

Aidy Bryant is off shooting another season of her Hulu show Shrill, but they still managed to work her into the show with a taped Weekend Update segment called Aidy in America, a one-joke effort that worked because it didn’t overstay its welcome.

Update also featured a typically delightful over-the-top performance from the suddenly ubiquitous Heidi Gardner as a cocaine-addled Mob wife from the 80s and a welcome return for Mikey Day and Alex Moffat as the Trump brothers, this time joined by the underused Chloe Fineman as Tiffany Trump.

After last week’s hilarious romp, Update itself couldn’t quite reach those heights again but had quite a few good lines. The rapport between Colin Jost and Michael Che salvages the groaners. The audience seemed a little dead in the first segment but warmed up eventually.

But for the second straight week, the best sketch of the night was late in the show. Some of the funniest humor gently pokes fun at all of us, reminding us we’re in the same boat in so many ways. This one was perfect.

So the top sketches to watch online are:

1. eBay
2. All Weekend Update segments
3. Canadian News Show

Oh — and Justin Bieber was on.