‘SNL’ Goes For ‘MacGruber’ Redux Featuring Will Forte Return As Special Ops Agent Finds His Name On Epstein List

Special agent MacGruber has found himself on the wrong side of the law.

In a Saturday Night Live episode teeming with the satirization of and jokes about the trove of Jeffrey Epstein emails released this week (20,000 pages to be specific), Glen Powell‘s hosting debut featured the return of alum Will Forte reprising his classic recurring character.

This time around, as MacGruber and the team (Powell and Chloe Fineman, mullets donned), race against the clock to defuse a bomb, the action-adventure spoof character becomes markedly harried as he’s presented with the unearthing of the Epstein files.

“No one is above the law, and I mean no one,” he proclaims before perusing the list, only to find his name featured. Moving fast, he goes to shred it amid Powell and Fineman’s protestations, claiming that doing so will actually make it easier to hide from those looking to destroy its contents.

In a redux shown later in the episode, the trio are once again working to stop an explosion, whereupon Powell pulls out another copy of the list, citing MacGruber’s advice to always duplicate evidence. Once again trying to cover his tracks, MacGruber demands Powell hand over the “left radical list,” embarking on a rant threatening him if he chooses not to.

Hurriedly redacting his name, MacGruber then attempts to write in his fellow agents’ names in his place as it becomes even clearer he’s on the list. At this point, he straps the list onto the bomb, later banging it against the walls when it fails to explode in order to beget a “new beginning.”

In the third and final MacGruber sketch, the theme song declares, “It’s pretty clear by now MacGruber’s on the Epstein list.”

While at an abandoned monastery (a bomb is set to explode in 30 seconds), MacGruber attempts to confess to clear his conscience, but Powell and Fineman are already well aware of his being on the list.

He clarifies that he’s “all over it, like, every third page.”

In classic MacGruber fashion, it all ends with an explosion. The popular character, created in 2007 as a parody of the ’80s-era series MacGyver, has launched an SNL dynasty of sorts, leading to a film offshoot and 2021 streaming series.