Would you have thought anything differently? “Saturday Night Live” attempted to use its season finale to deliver one more blow against President Donald Trump.
The show opened with a return by Alec Baldwin as Trump (yet again) in a diner with Kate McKinnon as Rudy Giuliani, Ben Stiller as Michael Cohen, and Mikey Day as Donald Trump Jr.
It was a parody of “The Sopranos”: Mob boss Tony Soprano (aka Baldwin’s Trump) waits for his “family” to show up for a dinner with him.
Baldwin’s Trump asked McKinnon — as Giuliani — if he had been on “Fox & Friends.” McKinnon responded, “Like 20 times, yeah. Don’t worry, I told them you were openly colluding with Russia, but then I ended with, ‘So what!?'” McKinnon’s Giuliani said. “I even confessed to some crimes you didn’t do and then I said, ‘What are you going to do? Arrest the president? I dare ya!'”
Stiller as Cohen said he was preparing to go to jail — to which Baldwin’s Trump replied, “I’ve heard jail’s fun. It’s just like camp. Plus, there’s a free gym. Dude, you’re going to get so jacked.”
Eventually, Robert De Niro — playing Robert Mueller — walked into the diner and began watching the table. He ended the segment by giving Baldwin a hand signal to indicate he was watching him.
The lame cold open was far from the last appearance of politics in the “SNL” season finale.
Former cast member and episode host Tina Fey portrayed Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya on the show’s “Mika and Joe” segment — and pandered harder to the show’s left-wing audience. She referenced a meeting Veselnitskaya had had with Trump Jr. back in 2016 and said, “The meeting begins by handing out the customary Russian gift — um, my English is not good, the rectangle with the money — bribe. Then I say, ‘My name is Natalia, I am lawyer who can help Mr. Trump to make lots of money from Russia.’ They say, ‘We already have one of those, his name is Michael Cohen,’ and then they leave. Very easy meeting, very fun. And no one was poisoned.”
Also, with Fey as host, writers had a chance to revive her Sarah Palin impression, purely to attack conservatives. Apparently, the show’s writers — including Fey — didn’t know the impression was a flop a decade ago.
Fey’s Palin appeared in the Oval Office and said, “Here’s a refresher: I was the first female on a Republican presidential ticket, and now I get paid to tweet for Bass Pro Shops. Take it from me, politics is a wild ride: One minute you’re on top, and then you’re gone in the blink of a[n] [Anthony] Scaramucci. Well, I have a message for all the people in the Trump White House: Enjoy your moment. Who knows how long it’ll last.”
From there, she started singing a modified version of “What I Did for Love” with the intent of attacking Trump and his administration.
The song also featured Aidy Bryant as Sarah Huckabee Sanders, John Goodman as Rex Tillerson, Kate McKinnon as Kellyanne Conway, Leslie Jones as Omarosa Manigault Newman, Fred Armisen as Michael Wolff, and Cecily Strong as Stormy Daniels.
Related: ‘It Was a Mistake to Put Stormy Daniels’ on ‘SNL’ Episode, Piscopo Tells Ingraham
Bryant as Sanders was the first of the bunch to make a cameo in the song. She sang, “Kiss White House goodbye, and point me toward Fox News. I did what he said to do and I might regret what I did for Trump, what I fibbed for Trump.”
Goodman’s Tillerson eventually added, “Being fired by Trump was the best thing that ever happened to me. I’m the only person to ever go into a situation scathed and come out unscathed.”
In this year of 2018, comedians have a choice: They can be creative and make jokes on a wide array of topics — or they can recycle the same material week after week and pander to a leftist political audience.
Related: De Niro Hopes to Bash Trump Again on ‘SNL’
For the past several years, “SNL” has done the latter in an attempt to discredit conservatives — and it’s been ineffective. Viewers have declared that. Variety reports that the show experienced a 19 percent drop in ratings over the past two years, indicating people are sick of the constant Trump-bashing.
Maybe the folks at “SNL” will realize this prior to next season, but more likely, they’ll continue their downward spiral to push their political agenda to a steadily declining audience.
Tom Joyce is a freelance writer from the South Shore of Massachusetts. He covers sports, pop culture, and politics and has contributed to The Federalist, Newsday, ESPN, and other outlets.
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