‘SNL’ Returns To Take On Trump’s Trade War With China, Stormy Daniels Allegations

Saturday Night Live came at the president from a slightly different angle in this week’s cold open, starting with Leslie Jones as Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner, feeling “Outnumbered” as an African-American at Fox News. After wondering if Obama can still be impeached despite not being president anymore, and scaring the network’s viewers with a Fox News alert – “Mexicans” was the entire alert – they cut to Alec Baldwin as Trump, at a press conference with leaders from the Baltic states.

From here, it was business as usual, with Baldwin referring to one Baltic state as “Stankonia,” calling the leaders “freak shows,” and cutting in with “God I hate this” as he tries to read a traditional prepared statement.

The rest of the cold open found the president insulting the leaders – calling them Zsa Zsa, Borat, and “Balki from Perfect Strangers” – and describing the carnage of the “caravan” of immigrants, but actually describing the latest Mad Max film, which led to this great cheesy pun from Baldwin, “that’s right, they are some Mad Maxicans.”

The segment ended with Baldwin’s Trump seeing the Easter Bunny the president appeared with last week and wondering if he was in a “Donnie Darko situation.” But first, he flat out stated, “I don’t care about America. This whole presidency is a four-year cash grab, and admitting that will probably get me four more years. I do not care about any of you.”

Host Chadwick Boseman, sporting a badass red and blue plaid coat, hit the monologue strong. He mentioned how he was hosting the show two months after his hit film Black Panther came out, meaning that only lame sketch ideas remained, like morning show “Wake Up Wakanda,” or a sketch where Black Panther has sex with Leslie Jones, which he noted was a Leslie Jones idea. (He also noted that Sterling K. Brown got to play Black Panther on the show before he did, which is both true, and remarkably weird.) He also talked about how, now that he’s played a world leader, people ask him if he wants to run for president, to which he responds, “Why would I go from being a serious actor to doing reality TV?”

Then, talking about how Black Panther broke new ground, he is greeted by Kenan Thompson, dressed as Panthro from ThunderCats, who tries to get himself a role in the sequel. The monologue ended with Boseman giving us a brief taste of his James Brown dancing – he played the funk icon in the 2014 biopic Get On Up.

Next, a Nike commercial parody. We see Heidi Gardner and Melissa Villasenor acting out all the sportswear commercial cliches – running, hitting a heavy bag, “I’m a runner. I run,” etc. – but then we see Aidy Bryant sitting on a couch, telling the camera, “and I just sit the hell down and chill in these soft pants.” It’s an ad for Nike Pro-Chiller Leggings. Designed for endurance but “used for what most woman actually do in leggings – setting up shop on that couch.” “Cuz let’s get real,” says Kate McKinnon. “Leggings can be pants, pajamas, and a napkin.” Leggings, blanket, laptop – couch panini. “Women can do anything they want,” says McKinnon. “And I want to do nothing.” This was fun.

(Anyone else see the real commercial for Post-It Extreme Notes after this sketch and wonder if it was another SNL parody?)

Next came “Black Jeopardy,” introduced by host Darnell Hayes (Thompson) as “the only show where the prize money is paid in installments.” This sketch has taken interesting turns in the past – the Tom Hanks version was regarded as one of the more insightful SNL sketches in recent memory – and this is no different, as Boseman plays T’Challa, the Black Panther.

The Black Jeopardy sketch has taken an interesting trajectory, as it examines the relationship of other groups to contemporary black culture. Early on, hosts Louis C.K. and Elizabeth Banks played clueless white liberal elitists, trying to answer from a place of compassion but really just finding themselves out of touch. The show gave it an interesting spin with Hanks, who played a blue collar midwesterner who shocked the panel and host by having views in keeping with the black contestants, rooted in economic class as opposed to race. With Boseman, they flip the script, having a black contestant who nevertheless comes from a very different culture. In a sense, the Hanks and Boseman sketches accomplished the same thing in very different ways, illustrating that differences often attributed to race have other determining economic and cultural factors.

Every answer T’Challa gives shows him to be from a culture that prizes knowledge and respect, while the other answers speak more to a sense of survival that games an unfair system, working around one’s culture rather than full-on embracing it, as T’Challa does with his. Host Darnell embraces T’Challa’s nobility until it comes to a question about helping the police. When T’Challa answers with full-throated support, Thompson winces. “I don’t think you’ve spent much time in America,” he says. By the end, though, a question about a white friend bringing her own potato salad to a cookout helps T’Challa figure it out. It’s great to see a recurring sketch that’s used sparingly, and differs its approach every time to smart effect. There has yet to be a Black Jeopardy sketch that hasn’t worked, and I really enjoyed this one.

