One of those people turns out to be Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, played by Kenan Thompson. (Since Thompson offers such an amusing impersonation of the man, he tends to pop up in many cold opens, regardless of their topic.) After reminding the American people that he’s “the brain surgeon that they put in charge of house development,” he happily announces the coronavirus “is something I actually do know about, and rest assured, in my expert opinion, it’s gonna be baaaaaaad.” He then shows a photo of the Disney cartoon character Stitch, which he has confused with the virus.
To prevent contracting the disease, Bennett’s Pence suggests “covering your mouth when you cough and, as always, closing your eyes during intercourse” while Carson recommends some “Make American Great Again masks from the White House website” which are “made in Wuhan, China.”
It’s a clever start to a relatively simple cold open, until Fred Armisen’s Mike Bloomberg pops up in the audience as a reporter who got in by “coughing and everyone just got out of my way.” He begins a campaign pitch for a president “who is competent and capable, even if that candidate lacks charisma or ability to connect with human beings” before speaking some fake Spanish.
Suddenly, the cold open becomes a mash-up of a Democratic debate spoof and a White House news conference spoof, though without a clear throughline. Before long, the stage filled with several celebrity guests offering their now-familiar impressions of the candidates — and one new one.
Up pops Kate McKinnon’s Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), telling Bloomberg she’s “number one in your nightmares” and, beginning with the truth before moving onto increasingly absurd claims, says he “supported George W. Bush. He supported Lindsey O. Graham. He funded SARS. He invented traffic. He was responsible for McDonald’s serving spaghetti. He wrote and directed the movie ‘Cats.’ He dumped your bags in the ocean from cargo holds on Spirit Airlines. This is a bad man.”
Then there’s Colin Jost’s former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg and Rachel Dratch’s Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) getting in an argument over who should be the Midwestern centrist in this race. “I’m from Minnesota and will cut you … in line at Target, son,” she tells him.
Meanwhile, Larry David reprises his Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who says he doesn’t trust Buttigieg because he’s “a hand-cougher. He coughs right into the hand, not the elbow!” and rants against Purell because “on the label, it says it kills 99.99% of germs. What happens to the top .01% Why are we protecting them? I say enough with the potions!”
In a clever meta joke, this week’s host John Mulaney appears as former vice president Joe Biden, making him at least the third guest to portray on him SNL after Jason Sudeikis and Woody Harrelson, which doesn’t go unnoticed. “You look different,” the show’s Pence notes.
Then Mulaney’s Biden offers a long, rambling “honest-to-goodness true story based loosely on fake events” about him and former South African president “Nelson Mandela palling around South Africa ‘Green Book’-style” and beating up an “ebola monkey.”
The show has access to wonderful guest stars, so it’s no surprise that it wants to use them as often as possible. And each individual impression is funny, much more so when it has room to breathe. But much like the Democratic debates, having so many people onstage at once can become overwhelming.
This setup can work, and it has borne fruit many times this season. Key to success is a strong concept, such as reimagining the impeachment hearings as an absurd daytime soap opera or a Judge Mathis-style reality courtroom drama or taking a short trip to hell with attorney Alan Dershowitz (Jon Lovitz).
But simply throwing all these characters together and having them recite similar riffs each week can begin to feel stale. The jokes themselves might be sharp, but the setup’s growing dull.