• Paul McCartney appeared as musical guest on SNL’s Season 51 finale, hosted by Will Ferrell on May 16
• He performed three songs — a rare SNL privilege — including new single “Days We Left Behind” and Wings classic “Band on the Run”
• McCartney surprised the audience with a bonus “Coming Up” performance during the closing credits, with the cast dancing side-stage
• Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers played drums on both main-stage performances
• His new album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, drops May 29 — his 18th solo record

Paul McCartney didn’t just close out SNL’s Season 51 — he took it over. The Beatles legend returned to Studio 8H on Saturday night as musical guest for the Will Ferrell-hosted finale, delivering three full performances, sketch comedy, monologue time, and a surprise encore during the goodnights that nobody saw coming. He’s done SNL five times now. He keeps finding new ways to make it feel like the first.

His opening number was “Days We Left Behind,” the lead single from his upcoming album The Boys of Dungeon Lane, out May 29. The song is reflective and a little bittersweet — somewhere between “Things We Said Today” and “Auld Lang Syne” — and it landed exactly the way you’d expect a Paul McCartney song about the passage of time to land when performed live by Paul McCartney. Emotional. Quietly devastating. Beautiful.

Then came the gut-punch.

Most people assumed the second slot would bring another new track. Instead, McCartney and his band launched into “Band on the Run” — the full, five-minute version of the 1974 Wings classic that hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. The audience audibly gasped. That sound — a room full of people catching their breath at once — is maybe the best review a song can get.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=BxHS7_YdEt0%3Ffeature%3Doembed%26enablejsapi%3D1

Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers was on drums for both performances, which made the whole night feel like a bit of a rock-and-roll family reunion. Smith also appeared in Ferrell’s monologue, playing into the long-running joke about the two men’s uncanny resemblance to each other.

The Sketch, the Goodnights, and the Encore Nobody Expected

McCartney didn’t spend the rest of the night just watching from the wings. He showed up in a sketch alongside Ferrell and Marcello Hernández, playing mechanics who take advantage of a clueless Mikey Day — a bit that was considerably filthier than anything you’d expect from a knight of the British Empire. He was, by all accounts, very funny.

But the real moment came at the end. After Ferrell wrapped up the goodnights — thanking the night’s cameos, including Molly Shannon, Aziz Ansari, and Smith — he ushered McCartney back to the side stage. What followed wasn’t a wave and a bow. McCartney kicked into “Coming Up,” his 1980 Hot 100 No. 1, while the SNL cast danced around him in the wings. The closing credits rolled. Nobody left.

Reports from the room suggest the band kept going even after the cameras cut — playing at least two more songs for the studio audience once the broadcast ended. The man turns 84 next month. He outlasted the show.

It’s worth putting this in context: three songs is genuinely rare for an SNL musical guest. The standard is two. Lorne Michaels doesn’t hand out extra slots lightly, and giving McCartney the full five-minute “Band on the Run” — a song that would normally be considered too long for the format — says everything about where he sits in the SNL universe. This was his fifth appearance as musical guest, with previous slots in 1980, 1993, 2010, and 2012. He last performed on the show more than 13 years ago. Last year, he closed out SNL’s 50th anniversary special with a medley of the final three songs on Abbey Road.

Lorne knows what he has. And Saturday night, so did everyone watching.

The post Paul McCartney Closes SNL With Surprise Encore appeared first on Cream.

• Colin Jost nearly had his head shaved live on air during SNL’s Season 51 finale Joke Swap segment
• Michael Che wrote a stunt into the script, sending a real barber onstage with clippers before stopping it at the last second
• The segment also featured a jaw-dropping Michael Jackson joke and a Kanye West Hitler reference that made the audience visibly cringe
• Jost admitted he was “so scared” — and the hair survived
• SNL returns for Season 52 on NBC this fall

Colin Jost’s hair lived to see another day — but only barely. During the Saturday Night Live Season 51 finale on May 16, Jost, 43, and his Weekend Update co-anchor Michael Che brought back their beloved, deeply chaotic Joke Swap segment, and this time Che found a way to top everything that came before it: he wrote a live barbershop stunt into the script.