Next, Boseman plays a fertility researcher announcing at a press conference that they’ve implanted the first artificial womb into a man, played by Mikey Day. The plan, he says, was for Day to deliver by C-section. But, he says, the plan has changed. Due to the fragility of the womb, the baby will now be delivered naturally, through Day’s urethra. This is the first Day has heard of this, and he’s naturally concerned. And, the birth will take 24 hours, and Day can’t have any drugs. And, he discovers, he’s having triplets.

Once the premise was clear, the sketch seemed to have little to it but a desire to make men cringe by describing the terrible things that would happen to Day’s penis during birth. While there was definitely humor potential in the premise, the execution seemed to desire little more than that. They lost me, and most of the studio audience, at “tuliping.” (Ouch.)

Next, Cecily Strong, McKinnon and Bryant discuss how musical guest Cardi B has inspired them to be stronger, and Bryant takes it too much to heart and starts acting like Cardi, which translates to her talking like she’s from the Bronx and insulting everyone around her. By the end, she gets a bit too Single White Female with Cardi B herself, but there’s not much to it. This didn’t really go anywhere.

At the Weekend Update desk, Alex Moffat plays Mark Zuckerberg, perfectly depicting the Facebook founder’s nervous and robotic nerd energy. Self-consciously using the word “homey” to try to seem human, he’s there to apologize to all 87 million people who had their data stolen, but winds up revealing people’s personal information instead. He also gives Zuckerberg an insane yelping laugh. In the end, this Zuckerberg is not sincere in his apologies, saying he won’t let people delete their data “because it’s mine, you gave it to me, no backsies. If if you don’t like it, you can Zuck it. Ha!” He then claims that Jost gave him the idea to steal the Winklevoss’ idea at Harvard, bringing up the question of whether Jost knew the real-life mogul, as they would have been at Harvard at the same time (Jost, former president of the Harvard Lampoon, is two years older than Zuckerberg.)

Heidi Gardner brought Angel, Every Boxer’s Girlfriend from Every Movie About Boxing Ever back for the Good News Report (Ha!). In a nutshell, her boyfriend Tommy is fighting this week, Gardner fears for his life, and if you need her, she’s taking the kids to her sisters’. Michael Che wants her to talk about the Prince Harry/Meghan Markle wedding, the women who donated a million dollars to a state park, and the return of Roseanne, but Angle can only see the negative in things. There wasn’t much more to this than there was the first time Gardner played her, but she plays the hell out of it, and I enjoyed it almost as much as the first time. The risk of diminishing returns here is clear, but Gardner hasn’t hit it – yet.

Next, Villasenor, Strong and Jones plays friends treating themselves to an adult day at Disneyland. They check out the Magic Mirror, which shows them which Disney princess they would be. Villasenor and Strong get Elsa and Rapunzel, which match their personalities. But they seem to have run out of princesses for Jones, who gets R. Kelly (Boseman) in the Magic Mirror. Jones is upset by the weird choice. They try again and she gets Elsa, but R. Kelly pushes her out of the way. This went nowhere and was ultimately nothing but weird, but I laughed.

Boseman plays a firefighter at a fire who tries to leave because it’s 6:00, despite the fact that they’re in the midst of fighting a devastating fire. He insinuates it’s for something important, but he won’t reveal what. In the end, it turns out he’s involved in some ridiculous money-making scheme involving dolls and dogs, but it doesn’t matter, because this sketch was almost completely laughter-free. I’ve rarely heard the SNL studio audience so quiet. Even the presence of a cute dog in the sketch couldn’t save this. Wow.

The next sketch featured possibly the greatest wig Thompson has worn in his record-breaking 15 seasons on the show. He, Boseman (sporting some killer dreads himself), McKinnon and Strong play a cheesy pair of couples who decide to give feedback on their restaurant meal by singing a soft jazz tune. If there was a dictionary entry for “12:50 SNL sketch,” it might be this. More fun than funny.

Next comes another commercial parody, this for The Game of Life: DACA Edition. If you pick a card declaring you a “Dreamer,” you get to “jump through bureaucratic hoops, duck from ICE officers, and work three jobs just to get by.” A short but concise and funny statement on the insane quagmire many immigrants find themselves in.  

The final sketch finds Jones and Chris Redd as a couple leaving a screening of Black Panther. When Pete Davidson approaches them to chat, saying how much he loves the movie, they find themselves disgusted when he does the Wakanda salute. There was an interesting premise here, but this tapered off hard. In the end, it felt underwritten.

SNL returns next week with host John Mulaney and musical guest Jack White.

Watch the Chadwick Boseman/Cardi B episode of Saturday Night Live on Hulu