Can SNL Please Just Lose Alec Baldwin Already?

I hate Alec Baldwin’s Trump impression. I hate his puckered lips and his dazed eyes and his dumb voice and stubby little fingers. I hate how whenever he appears there’s a burst of delighted applause, as though he’s some beloved celebrity and not a podcast host in a wig, as though he’s not collecting some exorbitant paycheck just to stand under a light squinting at cue cards for ten minutes. I hate how after he breaks character to say those seven words we all along to hear—live from New York, welcome to hell—he shakes his head as the camera zooms in on it, just inexplicably shakes his square puckered face for no reason, no sounds or words coming out. Why?? And also, in addition to all that, I hate how he’s a serial victim-blaming defender of Woody Allen and James Toback who, much like the show that pays him, has no moral authority to spoof Donald Trump’s misogyny, hypocrisy and other wonderful qualities. A thing cannot be funny if it is not surprising, and there is no longer anything surprising about this awful impression, other than the fact that Saturday Night Live keeps rolling it out. What will it take for Baldwin’s Trump to finally retire?

His appearance last night set the tone for the rest of the Natalie Portman-hosted episode, in that it was far too long and contained very little pleasure. (At one point, he brings a McMuffin toward his mouth as though he’s about to take a bite, but instead just sort of taps it against his lips and puts it down. Come on, man!) It seemed as though the writers were encouraged to throw their strangest premises against the wall, or maybe just their dumbest: an alien whose head is his butt and his butt is his head; the Kids’ Choice Awards Orange Carpet, but one of the hosts loses her voice, so nobody can hear what she says, plus she goes to absurd lengths to get it back, or, no, just a single absurd length. On the one hand, the most bizarre ideas often turn out to be the best ones. On the other, these particular ideas… could have used a few more drafts. That first example, roughly five minutes of Portman talking to Beck Bennett’s face-butt, was probably the show’s low point, never quite moving past the superficial question of its premise: What if this guy’s butt was his head? The latter was similarly aimless, with Mikey Day cycling through a series of guests to distract from his cohost’s (Portman) inaudible voice. So the game of the sketch was pretty lame, but at least we got to see Pete Davidson as a goofy, giggling backstage correspondent, one of several instances in which the episode cast him outside of his type. The results varied: a bit of breaking here, some fine character work there, some strained character work back over here, then back to his normal self for what was essentially a (good!) stand-up set in Weekend Update. Strong performance or weak, though, Davidson is always a refreshing sight in a season dominated by Bennett, Day and Alex Moffat.