After forcing Jost to read a joke claiming that Kanye West — who publicly apologized for antisemitic comments in January, insisting he is “not a Nazi or an antisemite” — “can make awful music and still be right about Hitler,” the cue cards took a turn. “Now, that joke is offensive to everybody, and I do apologize,” Jost read, the audience already wincing. “I’d like to sacrifice the most important thing in my life: my beautiful, award-winning, world-famous hair. That’s right, I’m shaving it off. Send in the barber!”

A man named Jerome materialized from offstage, threw a black barber cape over Jost’s shoulders, and produced a set of clippers. “Jerome, make me unpretty,” Jost read from the teleprompter, visibly uncomfortable as the clippers crept toward his head.

Then Che stepped in. “No, no, no!” he said, pulling the plug at the last possible second. “You were really going to do it? Man. You are the greatest comedian of all time.”

“I was so scared,” Jost admitted, to enormous laughter.

https://x.com/nbcsnl/status/2055873800609419682

The Rest of the Swap Was Just as Wild

The hair moment was the climax, but the full segment was a marathon of escalating offensiveness that had the studio audience gasping and laughing in equal measure. Jost opened by reading a Che-authored joke about the new Barbie with autism — “Ugh, now it’s going to feel wrong when I have sex with it” — while Che read Jost’s joke about the average erect penis being 6.34 inches: “Oh boy. That means I’m only 6 inches below average.”

Jost was then handed a joke about Michael B. Jordan’s Oscar win for Sinners that went to an extremely dark place, followed by a bit in which he pledged his season’s salary to “Dr. Umar’s School for Black Boys” and offered “any Black person a free one-way trip back to the motherland” on his ferry — a callback to the infamous Staten Island Ferry Jost bought years ago.

Che got the Michael Jackson treatment next. Anticipating what was coming, he told Jost, “You’re a terrible person,” before reading a joke tied to the new biopic Michael — noting that members of the Jackson family were actually in the audience that night — and delivering a monologue that ended with the punchline that being molested by Jackson “gave me a fetish for middle-aged white women.” Che quickly clarified, deadpan: “That is not why I have that.”

A Bit With Deep Roots — and a Long Memory

Jost and Che first introduced the Joke Swap on Weekend Update back in 2015, but it didn’t become a recurring institution until 2018. Since then it’s reliably appeared twice a year — Christmas episode and season finale — and has developed a reliable internal logic: Che’s jokes almost always make Jost sound racist, while Jost’s jokes almost always make Che sound like a predator.

The hits over the years have been genuinely legendary. In 2020, Che read a Jost-written joke about having “fond memories” at Jeffrey Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion. In 2024, he was made to claim he’d been at Sean “Diddy” Combs’ parties and would help the rapper fight his criminal charges. Jost, meanwhile, has been made to defend Woody Allen and Harvey Weinstein, declare that “blue lives matter even more,” and — in one particularly chaotic bit — attempt to start a public feud with Kendrick Lamar.

In 2023, Che hired a fake civil rights activist to sit next to Jost and silently shake her head in disapproval at every racist joke he read. That’s the level of production value this segment now commands.

The Scarlett Johansson chapter of the Joke Swap has become its own running saga. Che has been making Jost read increasingly vulgar jokes about his wife for years — including a 2023 dig about “my wife’s little art movies” — but the 2024 Christmas episode took it furthest when Jost was forced to read a crude Costco roast beef sandwich joke while Johansson, 41, watched on a live backstage feed. Her horrified reaction was caught on camera and went viral. She later told InStyle in March 2025 that she “just can’t believe that they went there” — calling it “really gross” and “old-school gross.”

The couple got their revenge at the Season 50 finale, bringing Johansson out onstage and making Che read his own apology, which included a self-deprecating punchline about never having seen “a human vagina” — emphasis on human — and a summer he once spent on a farm.

The Christmas 2025 swap added another wrinkle: Che told Jost they weren’t doing it that year, and then did a one-sided version where only Jost had to read jokes — including one calling Johansson his “gravy train.” “You should have wrote some jokes for me to tell,” Che quipped afterward.

Season 52 of Saturday Night Live returns to NBC this fall. Jerome the barber’s services will presumably not be needed — but with Che writing the jokes, you genuinely never know.

The post Colin Jost Almost Shaved His Head Live on SNL appeared first on Cream.

