At least this week’s political cameo is a ringer.
Saturday Night Live kicked off last night’s episode with a surprise return by Jason Sudeikis, who dragged his old Joe Biden impersonation out of storage. The sketch addresses Biden’s real-life overly affectionate nature, which has become a major issue for the potential presidential candidate since politician Lucy Flores wrote about his inappropriate behavior towards her during her 2014 Nevada Lieutenant Governor race. Biden turned it into a joke, which only underscores how outdated his mindset is when it comes to issues of privacy and consent. Basically this has been a really bad couple of weeks for the former vice president, who might look like a Democratic frontrunner in some polls, but who clearly does not have the support of younger or more progressive voters.
SNL tackled this in a very SNL way: by basically running with the obvious joke again and again for several minutes. At least Sudeikis has a lot of goofy charm as Biden, and doesn’t mug too much or stall for applause, like many of the actors who have made regular appearances as political figures over SNL’s last few seasons. Check it out below, and read our review of the full episode here.