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Saturday Night Live

By last episode, the debate format for Saturday Night Live’s cold open felt tired. As a society, this election has us talked out, squeezed free of debate points, at our limit on overheated rhetoric, and just plain sick to death of the whole thing. There are few points left about Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton that we haven’t been beating into each others heads for the 17 months since Trump announced his candidacy.

At the start of last night’s episode, it first seemed like SNL was so bereft of ideas that it invented yet another debate in which their two presidential-aspirant impersonators could lunge at each other with predictable insults, a fake CNN forum that at first seemed like an excuse to trot out Alec Baldwin and Kate McKinnon as opponents for — Is it real? Can it be? — the final time before we finally vote on Tuesday and end this long national nightmare.

The sketch took a shot at the media’s hypocrisy, slamming how they’ve remained committed to intense coverage of Clinton’s emails while failing to cover a series of potentially worse Trump scandals, from his University and Foundation misdeeds to possible ties to Russia and charges of sexual assault, to name just a few.

An exasperated Clinton looks on as Trump kisses an FBI agent, a KKK member, and even Vladimir Putin as if they’re family, and Cecily Strong’s Erin Burnett, hosting the segment, can only reply, “Let’s get back to your emails.”

But after Clinton goes off on a rant about Trump’s awfulness and Trump responds with his “she should be in jail” speech, Baldwin suddenly drops character in mid-sentence.

“I’m sorry, Kate. I hate yelling all this stuff at you like this.”

McKinnon drops character as well, and the pair start talking about how disgusting this election has made us all feel. They join hands, still dressed in character, and to the tune of Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up,” they hit the streets of Times Square hand-in-hand, hugging strangers; Baldwin, dressed as Trump, hugs a Hispanic family, while McKinnon-as-Clinton hugs a man in a “Trump that Bitch” T-shirt. The pair share New York street food and hand out blue and red balloons, and whether seen as a plea for unity or a moment of catharsis, the sketch suddenly becomes a perfect reflection of the national mood, which by now can best be expressed as, “My god, will this campaign season never end?” November 9 can’t get here fast enough for any of us, and tonight’s cold open reflected that. They ended with a plea to vote, as McKinnon noted, “We can’t tell you who to vote for, but on Tuesday, we all get a chance to choose what kind of country we want to live it.” As an emotional and heartfelt plea, it was as on point as SNL gets.

Host Benedict Cumberbatch gave us a musical monologue, using song as a chance to get to know him better. Surprise number one — something about Cumberbatch pegged him for me as a man who could sing. Mistaken impression corrected. The joke to the bit came from the ladies of SNL serving as his back-up vocalists, with Leslie Jones singing of her lust for him, telling him she’s one of his Cumberbitches (he would have preferred Cumberpeople, he assures us), and sharing news of her Cumberbatch fan fiction, “Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Missing Underwear.” It’s a fine, if unoriginal, opening. I’d love to see SNL go a full season without using a musical monologue, as at this point, it’s an overused devise that’s been run into the ground.

After, we get a parody of Apple’s infamous 1984 ad, but for cool toilets. It’s a funny bit — the toilets are designed so you can sit backwards on them so you can look cool, and Cumberbatch does look cool on his backwards toilet — but for me, knowing that SNL is now doing in-show product placements removes the luster. This fake ad for Kohler toilets — their name appears with their trademark in plain sight — seems to be an actual ad for Kohler toilets. Did Kohler get to approve this sketch? Did they make changes to the content? Questions like this distract from the comedy, but in TV’s new era of increased competition and shrinking ad dollars, this sort of integrated advertising is just getting started.

I loved the next sketch, and thought it a clever way to both capitalize on and further a specific cast member’s image. It’s a game show parody, with Beck Bennett, as himself, hosting, and the title and concept left initially mysterious. Bennett introduces himself as host, saying only that he’s trying to “get to the bottom of something that’s been throwing me for a loop all week.” We then say hello to Vanessa Bayer and Aidy Bryant, both playing themselves as contestants, and both with no clue what the game is or why they’re there. The third contestant, also playing himself, is Cumberbatch, and we soon see that the game is, “Why is Benedict Cumberbatch Hot?”

“That’s right,” Bennett says. “Every girl in the cast has been so horny for this dude all week. As a guy, I’m just trying to figure that out.”

