‘Saturday Night Live’ Recap: It’s Time To Cut Alec Baldwin And His Dull Trump Impression Loose

This week’s cold open of Saturday Night Live sees the return of Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump, this time facing the possible extinction of Earth due to aliens from the planet Zorblatt 9.

The sketch purports to show how Trump would handle himself in the midst of a global – heck, universal – crisis, and finds that he’d be the same guy the show has been parodying all along – which is a nice way of saying that recent reports indicting Baldwin might be winding down his Trump portrayal on SNL might be coming just in time.

Baldwin’s Trump has never been the sharpest impression, but the deeper we get into the Trump presidency, the less bite this impression has, as it’s still targeting the same broad strokes it attacked during the campaign and at the start of his administration.

As Baldwin’s Trump speaks with soldiers charged with protecting us from aliens who have landed on Earth, he immediately turns it back on himself, asking the soldiers, “Who loves Trump?” In response to the question of how to defend Earth from the aliens, he talks about bringing coal back. Asked to try again, he asks if he won the popular vote. In time, there are reasons for the soldiers to question if the president has business ties on Zorblatt 9. Later, he mixes up the words to the National Anthem.

For SNL to matter satirically, it needs to satirize what’s happening as it happens. In this case, there’s almost nothing marking this sketch as current – it could have run as is two months ago with no need for re-writing. If the show wants to satirize current events, there needs to be an emphasis on “current.” There are way too many specific things happening in the world to leave the satire to broad strokes as this sketch does. If this is how they’re going to use Baldwin, they might as well cut him loose.

Host Scarlett Johansson joins the show’s Five-Timers club with this appearance, and the honor (for those who’ve hosted five times) isn’t as special as it used to be. First, Kenan Thompson made a highlight reel for her, but strangely, it only showed his parts in her sketches. Then Kate McKinnon came out to congratulate her, but really to promote Rough Night, the movie McKinnon and Johansson have coming up together, and the clip of which turns out to be Thompson from Fat Albert. Thompson then presents Johansson with a Five Times jacket, and he and McKinnon sing the Five Timers song, which turns out to be the Subway sandwich jingle. There’s a theme at play for the episode so far, and it’s, “silly non sequiturs.”

The first sketch features Cecily Strong and Bobby Moynihan as newscasters introducing a segment on animal photographer Danny Bangs, played by Mikey Day. But someone in the newsroom’s graphic department messed up, because the caption on-screen is, “Animal Pornographer.” Strong corrects the mistake; the graphics department does not. As reporter Johansson interviews him on how he gets animal shots, the captions indicate they still think he’s a pornographer; saying he’ll do anything silly to get an animal to react on camera becomes, “Animal Pornographer: I’ll Do Anything with an Animal.” Tweets come in from viewers, and the correction doesn’t seem to be taking, as people ask if he has any stuff with tigers. By report’s end, Danny is caught in a full-blown scandal.

Next comes a parody of an ad for a Logo reality show called Fire Island which, based on the clips used here, plays off the most obvious stereotypes of gay men. Flipping the script, the ad announces a new show featuring affluent lesbians, and plays off their own stereotypes, as we watch them having quiet, reasoned arguments while raising their children in the most boring fashion imaginable. (Aidy Bryant, as Chris, introduces herself to camera by saying, “I’m 38, and I’m the dairy intolerant one.”) As with the previous sketch, there’s a mild chuckle or two here, but not much more.

Next comes the only laugh out loud sketch of the night, enhanced by a special guest. Johansson, Day, and Kyle Mooney play scientists who’ve been working on a machine that can read dogs’ minds, then translate their thoughts into English. They are presenting their findings to their sponsors (Strong and Alex Moffat), and Johansson, the lead scientist, is using her own dog to demonstrate. First, the visual of the dog wearing a brain scan helmet looking like it emerged from a 1930s science fiction B-movie is worth a few laughs on its own. (Of course, it eventually shakes off the helmet, requiring Johansson to improvise as she replaces it.) But once the dog, voiced by Beck Bennett, starts talking, there’s a huge problem, as it becomes apparent that the dog is a Trump supporter. Johansson and the dog engage in debate about Trump’s policies as the scientists and funders grow increasingly agitated. The sketch gets more incredulous as the dog’s arguments skew toward the rational, and the sketch works both in its take on arguments from both sides of the aisle – when Johansson calls Trump a racist, the dog counters, “You never brought a black person into our house once” – and for the more obvious escapades that ensue when trying to work with animals on a live broadcast. When Johansson asks the dog if she shouldn’t have the choice about what to do with her body, the dog replies, “You didn’t afford me a choice when you cut off my balls.”

Next finds Bennett directing four extras in background work for an Olive Garden commercial, having them play up their reactions to an absurd degree. “You guys have seen Olive Garden ads,” Bennett tells them. “The people act like they’ve never seen a restaurant, or eaten food before.” Bennett has the four – Johansson, Thompson, Day and Leslie Jones – make believe they’re orgasming over the food, or pretending to react to a two-foot-tall waitress. Throughout the sketch, Bennett falls into a racist voice in describing how Jones should play her parts, leaving Jones indignant, but there’s little payoff to the bit. Still, a few decent laughs scattered throughout.