• Will Ferrell hosted the SNL Season 51 finale on May 16 — his sixth time hosting the show since leaving the cast in 2002.
• Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith pulled off the opening monologue prank, impersonating Ferrell before the real host stormed the stage.
• Paul McCartney served as musical guest, performed three songs including new track “Days We Left Behind,” and appeared in multiple sketches.
• Ferrell also played the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein in the cold open, reuniting with James Austin Johnson’s Trump.
• Molly Shannon made a surprise cameo, and Chad Smith stayed all night to play drums for McCartney.

Will Ferrell walked back into Studio 8H on Saturday night and reminded everyone exactly why he’s one of the best to ever do it. The SNL Season 51 finale was a full-on event — Paul McCartney performing three songs, a Chad Smith doppelganger prank that nearly hijacked the whole monologue, a Molly Shannon surprise, and Ferrell himself playing the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein before the opening credits even rolled. It was, by any measure, a hell of a way to close out a season.

This was Ferrell’s sixth time hosting since leaving the cast in 2002 — putting him in rarefied company alongside the likes of Tina Fey (also six) and Chevy Chase (eight). His last hosting appearance was back in 2019, though he turned up for the SNL 50th Anniversary Special earlier this year. He’s also promoting his upcoming Netflix comedy The Hawk, dropping July 16.

Chad Smith Steals the Stage Before Ferrell Even Gets There

Even eagle-eyed viewers might have needed a full minute to realize that the person striding out to deliver the opening monologue was not, in fact, Will Ferrell. It was Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith — dressed in the exact same gray suit, styled the same way — launching into a confident “I’m thrilled to be back hosting Saturday Night Live. I was a cast member here for seven years. And now I’m hosting for the sixth time! Amazing, it really feels like coming home.”

The audience caught on. And then the actual host came sprinting out.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing? You’re not the host, I am!” Ferrell snapped. “He pushed me down backstage. And I fell, hard. Lorne had to give me mouth-to-mouth.”

After finally banishing Smith from the stage — “Don’t clap for him. He’s a bad guy” — Ferrell tried to do a hard reset, but admitted the vibe was off. He pivoted to audience questions, calling on “the cute one” in the front row. That turned out to be Paul McCartney, who looked up and asked, completely deadpan: “What do you think you’re doing, Chad?”

“Look, I understand your confusion,” Ferrell replied. “Me and Chad do look a lot alike. But I’m Will. I’m hosting tonight.”

McCartney wasn’t buying it. “Nice try, Chad. Get back. Get back behind the drums where you belong.”

Ferrell salvaged the bit by rattling off a murderer’s row of McCartney’s greatest hits — Beatles, Wings, solo — before noting that there are a few great songs the legend didn’t write. “The alphabet song. ‘Timber’ featuring Pitbull. All the Smash Mouth stuff.” McCartney’s only rebuttal: “Get your ass behind the drums, Chad.”

The Ferrell-Smith resemblance has been a running gag for over a decade. Ferrell once famously claimed Smith didn’t actually exist and was a character he invented — which eventually led to the two having a charity drum-off so Smith could prove he was real. Smith didn’t just show up for the monologue prank and leave, either — he stuck around all night, sitting in with the SNL band and playing drums for McCartney’s performances.

Epstein’s Ghost Visits the Oval Office in the Cold Open

Before any of that, Ferrell kicked off the night in the cold open as the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein — a surprise appearance that nobody saw coming. James Austin Johnson’s Trump had returned from a trip to China, drowsy enough to fall asleep on a gold bar (“that Switzerland gave me as a straight-up bribe”), when a cloudy vision of Epstein materialized beside him.

“Don’t worry, Donald, it’s me, your best friend, Jeffrey Epstein,” Ferrell’s ghost announced.

“Jeffrey, I thought you were dead,” Johnson’s Trump replied.

“I am, remember? I killed myself. Wink!”

The Epstein ghost caught Trump up on the afterlife — “really, really hot,” mahjong on Wednesdays with Stalin and John Wayne Gacy — before pivoting to show Trump a vision of the future. In it, former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem (Ashley Padilla) is hawking vacuums on the Home Shopping Network, while Pete Hegseth (Colin Jost) and FBI Director Kash Patel (Aziz Ansari, back for his third consecutive episode) are co-hosting a bro podcast over a shared beer bong. When Trump bemoaned his approval rating stuck in the 30s, Epstein had a response: “The 30s? Gross, call me when it hits 17.”

