Saturday Night Live‘s 44th season premiered last night, and the show went in hard with its commentary on this week’s Kavanaugh hearings—starting right from the beginning.
For its cold open, the show tapped Matt Damon, a man who has found his foot in his mouth for his comments about #MeToo, to portray Judge Brett Kavanaugh during his hearing in front of the confirmation committee. His parody of the Supreme Court nominee was nothing short of spot on—but that doesn’t mean it didn’t also make us cringe.
“I’m gonna start at an 11, and I’m gonna take it to a 15,” Damon-as-Kavanaugh begins—then spends the next 13 minutes sniffing incessantly, aggressively turning the pages of his notes, and talking about his friends “PJ,” “Tobin,” and “Squi.” There’s also the tearful submission of his “beautiful, creepy calendars” into evidence, and a whole lot of references to his love of ‘skis. “
“I was the proudest, drunkest virgin you’ve ever seen,” he boasted at one point.
“I’m usually an optimist, I’m a keg-is-half-full kind of guy,” Damon-as-Kavanaugh continued. “But what I’ve seen from the monsters on this committee has made me want to puke, and not from beer.”
Senators Hatch, Grassle, Feinstein, Klobuchar and Graham all make their own appearances as played by SNL cast members, as does “female prosecutor” Rachel Mitchell (Aidy Bryant), who is “only there for Twitter”—and for Senator Hatch to hide behind “like a human shield.” Alyssa Milano shows up, too, in the form of a cardboard cut-out who’s really good at “finding her lens.”
Some of it brought a smile after a long week of news, but some of it hit a little close to home. At one point Damon exclaims, “I’m not backing down you, sons of bitches; I don’t know the meaning of the word ‘stop.'”
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The cold open was just the beginning of SNL‘s all-in approach to the Kavanaugh hearings. The show’s “Weekend Update” segment began with a series of clips that showed Judge Kavanaugh talking about how much he liked beer and working out while he was in high school. After it played, co-anchor Colin Jost commented, “I’ve gotta say, you’re not really helping yourself in a drunken assault case when you yell about how much you like drinking and how strong you were at the time.”
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In a later clip, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg (Kate McKinnon) shows up to comment on the hearings. “He thinks his confirmation hearing was unfair?” she asks, “My confirmation hearing was they threw me in a river to see if I float. And I did! I floated on top like a little waterbug!”
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There was also a pretty unsettling sketch about an alcohol and drug-fueled college party in the ’80s. Although it made no direct reference to Kavanaugh, it alluded to some of the themes of assault and youth party culture that have been at the forefront of conversations surrounding his hearing this week.
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Things got even weirder during the show, but safe to say this is a premiere we won’t be forgetting anytime soon.
Related: 16 Times Women Changed the Game on Saturday Night Live
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