‘Saturday Night Live’ Recap: Walter White From ‘Breaking Bad’ Lands Donald Trump Cabinet Appointment

Saturday Night Live decided to give Donald Trump’s tweeting fingers a break, as they had Alec Baldwin take the week off. Instead, after Beck Bennett’s Jake Tapper interviewed Kate McKinnon’s Kellyanne Conway about Trump’s cabinet picks – which Conway called “alt-good” – the sketch made its point with a surprise guest, Albuquerque science teacher Walter White, who’d been named by Trump as head of the DEA.

Yes, there was America’s favorite good-time drug dealer, actor Bryan Cranston in Walter White’s Heisenberg hat, to discuss why Trump would pick him as head of the agency that would seemingly oppose him, a stab against several of Trump’s cabinet picks who’ve long opposed the agencies they’ll now run.

Having come highly recommended by Trump advisor Steve Bannon (“Steve’s the best. We’ve had some times,” he says), who found him in the comments section of Breitbart, White “know[s] the DEA better than anyone, inside and out,” and is a bag fan of Trump’s Mexican wall, since it will keep out the competition. (“You mean jobs?” asks Tapper. “Sure,” he says.)

Possibly the shortest cold open in years, it was a smart change of pace from the relentless sameness of the cold opens of late, and a sign that the show recognizes that four years of Trump will take different creative approaches. Whatever your feelings on Baldwin’s Trump, they can’t just trot him out automatically every week to start the show, no matter what’s happened in the news that week. Cranston got the show off to an intriguing start.

(A weird glitch, at least here in New York, found the show cutting to commercial for a few seconds during the cast intros, leading some online to wonder if Trump hadn’t somehow intervened to disrupt the episode.)

Wrestler John Cena, who proved his comedic chops in the 2015 movies Trainwreck and Sisters, hosted. Opening by introducing himself – “To those of you who voted for Hillary, I’m a wrestler” – Cena was a charming host. The monologue found SNL cast members challenging him wrestler-style – Bobby Moynihan was “The Waddler,” and Leslie Jones was Leslie Jones – for having the nerve to wrestle and try to be funny. After Kenan Thompson hits him with a chair, Cena finally takes the bait, revealing biceps that must be larger than Pete Davidson’s waist. Moynihan waddles back onstage, and as they cut to commercial, Cena waddles along with him.

The first sketch felt like it might be a sequel to one from the 2014 Woody Harrelson episode, where Cecily Strong played a contestant on a risqué dating show who turns out to be the host’s daughter. After we see Strong, the dating show format, and the return of Bennett and Kyle Mooney’s cheesy-phrase-emoting contestants, Cena is introduced as host, and we get the bit as soon as Strong’s eyes find him. Clearly, Bennett, Mooney, and Mikey Day will hold no appeal for this contestant, who spends the sketch clumsily flirting with Cena as poor Mooney tries to turn the attention back their way. The premise is cute, but the sketch accelerates too quickly. By a minute or two in, Strong and Cena are a couple working through psychodrama as Mooney and Beckett toss out slogans. By the time Beckett and Mooney hook up at the end, the joke to this short sketch has already been worn out.

A filmed Karate Kid parody finds Day fighting Cena, thinking back to advice given by coach Thompson. Botton line – all the waxing on and off in the world won’t stop Cena, whose douchy bully energy here is contagious, from slamming Day through a number of walls.

Cena then plays a star student athlete presenting a research project to a committee, and promising to skip the upcoming Bowl game if he gets anything less than A+. Of course, the game is rigged, as we see immediately from Thompson, as one of the professorial judges, having his face painted in team colors. Day and Vanessa Bayer’s students give presentations on “quantum” this and “ionization” that, while Cena’s assigned topic was “bananas.” To his credit, he must have done extensive research to determine that, “I used to not like bananas, cause they look like boys’ weiners. But now I like them because they’re yummy.”

Kudos to SNL for not running what seemed an obvious recurring sketch into the ground, and holding back on the return of McKinnon and Aidy Bryant’s “Dyke and Fats” for as long as they did. Here, Santa’s been kidnapped, and it’s gonna take Chicago’s toughest crime fighters to save Christmas. More an excuse to take control of stereotypical jokes – watch as McKinnon’s cop slides across a police car in hot pursuit of a suspect, while Bryant tries, losing momentum quickly and winding up stuck on the hood – it’s a solid parody of 70s cop shows and attitudes rolled into one.