The whole thing wrapped with Ferrell and Johnson doing a duet of “Just the Two of Us” before nearly kissing their way into the “Live from New York” announcement.

McCartney, Mechanics, and Molly Shannon

McCartney wasn’t just there to perform — he was woven into the night. The mechanic sketch, “What It Feels Like Talking to a Mechanic,” featured Ferrell as a fast-talking auto expert bamboozling a clueless couple (Mikey Day and Ashley Padilla) with a stream of nonsense jargon. The “sprog box” was shot. The “camber” was creating problems. The “sprunkbell” was “real tree-trunky.” A second specialist (Marcello Hernández) arrived and explained the car’s ailments in funny noises and partial Spanish before declaring, “You need a new trans person.” Then came chief mechanic Nigel — McCartney — who informed the couple that “your tipsy-whipsy’s all dangly-doodly, and the spiggly-wiggly’s gone crumpily. The whole car is knackered.” Plus, he noted, “the steering wheel’s on the wrong bloody side.” The payment options were “all the money now” or the husband could “pay in ass.” They chose the latter.

The night’s most visually impressive piece was a pre-filmed Lord of the Rings parody called “Bobbin’s Sacrifice” — complete with genuinely good special effects, orcs, elves, dwarves, and Ferrell as a pint-sized halfling who bravely volunteers to destroy a bridge separating the heroes from the monsters. Once outside the gates, Bobbin cheerfully switches sides, handing the orcs blueprints of the castle and giving away magic items he stole from his friends. It didn’t end well for Bobbin. But he went out with a song.

Ferrell also showed up in a sketch as a high school drama teacher — withholding the cast list for a production of Grease with sadistic glee — alongside a surprise appearance from former cast member Molly Shannon as a hilariously overdramatic choir teacher. The two had actually done an earlier version of this sketch together back in 2019, but it was cut for time. It finally made it to air.

Near the end of the night, Ferrell committed fully to a sketch about a “Nudeman” dad whose rear end is entirely exposed when he turns around to meet his daughter’s boyfriend. That’s the kind of 100% physical commitment that made Ferrell a legend in the first place — and a reminder that, six hosting appearances in, he hasn’t lost a step.

McCartney Closes the Night With a Surprise Third Song

McCartney performed a new song, “Days We Left Behind,” ahead of his 21st solo album The Boys of Dungeon Lane, due May 29. He also played “Band on the Run” and “Coming Up” during the closing credits. And then — after the goodnights were said — he surprised the audience with a third performance, with Chad Smith behind the kit where he belonged.

It was McCartney’s fifth time as SNL’s musical guest, and almost exactly 46 years to the day since his debut on the show in May 1980.

Weekend Update’s joke-off between Colin Jost and Michael Che was one of the weaker editions of the season — Jost reading racist jokes about Black vampires, Che making light of Michael Jackson molestation claims — but the segment was upstaged anyway by Jeremy Culhane’s return as Mr. On Blast, a recurring character with spectacularly bad hot takes (“AI? More like P.U.”) and genuinely great dance moves. This time, Mr. On Blast debuted a new catchphrase — “Devout!” — and brought out a group of bearded backup dancers called the Blast Boys. Culhane is a lock to be back next season.

Season 51 has been largely about building up newer talent — Ashley Padilla, Culhane, Marcello Hernández — and Ferrell gelled with all of them, doing exactly what a veteran host should do: make everyone around him look great. The season began back in October with Bad Bunny and Doja Cat. It ended with a Beatle, a ghost, and a rock star who happens to look exactly like the host.

SNL returns in the fall for Season 52.

The post Will Ferrell’s SNL Finale Had It All: McCartney, Chad Smith, and a Ghost appeared first on Cream.

