One of the best things to come out of this year’s ridiculously messy and drawn-out election cycle was Kate McKinnon’s impression of Hillary Clinton on “Saturday Night Live.” (Although, Larry David’s Bernie Sanders and Alec Baldwin’s Donald Trump renditions were almost as priceless.) On Saturday night’s episode McKinnon reprised her Clinton character by singing “Hallelujah” and ending her song with “I’m not giving up and neither should you!”
Here’s the full cold open:
It was an interesting move for the show–not clearly a comedic take on Tuesday night’s results, but also Clinton’s campaign juxtaposed with some of the lyrics added a touch of poignant levity. For example, she sang:
I did my best, it wasn’t much, I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch.
I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you. And even though it all went wrong, I’ll stand before the lord of song, with nothing on my tongue but hallelujah.
The scene was also a nice remembrance of the song’s writer, Leonard Cohen, who died earlier this week.
Alec Baldwin didn’t come back as Trump this week; he had previously said he “hoped” he wouldn’t be back, seemingly indicating that he hoped that Trump wouldn’t win the election and require a new skit.
It’s unclear if Baldwin will continue to play Trump throughout the duration of his presidency. While he makes a perfect Trump, he doesn’t seem to enjoy the role very much. Appearing on “The Brian Lehrer Show” recently, he said:
I’m not an impressionist, per se, but if you do any kind of comedy and they ask you to do that, most of the time, there’s some degree of appreciation, I think, involving somebody you like. Trump is somebody who, I don’t hate Trump, but he’s not somebody I admire, so it was more difficult.
So whether this marks the end of McKinnon’s Clinton, Baldwin’s Trump, or both, it’s a sad day for “SNL.”