Matt Damon’s SNL Return: Kavanaugh, Mom & More

Matt Damon walked back into Studio 8H on Saturday night and made it look easy. Hosting Saturday Night Live for the third time in his career — following stints in 2002 and 2018 — the Cambridge native delivered one of the more cohesive episodes of Season 51, anchoring everything from a raucous political cold open to a pitch-perfect Mother’s Day fake movie trailer that will absolutely be texted to your mom tomorrow morning.

And yes, Brett Kavanaugh is back.

The Cold Open: Beers, Bourbon, and a Third Term

Damon first played Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in September 2018, at the height of the judge’s contentious confirmation hearing, channeling simmering frat-boy outrage in a performance that’s still talked about. Saturday’s cold open brought a very different Kavanaugh — looser, cockier, and very much at home in a bar.

The scene was set at Martin’s Tavern, the legendary Georgetown watering hole, where Kavanaugh runs into Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, played once again by Colin Jost. Aziz Ansari — returning as Kash Patel following his debut last week — rounded out the trio, arriving with his own branded bourbon.

“Pistol Pete,” Damon’s Kavanaugh said. “I kind of figured I was going to find you here.”

“Oh, did I include you on a Signal chat by accident?” Jost’s Hegseth asked.

“No, I just saw all the women covering their drinks!”

Both characters, of course, faced questions about heavy drinking during their respective confirmation hearings — and the show leaned all the way into it. “Hey, can I just say that we are both kicking ass right now,” Damon’s Kavanaugh offered. “Dude, can you believe I just, like, started a war?” Jost’s Hegseth replied. Kavanaugh shot back: “Can you believe I ended abortion? Your body, my choice.”

“Order. I find in favor of six Bud Lights and three shots of Jame-O,” Damon declared at one point, playing judge from a barstool.

The kicker came when Kavanaugh leaned in to share “something top secret” with his new pals. “We’re gonna let Trump do a third term,” Damon said, sending Hegseth and Patel into screaming excitement. Kenan Thompson’s bartender called last call, and the whole bar — political figures included — broke into Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping” to close it out.

It was the show’s best cold open in a while. The Jost/Damon/Ansari combination of repulsive frat-boy energy had a genuine comedic momentum to it, and Damon’s easy comfort in the role — especially the way he casually name-drops Kavanaugh’s famously alleged friend “Squee” — made it land.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=7N68NjL9cMA%3Fsi%3DJFsaTBbgW3-mdMak

The Monologue and a Very Busy Career

Damon kept his opening monologue short and warm, offering a “personal message” to moms ahead of Mother’s Day and mentioning his upcoming role as Odysseus in Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated The Odyssey — a cast that also includes Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Robert Pattinson. Not a bad résumé to casually drop on a Saturday night.

His hosting history on the show is a bit of a running joke at this point. Damon has made four additional cameo appearances on top of his three hosting gigs, and even joked about it during a 2024 appearance — when he was handed two “Five-Timers” jackets before the actual honoree, Kristen Wiig, got hers. In the promos for this week’s episode, cast member Ben Marshall pointed out that at his current pace, Damon would reach Five-Timer status sometime around 2052.

The pre-show promos also leaned hard into Good Will Hunting — the 1997 film Damon co-wrote and starred in, which earned him an Oscar. In one bit, Sarah Sherman and Jeremy Culhane were found staring at a chalkboard covered in comedy equations, trying to crack the formula for the perfect SNL sketch. Damon recognized the bit immediately. “That movie is like 30 years old,” he said. Neither Sherman nor Culhane had seen it — Sherman because she just hadn’t, Culhane because he grew up in a cult.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=CA3VtWgnGtw%3Ffeature%3Doembed

Mom: The Movie Your Mother Actually Wants

The highlight of the night for many viewers will almost certainly be Mom — a fake movie trailer timed perfectly to Mother’s Day that is, as its own voiceover declares, “completely devoid of conflict, suspense and dramatic tension.”

The premise: an empty-nester mom (Ashley Padilla) is visited by her three adult children, who have the best possible announcement. They’re all moving back in. She is thrilled. The house is clean. The kids are home.

And the husband is, straight up, Matt Damon.

“I just love being married to you, Matt Damon,” mom says.

“I feel the same way, Rhonda. Rhonda Damon,” he replies. “You want to go upstairs?”

“To make love?” she asks.

“No — to do a fashion show with everything in your closet!”

She lights up. The audience loses it.

The sketch keeps going from there, each beat more specifically calibrated to mom-brain wish fulfillment. When a daughter panics that her baby shower and a big pickleball tournament are on the same day, mom checks the calendar and reports, completely unbothered: “They’re on different days.” In another scene, her kids need their birth certificates. She has them all. And when someone named Judith — the same Judith who once called mom’s porch pillows ugly — turns out to be sick, mom smiles and moves on without a second thought.

“And rest assured,” the voiceover adds, “if something bad happens, it will be to someone you don’t like.”

Mom, an “Isn’t This Nice?” production, hits theaters Sunday.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=u8q1H3H6SOQ%3Fsi%3DUz7xBeXFCEJe9JRe

The Rest of the Night

Beyond the cold open and the trailer, Damon spent the episode doing exactly what the show needed: playing middle-aged doofy everymen with the kind of ease that reminded you why Will Ferrell’s era worked so well. A sketch about tough guys recounting increasingly elaborate ways they’d been beaten up felt like it could have been written in 1993. An auctioneer sketch with Sarah Sherman had the energy of an early Dan Aykroyd bit. A fake Tidy Care Kitty Litter ad — in which Damon’s character slowly comes to believe his son has been urinating in the cat’s litter box — landed firmly in the show’s more recent absurdist mode.

As a whole, the episode had a surprising coherence to it. Damon’s persona — the boyish bro who grew into a dependable dad-fave — gave the night a through-line that made even the looser sketches feel intentional. It was a good night to be in the audience.

Musical guest Noah Kahan, a fellow New Englander, performed as well. Next Saturday brings the Season 51 finale, with Will Ferrell returning as host and Paul McCartney as musical guest.