NEW YORK (AP) -- The first “Saturday Night Live" since Donald Trump's election victory began with the most somber of tones as a group of plainly dressed cast members, primarily women and minorities, described their new reality.
“To many people, including many people watching right now, the results were shocking and even horrifying,” Ego Nwodim soberly said.
“Donald Trump, who forcibly tried to overturn the results of the last election, was returned to office,” Heidi Gardner said.
“And now," Bowen Yang added, "thanks to the Supreme Court, there are no guardrails.”
Then came the swerve from the liberal-leaning show.
“That is why we at ‘SNL’ would like to say to Donald Trump, we have been with you all along," Keenan Thompson said.
Yang chimed in, “We have never wavered in our support for you, even when others doubted you.”
“Every single person on this stage believed in you,” Sarah Sherman said.
Marcello Hernández added, “Every single person on this stage voted for you.”
The cast members went on to effusively declare their reverence for, and obedience to, the former and future president, introducing a new character, “Hot, Jacked Trump.”
Cast member James Austin Johnson, who plays a dead-on Trump and was virtually guaranteed a long-term job by the election, came out as an Adonis-bodied president-elect.
“From now on we’re going to do a very flattering portrayal of Trump, because frankly he’s my hero," Johnson said in his Trump voice but speaking as himself. “He’s going to make an incredible president and eventually king.”
The episode, hosted by standup comic and actor Bill Burr, was the first all season that did not begin with former cast member Maya Rudolph, who played Vice President Kamala Harris in a giddy five-week run culminating with an appearance last week of Harris herself that began the show's 50th season and brought a ratings spike.
Burr, hosting after standup Dave Chappelle hosted the last two post-presidential election episodes, did his own feint in his monologue, saying, “I don’t watch politics” and doing some standard standup including an airplane bit before doubling back to the elephant in the studio, the election.
“Alright, let’s get to what you all want to talk about. Alright ladies, you’re 0-and-2 against this guy," he said. "But you learn more from your losses than your wins. So let’s get into the game tape. Ladies, enough with the pantsuit. Okay, it’s not working. Stop trying to have respect for yourself.”
He suggested candidates that were a least a little more scantily clad, saying, “I know a lot of ugly women — feminists, I mean — don’t want to hear this message.”
Burr was “so psyched that this stupid election is finally over. Everybody knew who they were going to vote for four years ago. Then they just dragged us through a year and a half of this stuff,” he said.
After Trump's first election victory in 2016, the show opening was serious and stayed that way with Kate McKinnon, who played Hillary Clinton on the show, appearing as the losing candidate sitting at the piano and singing a somber version Leonard Cohen's “Hallelujah,” changing only one verse from the best-known versions of the song.
“And even though it all went wrong, I'll stand before the lord of song with nothing on my tongue but ‘Hallelujah,'” McKinnon sang in what became a national moment of catharsis for those on the losing side.
After finishing, McKinnon said in a shaky voice, “I'm not giving up and neither should you" before delivering the obligatory “live from New York, it's Saturday night!”
Rudolph made no appearance as Harris on this Saturday night, but former cast member Dana Carvey, who has played President Joe Biden all season, showed up as a leaping Elon Musk after the cast said they loved him, too.
After the opening, the sketches downshifted into standard, non-election “SNL” fare, except of course for the fake news “Weekend Update.”
“On Tuesday, we learned that Democrats don’t actually know how to rig an election," faux co-anchor Colin Jost said.
He later added, “If I know Democrats, they’re going to take a long look in the mirror, learn from their mistakes and run Biden again in 2028.”
Co-anchor Michael Che, who is Black, drank throughout the segment, saying he couldn’t believe people convinced him Harris could win over rural Pennsylvanians.
“Clearly I’ve been spending too much time with you white liberals and your goofy optimism,” Che said.
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