With only days left before the election, it was inevitable that Saturday Night Live would open with one last look at the candidates, and Kate McKinnon and Alec Baldwin did not disappoint. Though the premise of the skit—a joint appearance by on Erin Burnett OutFront in which Clinton tries and fails to get Burnett to change the subject from her emails—isn’t much more than an excuse to get Trump and Clinton back on screen together now that the debates are over, who needs an excuse? Baldwin’s Trump, like Trump himself, has been building toward making out with a hooded KKK member on live television all fall; congratulations to Baldwin for narrowly beating the presidential candidate across the finish line. And although McKinnon was neither as delightfully uptight nor as wacko as she’s been in the past, nobody does frustrated Clinton better.
Less great was the skit’s final act, in which Clinton and Trump (or Baldwin and McKinnon?), exhausted by the endless, awful campaign, run hand in hand through Times Square, embracing their opponent’s supporters, handing out balloons, splitting a pretzel, and dancing in a circle, enraptured with the beauty of America or something. It’s a dream of ecstatic reconciliation based on the idea that everyone is basically good, politics are a noble battle over high ideals, and no disgrace is permanent. We’ll see!
