One of the few pleasures of the 2016 election season has been Larry David’s impersonation of Bernie Sanders on Saturday Night Live. Since the show won’t be back until fall, when the primaries will finally have come to a close, Saturday may have been his last appearance. And he went out with a bang, meeting Kate McKinnon’s Hillary Clinton at a bar at the Biltmore—it’s closing time but he refuses to leave—and trading secrets with his rival. The standout moment is Hillary offering him a choice position in her administration: the senator from Vermont. So far, so typical for SNL. But then the sketch unexpectedly turns into a fantasia, set to the “Waltz of the Flowers” from The Nutcracker.
It’s the best cold open of the season, with the kind of surrealism the show could use more of. It’s a pity next season probably won’t feature Larry David’s spot-on Bernie Sanders. The silver lining is that with any luck we’ll be watching Kate McKinnon’s tryhard Hillary Clinton for a long time to come.