• Will Ferrell hosts the SNL Season 51 finale tonight, May 16 — his sixth time in the hosting chair
• Paul McCartney returns as musical guest for the fifth time, nearly 46 years after his SNL debut on May 17, 1980
• McCartney is promoting his 21st solo album The Boys of Dungeon Lane, out May 29
• The promo clips have already gone viral, featuring dragon-slaying claims and a Despacito sing-along
• Watch live at 11:30 p.m. ET/8:30 p.m. PT on NBC, or stream free with a Peacock Premium trial

The Season 51 finale of Saturday Night Live doesn’t just have a legendary lineup — it has two of the most beloved returnees in the show’s history sharing a stage. Will Ferrell is back as host for the sixth time tonight, May 16, and Paul McCartney is stepping into Studio 8H as musical guest for the fifth time. If that wasn’t enough to get you to clear your Saturday night, the promo clips they shot together this week absolutely will.

Ferrell, who was a cast member from 1995 to 2002, is hosting to promote his upcoming Netflix comedy The Hawk. He most recently appeared on the show during the 50th anniversary special in February 2025 — the same night McCartney took the stage and performed “Golden Slumbers,” “Carry That Weight,” and “The End.” Tonight, they’re back together, and based on the promos, they haven’t lost a step.

The Promos Are Already a Highlight of the Season

In the new promo clips, Ferrell and current cast member Marcello Hernández join McCartney for what turns into one of the more absurd and charming bits the show has put out in years. Hernández asks McCartney what it’s like being a knight — Sir Paul was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1997 for his services to music — and McCartney, without missing a beat, casually mentions that he once slayed a dragon.

McCartney also gets in a callback to last week’s Matt Damon Mother’s Day monologue, quipping that he’s a big fan of Hernández’s mom. The whole thing wraps up with the three of them attempting — and we use that word generously — to sing the Justin Bieber remix of “Despacito.”

“Sir Paul, everyone’s wondering what songs you’re going to play on Saturday,” Hernández says in the clip. McCartney’s response? “I won’t tell.” So Ferrell proposes a guess, and on the count of three, he and Hernández shout in unison: “‘Despacito’ remix featuring Justin Bieber!”

McCartney’s reaction: “Damn, how’d you know?”

A separate host-only promo earlier in the week leaned into Ferrell’s SNL legacy, calling back to his beloved “Get Off The Shed” sketch from the ’90s — and featured a joke about McCartney that involved Ferrell hitting him with a belt. Classic.

A Night of Milestone Returns

For McCartney, tonight is genuinely historic. Saturday will mark almost exactly 46 years since his SNL debut on May 17, 1980. He’s also performed on both the 40th and 50th anniversary specials, making him one of the show’s most enduring musical presences. His 21st studio album The Boys of Dungeon Lane is due May 29, and he previewed a new track called “Salesman Saint” on The Rest Is History podcast earlier this week.

Ferrell, meanwhile, is a six-time host — a club that’s not easy to get into. His connection to the show runs deep, and his chemistry with the current cast has always been easy and electric. The season that began with Bad Bunny and Doja Cat is ending on a very different, very legendary note.

Saturday Night Live airs tonight at 11:30 p.m. ET/8:30 p.m. PT on NBC. If you don’t have cable, you can stream it live or catch it the next morning with a Peacock Premium free trial (seven days, then $16.99/month). DIRECTV is another option, with a five-day free trial starting at $84.99/month. Season 52 returns to NBC this fall.

The post Will Ferrell & Paul McCartney Unite for SNL Season 51 Finale appeared first on Cream.

• Colin Jost revealed on The Tonight Show that SNL writers rejected a Hegseth Pulp Fiction bit as “too ridiculous” — then Hegseth actually did it two weeks later.
• Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recited a prayer at a Pentagon service on April 16 that closely mirrored Samuel L. Jackson’s famous fake Bible verse from the 1994 Tarantino film.
• The Pentagon defended Hegseth, calling it a “custom prayer” used by military rescue crews that was “obviously inspired” by the movie dialogue.
• SNL closes out Season 51 this Saturday with host Will Ferrell and musical guest Paul McCartney.

Sometimes the writers’ room just can’t keep up with real life. Colin Jost stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Thursday and shared a story that pretty much broke his brain — the time Saturday Night Live rejected one of his Pete Hegseth sketch ideas as too far-fetched, only for the actual Secretary of Defense to go ahead and do it anyway.

“We were pitching ideas for one of the cold opens like two months ago,” Jost told Fallon. “And I was like, ‘Would it be funny if Hegseth just did that Bible verse that they have in Pulp Fiction?’ We talked about it, and we were like, ‘That would be too ridiculous.’ And it would take up all this time in the cold open.”

