With Jeff Sessions dominating the news, it was a sure thing that Kate McKinnon’s killer Saturday Night Live impression of him, relegated to a cameo a few weeks ago, would advance to a leading role. But no one was expecting the coprophagia! On Saturday, she rendered the nation’s highest-ranking law enforcement officer as a bumbling, racist Forrest Gump, drawling his improbably shifting story about Russia to a progression of barely interested bus passengers.
The Forrest Gump framing means a really awkward bus prop keeps shuttling cast members on and off screen, but all is forgiven the moment McKinnon says, “I always say life is like a box of chocolates … there sure are a lot of brown ones in there!” But the real payoff is host Octavia Spencer appearing in character as Minny Jackson from The Help, delivering Jeff Sessions a very special pie. Is this the first time someone has suggested a sitting attorney general eat shit on network television? Maybe, maybe not; the Ashcroft years were pretty touch-and-go. But it’s definitely the first time a major network has portrayed a sitting attorney general telling a stranger, “I got as worked up as a double-donged piggy in a room full of sows!” Let’s hope it’s not the last.