The Trump administration will clearly keep Weekend Update with more than enough news items to fill the segment on a weekly basis, and hosts Colin Jost and Michael Che are taking full advantage, going after Trump on as many fronts as they can pile in. Among the week’s better lines: Che saying it’s good that Trump is blowing off his intelligence briefings because he’d probably just tweet out the info, noting, “When Trump shows up to a briefing, I hope they give him headphones and an iPad and make him watch Frozen“; Jost noting that Trump’s reportedly keeping an executive producer credit on The Apprentice is “an absurd, unethical, potentially illegal conflict of interest…only on NBC”; Che noting that Rex Tillerson, the ExxonMobil CEO who Trump may name as Secretary of State, is such an oil tycoon’s name that the “I” should be in the shape of an oil rig, then following the accompanying graphic by shooting off finger guns like Yosemite Sam; and Jost citing Trump’s tweet earlier this week about cancelling an order with Boeing, saying, “Trump usually waits until after the work is done before refusing to pay.”

The week’s desk pieces including McKinnon’s Angela Merkel, last year’s Time Magazine Person of the Year, commenting on Trump’s winning the honor this year, and noting it removed some of the shine, like “winning the Nobel Prize for Physics, and then next year they give it to Hoobastank.” Jost also asks her feelings on the rise of the alt-right. She responds, “You call it the alt-right. We call it, ‘Why Grandpapa lives in Argentina now.'”

Cecily Strong’s bedraggled crack smoker Cathy Anne also returns, to comment on the man who fired a gun in a pizza place because he believed a fake news item about child abuse there. Strong turned the bit, usually a throwaway, into a scathing tirade against the alt-right, saying they should just call themselves white supremacists because White Pride should mean you’re proud, before calling liberals to task as well for smugly wasting their time screaming into the Facebook echo chamber for the past year. She then addressed Trump directly, saying, “I know he’s watching,” and recommending he take a few days off from tweeting as well. In the end, she’s getting through these trying times by following the advice of Michelle Obama: “When they go low, I get high.”

Next comes the game show parody “Where’d Your Money Go?’ Thompson hosts as Charles Barkley; contestants are NFLer Rob Gronkowski (Cena), UFC fighter Conor McGregor (Alex Moffat), and golfer John Daly (Moynihan). The premise: “We try to teach financial security to some of the world’s most ignorant millionaires.” Thompson gives scenarios, and the answer to every question is “no.”
Of course, these three athletes, apparently all with free-spending reputations in real life, can’t help but say yes to scenarios like, “Buy a Cheetah,” “Own a Restaurant,” or “Trust a Stripper.”

Bryant’s put-upon office worker Joanne winds up hanging off a high ledge holding a Christmas tree, but her co-workers only care about saving the tree. Oddly, pouring energy drink in her face from a high distance doesn’t make her stronger like Popeye eating spinach.

The short film “Through Donald’s Eyes” takes its title literally, purporting to show us life as Donald Trump sees it. The world is all about him, as a Fox News announcer merely intones, “Huge, Huge success, victory, landslide, Fox News,” and “The Failing New York Times” features the story, “Lies, Lies, Lies, by Bad Journalist.” He passes a mirror, and he sees John Cena with a Trump wig and monster-sized hands. The people around him say, “Trump, Trump, Trump,” over and over, and all is in his favor until he sees a Hollywood actress say something bad about him. This random quote turns his world dark, literally, as the world takes on a devilish hue. Now, the voices saying “Trump” are saying, “Loser,” and he responds by tweeting “Media is bad.” As Conway and Bennett’s Mike Pence try to reassure him, he slowly falls into sleep, overwhelmed by it all, Conway trying to comfort him like a mom with a toddler. In the end, he dreams of a slow dance with his true love – himself.

The next sketch, set in a romance bookstore, turns Cena into Fabio, playing out romantic fantasies with bookseller Bryant as customers wait impatiently for books. A better-than-average late sketch, it proves beyond all doubt Cena’s willingness to go for it comedically, as he talks on and on about his big “steak hands.”

The show squeezed in one more short sketch with a competition reality show parody finding Cena and Day as two guys with an owl act, dealing with their failure as the owl pees and barfs everywhere. A total 10-to-1 throwaway, it brought some quick cheap laughs.

Cast note: I won’t be doing the math on it, but at this rate, I expect Mikey Day will be in more sketches this season than any first-year cast member has in some time, and possibly even more than many of the veteran cast. Given how the show usually takes it slow with newbies, his integration has been impressive.

Next week is the final show of 2016, with host Casey Affleck, and musical guest Chance the Rapper.

[Watch Saturday Night Live on Hulu or Seeso]

Larry Getlen is the author of the book Conversations with Carlin. His greatest wish is to see Stefon enjoy a cheeseburger at John Belushi’s diner. Follow him on Twitter at @larrygetlen.