The show’s Season 50 premiere set the tone for how it will cover the presidential election’s final weeks.
Last night’s episode of Saturday Night Live, the premiere of the comedy juggernaut’s 50th season, started with a battle of vibes. The lengthy cold open ping-ponged between campaign rallies for the two main presidential candidates, turning first to Vice President Kamala Harris (played by Maya Rudolph). “Well, well, well. Look who fell out of that coconut tree,” Rudolph said at the top of her speech, referencing the viral meme that buoyed Harris’s candidacy after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race in July. The actor continued with a nod to the comedic persona that she’d first developed for the politician half a decade ago. “Your fun aunt has returned,” Rudolph said. “The ‘funt’ has been rebooted. 2 Funt 2 Furious.”
Back when Harris was best known as Biden’s 2020 running mate, Rudolph’s decision to play the politician—a former prosecutor—as a free spirit tapped into an unexpected dimension of her character. By now, SNL viewers are familiar with the “funt” antics, in part because Harris herself has leaned into them. Rudolph’s latest rendition of the VP acknowledged Harris’s newfound prominence on the political and cultural stage, and the shift in how many Americans now seem to view her—and what they want to see more of. “My campaign is like the Sabrina Carpenter song ‘Espresso,’” Rudolph’s Harris said early in the sketch. “The lyrics are vague, but the vibe slaps.”
Harris’s speech was the first of many moments when SNL emphasized the strangeness of the current political environment, in which intangible “vibes” are perhaps the single most valuable currency. Throughout the premiere, the show did point to some concrete policy differences between its political characters—Rudolph’s Harris led into her “Espresso” joke with a reassurance that she would protect reproductive rights—but it spent more time depicting their opposing demeanors. “If we win together, we can end the dramala. And the traumala,” Harris promised. “And go relax in our pajamalas.” Meanwhile, the show portrayed former President Donald Trump, played by James Austin Johnson, as seemingly more animated by ambient racial resentment than by a desire for peace or any specific plans for the country.