After abandoning any new political perspective in the Baldwin cold open, the episode takes its harshest stance in a fake perfume ad featuring Johansson as Ivanka Trump. This opens with a voice over announcer saying, “Every man knows her name, every woman knows her face. When she walks into a room, all eyes are on her. She’s – Ivanka.” Johansson, walking slowly through a party, turns in slow motion, and everything from the announcer’s hushed tones to the gauzy camera work indicates we’re being sold luxury. When the camera shows the party guests, though, there’s something disquieting about them. Normally, in an ad like this, onlookers would be glancing over with reverence. Here. they wear a look of trepidation. Soon, we learn why. “A women like her deserves a scent all her own,” the announcer says. “She’s beautiful. She’s powerful. She’s…Complicit.” Yes, Complicit is the name of the fragrance. “She’s a woman who knows what she wants. And knows what she’s doing.” The parody takes on Ivanka Trump’s attempts to frame herself as a feminist champion for women – the announcer says, “A feminist. An advocate. A champion for women. Like, how?” – and liberal hopes that she would act as a moderating force with influence over her father’s actions. At one point, we she her putting on lipstick in the mirror, and her reflection is Baldwin’s Trump, doing the same. “She doesn’t crave the spotlight,” the announcer says, “but we see her. Oh, how we see her.” The tagline at the end: “Complicit. The fragrance for the woman who could stop all this – but won’t.”

Best lines from “Weekend Update” – Michael Che talking about how bad the GOP’s proposed health care plan must be if even Trump doesn’t want his name on it: “It would be like if Kanye’s next album was called, But Enough About Me.” Also, Colin Jost, about Trump’s new travel ban: “It’s probably not great that it’s just a bunch of brown color swatches.”

The Update desk sees the return of McKinnon’s Jeff Sessions, this time paired with Sessions confirmation hearing antagonist, Senator Al Franken, played to dry, deadpanned perfection by Moffat. (Also, nice to see longtime SNL regular Franken back at the desk, even if it’s the fake version.) The sketch plays like a buddy comedy, as the effusive Sessions talks about how he and Franken are really great friends, making Franken cringe. “Al showed me Jew stuff,” he says. “We had lunch in a deli, Jeff,” Franken replies. Along the way, McKinnon gets in deeper shots. At one point, her Sessions tells Franken that racism is just part of the landscape where he lives. When Franken asks where he lives, he replies, “the 1950s.” “I might talk cute,” McKinnon/Sessions concludes, “but I am very scary.”

Pete Davidson followed with a piece about Trump’s media defenders. This worked as commentary and as a vehicle for some solid one-liners, as it plays like a political version of David Spade’s “Hollywood Minute” segment. Among his funnier takes: That Stephen Miller looks like “if Fredo Corleone had been even sicker as a child,” and noting that Sean Hannity looks like a thumb, which “explains why he’s so far up Trump’s ass.” Davidson also used this segment to share with the crowd that he’s gotten sober. Given his role until now as SNL’s resident stoner, it will be interesting to see if this changes the nature of his work on the show.

Next finds Day playing a World War II pilot who crash lands on an island populated with mermaids. This is a return for McKinnon’s distorted mermaid/blob fish character. I found this unfunny the first time. With Johansson joining McKinnon as another gross horny fish, I found it no funnier this time.

Next sees the return of Leslie Jones’ ninja character, Shanice Goodwin. Johansson plays a fellow ninja, and together, they battle British gangsters. The premise – that Jones is not a very good ninja, having trained at the YMCA, and is incapable of the stealth a ninja requires – works, but the laughs are muffled here by erratic timing, from mistimed sound effects to Jones stumbling on her lines.

The next sketch opened with Johansson and Bryant speaking to the audience as themselves. They mentioned that the female cast had taken Wednesday off for the national Day Without Women, but since Wednesday is when the show gets written, they were unable to write sketches for the show. So, they say, Bennett and Mooney volunteered to write a sketch for the show’s female cast, expressing a female point of view. The sketch itself then finds the four of them at a restaurant, where Bennett and Mooney express their disgust with misogyny as Johansson and Bryant look on, with almost no lines to say and no chance to get a word in edgewise. Even when Mooney asks the “girls” what they think, the men give their answers for them. The sight of Mooney looking at a table with the rest of the female cast, saying, “each of these women has a story to tell,” then not letting them tell it was one of the funniest and most revealing lines of the night.

The final sketch finds Thompson and Johansson as two singers paying tribute to a friend at a funeral, revealing his secret songwriting endeavors with EDM songs about sexual freedom, cocaine and gay sex. The mourners, including his wife, are deeply surprised.

SNL takes three weeks off, returning on April 8 with host Louis C.K. and musical guests, The Chainsmokers.

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 the "Scarlett Johansson / Lorde" episode of SNL on Hulu