Saturday Night Live hit the air for the first time since Donald Trump’s resounding victory, and the show jumped right into a political sketch… sort of. Instead of directly putting us into a scene with Trump or Kamala Harris, we got the cast speaking to the camera and reflecting on what happened, before delivering tongue-in-cheek praise of the former and future President and talking about how they’ve supported him all along.
The sketch, which is widely circulating online, is a funny enough concept that strikes the balance between the extremely somber and divisive way the show opened after Trump’s victory in 2016 and just having a traditional zany cold open like we’d normally see. Fans seem to have liked it well enough. I did too, but also, while I was watching, I couldn’t help but think about some big questions the show is going to need to answer in a world where Trump is president again. Let’s talk some of them out.
How Negative Is SNL Going To Be In Its Portrayal Of Donald Trump?
Prior to his surprise foray into politics, Donald Trump was a semi-regular fixture on SNL mostly thanks to an impression from Darrell Hammond. The funnyman’s take on the real estate mogul was cartoonish and over the top but also kinda loveable. He was outrageous but always in a fun way that made him seem harmless.
During his race against Hillary Clinton, however, the show turned the impression over to Alec Baldwin, who gave us a much angrier and seething Trump that very clearly came from a place of hatred and malice. His take generated a lot of press for the show and a lot of eyeballs, but it also made it seem more overtly partisan than it ever had in the past. In fact, the President himself said very publicly that he hated it and much preferred Hammond's take.
In more recent years, Trump (who hasn’t been as regular of a fixture on the show) has been portrayed by James Austin Johnson. His impression is arguably the most accurate of the three, and it seeks to find a middle ground between the harmless caricature we originally got and Baldwin’s more menacing rendition. An intentionally ridiculous and muscled up version of it appeared this week in the cold open, and the general assumption is that Johnson is going to continue with the impression moving forward.
But how negative will the show go with it? Baldwin’s mean-spirited portrayal really helped the show become a cultural touchpoint in the political conversation, but it also drove away a lot of viewers who felt it contorted everything to make him look as bad as possible. Johnson’s take has been more measured, but it hasn’t attracted the same cross-over publicity. Will it be tweaked to emphasize other aspects of Trump’s personality?
What Random Celebs Could We See Play Key People In Trump’s Orbit?
As I said, I’m pretty confident James Austin Johnson will continue to play Trump. His impression is just too good. Plus, Baldwin returned a few weeks ago and played another character, not Trump. I also think we’ll likely see Bowen Yang stick with his JD Vance impression.
You never quite know how often Vice Presidents are going to appear in political sketches because you never know how much they’re going to be apart of the real life political conversation. Some Vice Presidents are treated as the second most important person in the administration and some are ceremonial figures that have little to do with the day-to-day. But if Vance is involved, it’s hard to imagine the show taking that from Yang.
But there are going to be so many other political figures we’re going to meet during the transition and early days in the Trump White House. Remember Melissa McCarthy’s infamous impression of Press Secretary Sean Spicer? Kate McKinnon also got a lot of traction out of advisor Kellyanne Conway. There will be more figures like that, and judging by what we’ve seen recently, they might not be played by cast members. We might see former cast members and random celebrities show up.
Will We See The Celebs Who Played Harris And Her Team Again?
Speaking of former cast members and random celebrities, what’s going to happen with the fantastic impressions we’ve gotten from Maya Rudolph, Andy Samberg, Jim Gaffigan and others? The collective response to their work so far this political season has been extremely positive. The assumption was we were going to see their work through the rest of Season 50, but with Kamala Harris losing the election, there’s clearly not going to be as frequent of a need to see them moving forward.
Will there be anyway to work them into other things for the rest of the season? Are they just done appearing? I would say yes, but Dana Carvey, who has been making guest appearances playing outgoing president Joe Biden, showed up last night to do an impression of Elon Musk. It was more of a bit part throwaway than some grand impression debut, but it signaled we may continue to see Carvey— and maybe the door will be open for some others as well? At minimum, I’d love to check in with the Kamala campaign at least one more time to feel a sense of closure with the impressions.
How Important Is Politics Going To Be To The Show Moving Forward?
This is perhaps the biggest and most important question of them all. There are times during SNL’s illustrious 50 year history in which politics seemed like the single most important thing on the show. Fans tuned in largely to see what the show had to say about the President or a particular political scandal. Then, there have been other times in which politics was one of many different things the show covered. Maybe there would be a political sketch. Maybe there wouldn’t be. It was just a subject of comedy they sometimes tackled.
During Trump’s first presidency, Saturday Night Live was built around politics. Baldwin’s Trump was given the cold open or a key sport almost every single week for years. Lorne Michaels and company are going to need to decide whether that’s the future they want. It’s a tough call to make. The political sketches have a way of generating more conversation, but they also have a way of making the rest of the show feel less than. It can be a trade-off.
For now, all we can do is wait and see what SNL does the rest of this season. We should expect to continue to see more guest stars stop by to celebrate the 50th season, as well the big special planned in February, but it’ll be a process to figure out what the tone is going to be and how much politics we should expect. SNL will return next week with a new episode hosted by Charlie XCX.
