TThe third episode of Saturday Night Live season 50 kicks off with an election-themed episode of Family Feud featuring the Democratic team of Kamala Harris (Maya Rudolph), Dough Emhoff (Andy Samberg), Tim Walz (Jim Gaffigan) and President Joe Biden . (Dana Carvey) against the Republicans: Donald (James Austin Johnson), Don Jr (Mikey Day) and JD Vance (Bowen Yang). Melania was supposed to participate, but she chose not to show up, just like during the campaign. Steve Harvey (Kenan Thompson) hosts.

Harris and Trump face off, trying to name something you can keep in your glove compartment. Harris tells a long-winded story about her upbringing before answering, “a Glock.” Emhoff parrots her, which turns out to be correct (“a second gun” is answer number one), while Walz waves by listing a bunch of white nonsense and Biden tries to buy a vowel.

Vance and Junior are ordered not to talk, forcing Trump to deliver a dementia-laden rant about immigrants eating Moo Deng. He loses and that’s the game.

Since nothing particularly newsworthy happened this week regarding the election (aside from the many things Trump said that would be immediately disqualifying for any other candidate), SNL was smart to put the characters in a game show format. It’s just a shame they didn’t develop the sketch into something memorable.

Also, seeing all the famous guest stars tapped to play the Dems standing next to each other really drives home how little the show thinks about the actual cast.

Ariana Grande returns as host. The pop star and Wicked co-leader reminisces about the last time she hosted in 2016, when we were about to elect our first female president (“second time’s the charm”). She also makes it clear that she’s just hosting tonight, although a second later she gets her hands on a microphone and delivers a Broadway show tune imitating Britney Spears and Gwen Stefani. It’s a solid performance, although somewhat surprising that there are no jokes about her ex-fiancé and former cast member Pete Davidson.

The musical antics continue for the first sketch. At a wedding reception, the bridesmaids (Grande, Heidi Gardner, Ego Nwodim and Sarah Sherman) perform a version of Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso about their bachelor trip to Charleston, where the bride cheated on her fiancé with a random man named Domingo. Domingo (Marcello Hernández) appears at the end and joins in on the action. Unlike the Cold Open, this one – like the pop hit it parodies – is grueling in its repetition.

This is followed by another musical number, in the form of a Dan Bulla short. In My Best Friend’s House, Grande’s bubbly teen sings her love for her BFF’s house, especially its cozy scent. Just when the bit starts to drag, things take a dark turn, as she discovers that her boyfriend’s endearingly dorky father is actually a notorious serial killer and that the pleasant smells wafting through the house were only there to cover up rotting corpses that were buried all over the grounds.

A young man (Michael Longfellow) introduces his new boyfriend (Yang) to his family. A friendly game of charades turns violent after the boyfriend celebrates a little too loudly and angers Ariana’s super-competitive mother. She immediately starts attacking him as a “pathetic little gay man” and makes fun of the size of his “mushroom” dick. It’s not until the boyfriend snaps at her (literally) and gives her a rag doll that he earns her respect (and her body). Short and sweet, with Grande demonstrating a knack for rapid-fire dialogue.

Next, Grande plays Celine Dion (with yet another impersonation). She sings a version of It’s All Coming Back to Me about her love for the Ultimate Fighting Championship as the camera cuts to gruesome footage of various fights. The best joke is at the expense of the UFC commentators (like Joe Rogan): “Completely bald, and in the shiniest shirts.”

Musical guest Stevie Nicks sings a protest song and then it’s time for Weekend Update. Their first guest is Monica, a supposedly happy Amazon employee (Nwodim) who is actually and clearly overworked. The criticism of Amazon’s inhumane working conditions and the hypocrisy of conscientious American consumers who still order from the company are notable, but this isn’t as memorable as most of Nwodim’s turns at the Update desk.

Moments later, Jost introduces recently reunited Oasis band members Noel and Liam Gallagher (Johnson, Sherman). The perpetually bickering British siblings reveal how their feud started: when Noel told the Spice Girls that Liam had a crooked knob that was “bent like Beckham.” Jost – who has already bought tickets for their upcoming tour and plans to “come out so hard that I win the white boy of the year award” – is trying to get them back on the same page.

In Renaissance Italy, the prince auditions musicians to entertain him. Two farmers (played by Rudolph and Samberg) bring out their high-minded son (Grande in a creepy page boy haircut). It turns out he can only hit those high notes because he’s a castrato. All the talk about “gonads” and “opium-induced comas” in crazy Italian accents is interrupted by Grande’s perfect thousand-yard, dead-eyed stare.

Nicks returns to the stage and plays – to much applause – the classic Edge of Seventeen. Then we get a message from Jennifer Coolidge (Chloe Fineman) for Maybelline. The actor speaks to himself in the mirror, giving Grande another chance to show off her celebrity impersonation skills. With some exceptions, she excels again; her Coolidge is actually better than Fineman’s. Carvey joins in to make it a threesome.

The show closes with a classic film noir parody: The Hotel Detective sees Grande play a femme fatale involved in an elaborate tet-a-tet with the titular prick and another detective from the agency. Grande, Johnson, and Andrew Dismukes all nail the mile-a-minute dialogue (even if the cue cards come into view at one point), though the ending button that reveals it’s all an episode of the Twilight Zone is one twist is too much. Still, it’s an enjoyable folly to go out on.

Grande was good the last time she hosted, but she was great here, elevating even the lesser sketches in what was the second refreshingly solid episode in a row after the disappointing season opener.