Alec Baldwin is over it, Kenan Thompson is GOAT, and we hope everyone stays healthy.
Saturday Night Live made the bold decision to return to studio 8H this fall, following a truncated season that saw the cast sequestered in their individual homes. Those episodes provided some of the freshest sketches SNL has aired in years, indulging its performers’ more absurd, even experimental comedic talents. Going back to the studio didn’t necessarily mean going back to “normal” for SNL, however: There’s still the issue of Covid-19, its impact on film production, and its continued toll on the society that SNL comments on. Masks are commonplace; social distancing is the norm; more than 1 million people worldwide have died. As of this Friday, right before the season premiere, even President Donald Trump has contracted the illness. Not only did the season premiere suggest that the cast and crew took an abundance of caution in putting on a show, but it also elegantly commented on or winked at the heaps of news events that have dominated the United States over the past month. Everyone from the onstage band members to the studio audience (composed of first responders) wore masks as did the cast at the end of the show. And non-Covid-related events, like the mid-September death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, received heartfelt, considerate shoutouts. (Kate McKinnon ostensibly retired her RBG impression with a brief appearance at the end of Weekend Update, followed by a “rest in power” title card.) All of this is to say that the show felt satisfyingly normal in the face of abnormality. SNL is an adaptable creature, even if it is not always a deeply considered one (see: the episode’s first sketch, which was just a bunch of jokes about silly- and raunchy-sounding names like Edith Puthie and Irma Gerd). The season premiere had its good and its bad, but its successes — to our pleasant surprise — mostly outweighed any missteps. Winner: Jim Carrey as Joe Biden Saturday Night Live has had a few different cast members play Joe Biden in the past, but none has quite stuck. Biden’s persona is not as immediately defined as Barack Obama’s or Donald Trump’s, which may be why he’s been a bit of a challenge. Instead of asking someone like Jason Sudeikis to come back and reprise the role, SNL went with a much bigger name to take a stab at a Biden impression: Jim Carrey. This may seem like an odd choice to some viewers, considering that Carrey is both one of Hollywood’s greatest hams and Canadian. But Carrey walked on stage all lanky and finger-guns ablaze, his teeth as shiny as the real Biden’s. He exuded the same kind of intrinsic chill that Biden often does, the sense of coolness that was a large part of his persona during his vice-presidential years. The show’s cold open pitted Alec Baldwin’s Trump against Carrey’s Biden in a “replay” of the chaotic presidential debate that aired this past week. But where Carrey truly shined was toward the end of the sketch, when his Biden pressed “pause” on Trump and really took the time to speak his mind. “This November, please get on the Biden train, which is literally a commuter train to Delaware,” said a calm Carrey, a frozen Baldwin-Trump beside him. “And we can all make America not actively on fire again.” —Allegra FrankLoser: Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump Spare at least half a thought for poor Alec Baldwin, who never in his wildest dreams thought he’d be stuck playing Donald Trump this long and who will forever be identified with a person he clearly loathes for many reasons. (Though he’s also definitely making bank and could have handed the role over to anyone in the cast by now, so only half a thought is necessary.) Baldwin’s Trump has at times verged on being more exhausting than Trump himself, and this season opener was no exception. Playing Trump at the first presidential debate, he had to shoehorn in a foreshadowing of the diagnosis to come just a day or two after the debate, and it just was not fun to watch. His puckered visage remains recognizably Trumpian, and he’s certainly nailed the tone of voice, the air of entitled disdain, and the bronzer.
