Entering the debate stage/wrestling ring to the strains of “Carmina Burana” (yeah, that overused Excalibur music), Kate McKinnon and Alec Baldwin went for Round 3 of their Clinton-Trump routine on tonight’s Saturday Night Live cold open. No surprise that the latest punches lacked the POW! of the first bout or two, but the bit held up pretty well after a gruesome week of the real world’s political eye-gouging.
“Let me start by walking over to you just as I practiced,” said McKinnon’s Hillary during the town hall Q&A. By now McKinnon has sharpened every last icicle of her Hillary-as-ice queen persona, and the devilish glee she introduced for SNL‘s season debut hasn’t lost its spark.
Baldwin’s job might be even tougher though, what with his candidate’s hot mic vulgarity and this week’s parade of women slamming the GOP hopeful with allegations of sexual abuse. Not exactly fodder for laughs, but Baldwin takes the only sensible comic approach by diving right in: “Hold on to your nips and your nuts,” his Trump warned, later demanding that Bill Clinton’s accusers need a voice, while his “need to shut the hell up.”
Well, it was direct anyway. Better was the inevitable Trump Stalks Hillary segment, set to Jaws-like music and fashioned as a horror film, which would have been even funnier if Danny Elfman hadn’t already gotten there first with his Funny or Die video.
Some of the targets could be seen coming – Bobby Moynihan’s maybe, vaguely, sorta creepy Ken Bone, and Trump’s entreaty to get out and vote on “November 35.”
But McKinnon, Baldwin and the SNL writers aren’t letting this bit get away just yet. In the opening’s best moment, a seemingly shaken Hillary crumpled at Trump’s introduction of the four women who accused Bill of all sorts of nastiness.
Then, just as she seemed on the verge of tears, Hillary’s devil returned. “Get real,” she shouted. “I’m made of steel. This is nothing. Hi girls!” There’s sting here yet, maybe even enough to last till November 35.