‘Saturday Night Live’ Recap: Baldwin, Trump and the “Russian Pee Pee Party”

The first Saturday Night Trump of the new year – that is what they’re calling Saturday Night Live now, right? Because if not, they might as well – began the only way it could, really, with a take on Trump’s press conference from earlier this week, and a cold open skewering the unconfirmed reports that Trump once hired two prostitutes in Russia to engage in golden showers while he watched.

Alec Baldwin is back as Trump, and he wastes no time informing us – as the answer to the question on everyone’s mind – that, “yes, this is real life. This is really happening.” He then explains that next week, he’ll become the 45th president of the United States, and then two months later, Mike Pence will become the 46th.

The sketch mocks the paid cheering section Trump had at his press conference as he talks about the very few performers who’ll play his inauguration – including “the Rockette with the least amount of money in her savings account” – before we get to journalists asking him about, as Pete Davidson puts it, his “Russian pee pee party.”

Baldwin’s Trump deflects the first question, saying, “it didn’t happen. It’s not as cool as it sounds” – but then lands in a double entendre minefield, deflecting to jobs and how he’ll bring back “a thick stream of jobs,” how “this country will be showered with jobs” because “I am a whiz at jobs,” etc. etc. Insert your own urination joke here.

The section was predictable – you probably already saw versions of these jokes on Twitter – but brief. For all the raw new material this week provided, SNL’s writers did an admirable job of squeezing a lot in here, including blending the obvious jokes with more serious commentary. They killed two birds with one stone by having Sasheer Zamata, as a reporter, ask Trump about how cancelling Obamacare will leave 20 million people without health insurance, then have him answer that he found a great replacement – a program he just heard about called the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a shot at the Trump voters online this week who reacted with glee to Obamacare’s cancellation without realizing it’s the same thing as the ACA, which many of them rely on for insurance. “People could die,” she says. “Listen, sweetheart,” he answers. “I’m about to be president. We’re all gonna die.”

Before the sketch ends, they also take shots at Trump’s sons – Mikey Day and Alex Moffatt make an excellent Trump-boys-as-Patrick-Bateman – the press conference’s prop folders, and Trump’s meeting this week with renowned “housing expert” Steve Harvey on housing policy. The sketch also sees the return of shirtless Beck Bennett as Vladimir Putin, blackmailing Trump with a VHS copy of “the Pee Pee tape.”

Host Felicity Jones takes an admirable stab at comedy, but has the worst comedic timing of any host since the show’s disastrous 1989 Andie MacDowell episode. She may know how to outsmart the Empire, but even an appearance by Tina Fey as a Carrie Fisher-like hologram, there to guide her through her hosting stint, can’t help her land within a mile of a punchline. (Getting a bit meta here, Fey tells Jones not to worry about the reviews. “Does this show get reviewed?” Jones asks. “Oh yes, way too much,” Fey replies. Sorry, Tina.)

The Bachelor parody Beard Hunk lands a few funny lines, like this exchange between Cecily Strong and Bennett’s bachelor – “I’m a business owner.” “What kind of business?” “OK, I’m not.” – and Aidy Bryant’s introduction to Bennett: “I’m a veterinarian, so I love animals, but I’m also a very sexual person, so I’d love to jack you off whenever you want.” Jones, meanwhile, cycles through a variety of fascinating and bizarre accents.

The short film Shondra & Malik was intended as a showcase for Leslie Jones and Kenan Thompson as feuding rivals who can’t keep their hate going, but despite a promising start, it goes nowhere.

Speaking of promising, next comes a showcase for Day, who’s having a ridiculously solid first season. He plays a wealthy 106-year-old man who’s donated large amounts of money to a theater company, and disrupts their sensitive drama with increasingly disgusting and loud interjections. The sketch is a physical comedy workout for Day, who, with Felicity Jones as his nurse, winds up covered in what seems to be yogurt, squirming like mad in a medical chair as Bennett and Kate McKinnon perform a serious relationship drama several feet away. Day gives a singular performance here in a unique sketch that, in all good ways, feels yanked from another SNL era, recalling Will Ferrell’s go-for-broke insanity.

The short film The Princess and the Curse features Felicity Jones as a princess who is bedeviled by a horrible curse at birth, which is revealed later in the sketch – every evening, ”as soon as night falls,” she gains 15 pounds. For Bennett, as a prince attempting to win her hand in marriage and promising eternal love and devotion, this is a sudden deal breaker, as the end of time feels really far away. The sketch wisely keeps things short – good for a quick laugh.

A tour of Susan B. Anthony’s house for a group of women gets too real when, invoking an ancient ritual, they bring Anthony (McKinnon) back from the dead. She imparts words of wisdom in dramatic fashion, but then – what? She’s still there, the women have completed their tour, and now it’s time to call a cab, as Anthony lingers, awkwardly imparting wisdom because there’s little else for her to do as her revivers grow increasingly annoyed. A one joke sketch that runs a bit too long, but a funny joke nonetheless.

Weekend Update was its usual mixed bag, taking on the week’s Trump news. Among the better lines: Colin Jost, on Trump’s tweeting “Are we living in Nazi Germany?” in response to the leak of the Russian report, saying, “Of course not. Nazi Germany at least had the guts to take on Russia”; and Michael Che, commenting on Trump’s meeting with Harvey, saying, “It feels like every decision Donald Trump makes starts with the sentence, ‘Yo, you know what would be hilarious?’”

The segment’s desk pieces included Pete Davidson doing a segment called “First Impressions,” where he comments on Trump’s cabinet picks despite knowing nothing about them, going only by their appearance. Of “metrosexual Apple genius bar worker” and Goldman Sachs billionaire Steven Mnuchin, the nominee for Treasury Secretary, he says, “A long time ago he was like, ‘When I have a billion dollars, women will have sex with me.’ And now he’s like, ‘Maybe a trillion.’” Bennett also did a well-executed but forgettable piece about his attempt at music stardom using short, terrible pop songs.

The next sketch skewered celebrities who publicly take on politics with Strong as the host of a film-related talk show, speaking with a pretentious director (Kyle Mooney) who wrote a tweet about the importance of pushing forward and creating in these troubled times. The reveal: his new film is, Hot Robot 3: Journey to Boob Mountain. Felicity Jones and Bennett play the film’s stars, taking themselves and the entire Hot Robot franchise way too seriously. Of the effort to, as Bennett puts it, “get all of the hot robots to harness their boob energy,” Mooney says, “Obviously there’a a lot of anger about the election in that choice, but also a lot of hope. If we could all harness our boob energy, who knows what we could accomplish.” So true, boobman. So true.

The final sketch parodied corporate retreats, with Strong, Felicity Jones and Melissa Villasenor as meek, nervous pharmaceutical employees who reluctantly participate in Joke-oke – and proceed to tell incredibly raunchy jokes. As basic as shock humor gets and a quick hit, but for a brief moment, this had me laughing harder than anything else in the episode.

At this point in the season, while it’s been rewarding to see Bennett establish himself as a linchpin of this cast and Day make himself quickly vital, I’m worried about Bobby Moynihan. He only appeared in the episode during the closing credits (wearing an awesome Princess Leia T-shirt), and he’s clearly been pushed into the background this season. I hope it isn’t the case, but it seems he’s being primed to go the way of Taran Killam. Is there a petition we can sign or an elected official we can call to get him back in Lorne Michaels’ good graces?

Next week, Aziz Ansari hosts – the show’s first-ever host of South Asian descent – with musical guest Big Sean.

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.

Watch 'Saturday Night Live' with host Felicity Jones and musical guest Sturgill Simpson on Hulu