Now with two seasons in the book, Netflix's Stranger Things continues to be a huge hit for the streaming service. Season 2 doubled down on the world-building, not only introducing new creatures from the Upside Down, but also revealing that Eleven has a sister: Kali, a.k.a. Eight. She was experimented on by the Hawkins Lab, and she's got freaky powers just like El, which opens up the possibility for other numbered super-kids to appear in future seasons. That's the basic concept for a new Saturday Night Live sketch in which Natalie Portman's Eleven meets some kids whose powers come with unfortunate side effects.
As fans of Stranger Things know, Eleven was a Hawkins Lab subject for her entire life, resulting in her particular superpowers. She can move things with her mind (and also close portals?), but at the cost of getting a small nosebleed. It's not exactly the worst consequence in the world for superpowers, unlike, say, having a brain hemorrhage while making really good chili. When Natalie Portman hosted Saturday Night Live and suited up as Eleven for the above Stranger Things sketch, she learned about some of the other kids who got it way worse at Hawkins Lab than she did.
Accompanied by Mikey Day's Mike, Eleven met some of her brothers and sisters from Hawkins Lab, all played by SNL cast members in cool 80s punk goth attire. There's Fourteen (Beck Bennett), who can cause fires with his mind, but it causes him to throw up a little in his mouth. Then there's Nine (Cecily Strong), who can read minds, but then farts loudly. (She has IBS too, so she also just farts all the time.) El also meets Five (Pete Davidson), who gets a boner every time he uses superspeed; Eighteen (Aidy Bryant), who does a sick Borat impression that causes him to go into a coma for two days; and Leslie Jones, who is just 50 years old.
Oh, and how can we forget Kenan Thompson's Three? He's really good at coming up with the ends of sketches, which was a fun way to poke fun at SNL's own tendencies to end sketches poorly, which it still didn't totally do here. All in all, SNL's Stranger Things parody was pretty fun and goofy. I tend to think that any sketch that allows the majority of the cast to be silly is a good one, even if it's thin.
Saturday Night Live airs new episodes on Saturdays on NBC at 11:30 p.m. EST. The show will be on hiatus until March 3, when Charles Barkley is set to host. That's plenty of time to catch up on all the other TV shows on right now, so get going with our midseason premiere schedule.
