It's certainly taken long enough, but the one true savior of 2020 has finally emerged to reset our collective timeline and restore normalcy to the universe. Who is it? John Mulaney, of course, and he's here to save us all.
According to a spine-tinglingly convincing TikTok conspiracy theory involving centuries-old folklore and Saturday Night Live, our universe was taken off course and sent careening into chaos the same weekend that John Mulaney last hosted Saturday Night Live. On February 29, life as we knew it changed forever. This was the last weekend before most of the world went into some form of strict lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. Not only did he host on Leap Day, but Mercury was in retrograde, which, uh, is never a good thing. The Mulaney-induced wrinkle in time reached full force by Friday, March 13, and we have been doomscrolling ever since.
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Now, according to some TikTokers, SNL's Lorne Michaels — like a real-life Doc Brown from Back to the Future — is attempting a cultural reset by having Mulaney host again on a weekend when all of the astrological alignments will intersect in perfect unison giving us a chance to rewrite 2020.
What astrological alignments are those, you may be asking? Not only is Saturday Halloween, but there will also be a blue moon. Mercury is once again in retrograde, and Daylight Savings Time will resume just after midnight, further screwing with our sense of time and place. Additionally, there will be another Friday the 13th after Mulaney hosts SNL — it's the only two times we have a Friday the 13th in 2020. Creepy, right?
Many cultures around the world believe that Halloween is a time when the "doorways" to other worlds are opened. According to centuries-old Celtic folklore, Halloween night symbolizes both an end and a beginning. And the blue moon — meaning, the second full moon in one calendar month — is also an omen of renewal. Perhaps that's symbolic of a second chance? Sure, why not! What it is, for sure, is rare: While blue moons happen on average every two or three years, the last time there was a blue moon on Halloween night was in 1944. That's a lot of cosmic energy! No wonder the conspiracy theories are flying!
And besides, 2020 has been something: a global pandemic, mass protests against racism and police violence, once-in-a-century forest fires, not to mention perhaps the most important presidential election in our lifetime. It's kind of a relief to imagine that maybe none of this happened on an alternate timeline, and that there's a parallel universe where everyone is happy and healthy and lockdown-free.
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Sci-fi fans are probably already well-aware of the multiverse theory, and more specifically, the facet of it known as parallel universes. The multiverse theory is the idea that other universes, some similar and some completely different to our own, could exist simultaneously both with and without our knowledge. Just like the earth doesn't hold a uniquely special position in the universe, the multiverse theory posits that our entire visible universe doesn't hold a unique place either and is just one of many. It is one part of a larger structure of universes.
Parallel universes, or parallel timelines, is a concept that, thanks to its use as a popular plot device in film and television, is much more familiar. The theory posits that the opening of a sixth-dimensional time gate leads to the creation of a divergent timeline. Up until the opening of the time gate, the timeline is identical in every way to the original timeline. So everything up until Mulaney hosting SNL the last weekend of February would have been exactly the same as it is now, but this theory proposes that a time gate was opened, invariably changing 2020 and taking us along with it.
This is not what happened in Back to the Future (that had to do with a time-traveling car, if you recall). But, if Michaels is taking on the role of Doc, that would mean that Mulaney is our Marty McFly. Which, okay, honestly, who better to restore order to our universe? We completely trust Mulaney to travel through the sixth-dimensional time gate. Not only does he have "street smarts!" but we also know, from his years of writing on SNL and his stand up specials, that he is an excellent writer and has a well-honed sense of comedic timing. That's exactly who we want to be rewriting history.
We don't always want internet-born conspiracy theories to be right, but this one? We could really get behind it.