Last season, Bennett began cementing a character image as a guy who’s always put-down and out-of-step, easy to insult and prone to taking things personally. It’s a natural character for him, and one he can play for laughs in many settings. This breaking of the actor-character wall couldn’t have fit him better, as he peppers the three with what he believes are damning questions, out to prove he’s just as hot as Cumberbatch. Bayer and Bryant work themselves into a lather describing Cumberbatch’s sex appeal, and Bennett’s frustration hits the roof: “Are we looking at the same dude, what the frick?!?!” He even has them compare horrible photos of Cumberbatch with his own posed shots, hoping they’d say he’s hotter. They do not, but by the end, Bennett himself has been won over by the Sherlock actor’s charm.

Pete Davidson brings back his clueless pool boy character from the show’s Julia Louis-Dreyfus episode as a student being counseled by Cumberbatch’s professor. It’s a funny quick hit, as Cumberbatch creates a deep emotional drama between himself and Davidson, and Davidson responds positively and cluelessly, misunderstanding every nuance.

Next came SNL’s version of Weekend at Bernie’s combined with “let’s put Benedict Cumberbatch in a sexy construction worker outfit and blond wig and have him talk like a valley girl.” The simple premise is that Bryant is an 83-year-old woman surprised with a bachelorette party as she prepares to re-marry, with two male strippers (Cumberbatch and Mikey Day) at her disposal. But the surprise of seeing the strippers gives her a heart attack and she dies, which the audience sees but the other characters do not. The sketch then has Cumberbatch and Day, as two vapid male strippers, bounce Bryant’s skull between their crotches for the next few minutes. It’s a one joke sketch, accented at the end by an appearance, in identical short shorts, from three of the World Champion Chicago Cubs.

Colin Jost and Michael Che must be thrilled this election is finally upon us, because they ran out of things to say about it a while ago. In a sense, their “Weekend Update” has traded jokes for banter, trying to make it sound like Che and Jost are having more of a casual chat about the election as opposed to just spewing off jokes. But comparing former Update anchor Seth Meyers’ show to this segment shows why this is a bad strategy. This casual banter mode is an effort to create chemistry where little had been, but it sacrifices tighter writing in the process. As Meyers proves nightly on his own show, the format was never the problem, and can be used effectively to address this election. Their first segment ended with an attempt by the pair for an inspirational speech about how we’re all more alike than we are different, but they just doesn’t have the gravitas, and the lukewarm audience reaction was unsurprising. Especially after the spot-on cold open and similar, but far more effective speech from McKinnon, this went nowhere, and emphasized the pair’s weaknesses more than their strengths.

This was followed by the surprise return of Dana Carvey as the Church Lady, there to comment on a recent announcement by a church that parishioners would go to hell if they voted for Clinton. Carvey spent the time bantering with Jost, accusing him of being gay and calling him Satan, following by his singing “What a Wonderful World” over pictures of Trump, Clinton, Putin, and more screaming.

Update ended with the re-appearance of the Cubs, accompanied by Super Fan Bill Murray, singing “Go, Cubs, Go.” Cumberbatch-quality vocals aside, it was a sweet moment.

Strong brought back her cockney-accented Gemma character, this time with Cumberbatch as a Criss Angel-wannabe rock magician, interrupting Kenan Thompson and Vanessa Bayer at dinner to bombard them with banalities. Strong is preparing a Kickstarter to pay for her fake breasts, and Cumberbatch insists on doing a magic trick with an actual handgun. By sketch’s end, Thompson squirms to hide the erection caused by Gemma’s warbling of her new song. A few laughs, but I can’t imaging too many viewers would be upset if this sketch was retired.

Next came a quick funny hit from Cumberbatch as a criminal mastermind who places Bennett and Alex Moffat in danger, forcing them to answer riddles to save their lives, and becoming befuddled when they answer all.

The episode ended with a sketch custom-made for the 12:50, sketches-too-weird-to-air-any-earlier slot, with Cumberbatch playing assistant to a millionaire philanthropist who happens to be a statue of an eagle.

Next week’s episode should be a scorcher – not only will it be the first episode after the election, but the host is Dave Chappelle, with musical guest A Tribe Called Quest.

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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.