The last Saturday Night Live show of 2018 opened with It’s A Wonderful Trump. After the depressed president (Alec Baldwin) wishes he’d never been elected, his guardian angel Clarence (Keenan Thompson) makes his wish come true.
Trump discovers that the members of his inner circle are much better off in this alternate reality – a divorced Melania (Cecily Strong) is flourishing as an entrepreneur, Kellyanne Conway (Kate McKinnon) got her soul back from the devil and is still on speaking terms with her husband, Michael Cohen (Ben Stiller) is free from prison and free of worries, and Brett Kavanaugh (Matt Damon) is able to drink beer in peace and hang out with his boys PJ, Squee, Needle-Dick Nick, and No-Means-Yes Nate. Even his enemies are happier – Robert Mueller (Robert De Niro) is able to spend more time with his grandson now that he no longer has to “investigate some idiot for treason”.
While the political jabs aren’t any stronger than they have been for the season’s other cold opens, the premise makes for a nice change of pace, even if it can’t compare to the best It’s a Wonderful Life parody the show has previously given us.
Matt Damon hosts for the first time in 16 years, or, “5 Jason Bournes ago”. He reminisces about staying up late with his father, who passed away only yesterday, to watch SNL as a child. His emotional monologue ends with an endearing bit of self-deprecation and a heartfelt toast to “all the moms and dads who let their kids stay up too late for all the right reasons”.
We move on to Westminster Daddy Show, “a dog show, but for daddies”. The contestants are a collection of newly single doofuses who, despite being utter tools, can still “get it” – West Palm Golf Daddy, Berkley Tweedy Daddy, Wall Street Business Daddy, and, in a last-minute twist, Damon’s Broadcast Daddy. The sketch mixes solid cultural satire with some funny, low-key slapstick.
Best Christmas Ever has Damon and Strong playing exhausted parents staying up late to reminisce over what a great Christmas they just celebrated, even as flashbacks show us their awful reality (screeching children, annoying in-laws, terrible presents).
Christmas Ornaments introduces a number of misfit decorations who’ve been banished to the back of the tree: a cheap souvenir from an airport vacation, a drunk Santa, a piece of confusing Good Will Hunting holiday merch, a Rudy Giulianiminiature from his “America’s Mayor” golden days, a Harry Potter that looks like he has an erection, and, most memorably, a grotesque broken angel with half of her face missing.
Oscar Host Auditions is the latest in the show’s popular Audition series. This go-around includes impressions of Rachel Brosnahan, Amy Sherman-Palladino, Rami Malek, Kanye West, Ellen DeGeneres and more. There are a few too many characters, but a handful stand out – Matt Damon’s dead-on Chris Hemsworth and Matthew McConaughey, Melissa Villaseñor’s Sarah Silverman, and particularly Aidy Bryant’s note-perfect Hannah Gadsby.
In Jingle Bells, Strong and Damon re-team as a bantering musical duo – she’s a high-wired Jewish lounge singer and he’s her saucy gay piano player/ex-husband. There’s not much to it, but it’s still an enjoyable bit of screwball comedy, punctuated by Strong’s impressive vocal skills.
Mark Ronson and Miley Cyrus are the musical guests. They perform the Parton-esque Nothing Breaks Like a Heart.
Weekend Update opens up with a rundown of the president’s mounting legal woes and impeachment worries (per Colin Jost: “This last week was a pretty bad year for Donald Trump”).
Michael Che and Jost exchange Christmas gifts. This year, they decided to make one another read previously unseen/unrehearsed jokes. It’s a nifty excuse to get some edgier material on air, and the transgressive racial jokes given over to Jost by Che smartly weaponize the former’s frat boy maliciousness. It’s proof positive that Jost ought to lean more into his innate un-likability.
Alec Baldwin returns for Cop Christmas, in which a group of Boston cops exchange gifts at their local bar, in-between “breaking [each other’s] balls”. One cop, the dopey but affable Paul (Kyle Mooney), takes the brunt of said ball breaking, as his fellow officers list the various transgressions they’ve made against him over the years (one is sleeping with his sister, one drunkenly shot his wife at their wedding, and they’re all racking up an insane bar tab on his dime). The sketch never goes as far into absurdity as it should, and wastes Baldwin.
Pete Davidson has been the elephant in the room up to this point, having expressed what many took to be suicidal thoughts on social media earlier in the day (prompting the NYPD to perform a wellness check on him during rehearsal). His reintroducing Cyrus and Ronson for their second performance seemed like a reassurance to concerned viewers that he’s currently safe and (hopefully) doing OK.
The final sketch of the night, Happy Christmas, Britain, is an English holiday special hosted by an exhausted, embattled prime minister Theresa May who has just faced down another Brexit crisis. Pertinent but a little flat.
All-in-all, this was a solid Christmas SNL. Damon was a popular host, Cyrus and Ronson put in two good performances, there were a few strong sketches and no outright bad ones. A happy swan song for 2018.