Then came the kicker.

“And then he for real did it! Like two weeks later!” Jost said. “I was like, the good news is I’m being surveilled, so that’s a relief.”

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Sk5ABAy38fk%3Fstart%3D130%26feature%3Doembed

Fallon, clearly delighted, played along — even filling in the fake scripture citation himself: “Samuel L. Jackson, 12:17.” Which is not a real book of the Bible, for the record, but at this point nothing feels off-limits.

What Hegseth Actually Said at the Pentagon

The moment in question happened on April 16, when Hegseth delivered what he framed as a combat prayer during a Pentagon service honoring a military rescue mission in Iran. He introduced the passage as “CSAR 25:17” — a riff on the biblical verse Ezekiel 25:17 — and asked the audience to “pray with me please” before launching into a monologue about vengeance, brotherhood, and tyranny.

“The path of the downed aviator is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men,” Hegseth recited. “Blessed is he who, in the name of camaraderie and duty, shepherd the lost through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to capture and destroy my brother. And you will know my call sign is Sandy 1 when I lay my vengeance upon thee, and amen.”

Anyone who’s seen Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 classic recognized it immediately. The passage is almost verbatim the speech Samuel L. Jackson’s character Jules Winnfield delivers before a killing — itself a fictionalized riff on Ezekiel 25:17, as noted by religion-focused Substack A Public Witness. Hegseth swapped “the righteous man” for “the downed aviator” and added the Sandy 1 call sign at the end, but the bones of the Tarantino monologue were unmistakable.

The clip ricocheted across social media and late-night television almost instantly, with critics questioning how a piece of Hollywood dialogue ended up being solemnly delivered by the sitting Secretary of Defense at an official Pentagon ceremony.

The Pentagon pushed back. Spokesperson Sean Parnell accused critics of “peddling fake news and ignorant of reality,” saying Hegseth had recited “a custom prayer, referenced as the CSAR prayer, used by the brave warfighters of Sandy-1 who led the daylight rescue mission of Dude 44 Alpha out of Iran, which was obviously inspired by dialogue in Pulp Fiction.”

Obviously inspired. Sure.

Jost’s Hegseth Era Isn’t Over Yet

Jost has been playing Hegseth in SNL‘s cold opens since he debuted the impression in the Season 51 premiere back in October, and Fallon praised him for “crushing it” in the role. Jost admitted he’d initially worried about being recast when he first fell into the part — which, given how the real Hegseth keeps outdoing any sketch writers could dream up, seems less like a concern now and more like job security.

The season finale airs this Saturday at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBC, with Will Ferrell hosting and Paul McCartney performing as musical guest. Whether Jost gets one more crack at Hegseth before the summer hiatus is the question — though at the rate things are going, the writers might just want to leave the cameras running on C-SPAN and call it a cold open.

The post Colin Jost Says SNL Rejected Hegseth ‘Pulp Fiction’ Joke as ‘Too Ridiculous’ — Then It Actually Happened appeared first on Cream.

• Matt Damon reprised his Brett Kavanaugh impression on the May 9 SNL cold open — his first time back in the role since 2018
• The sketch featured Colin Jost as Pete Hegseth and Aziz Ansari as Kash Patel in a Washington bar setting
• Damon’s Kavanaugh revealed Trump can serve a third term because he found the original Constitution and wrote “Psych!” at the end
• The episode marked Damon’s third time hosting SNL; Noah Kahan served as musical guest
• SNL Season 51 wraps May 16 with Will Ferrell hosting and Paul McCartney as musical guest

Matt Damon dusted off the Supreme Court robes for the May 9 episode of Saturday Night Live, reprising his legendary Brett Kavanaugh impression in a cold open that immediately took over the internet. The sketch — set in a Washington, D.C. bar — delivered what might be the most elegantly absurd political joke of the season: Trump can serve a third term because he found the original Constitution and, at the very end, wrote “Psych!”

Damon’s Kavanaugh burst through the bar doors to find Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, played by Colin Jost, already drinking solo. Hegseth’s excuse? “None of Trump’s people like drinking as much as I do.” Kavanaugh’s entrance line set the tone immediately: he told Hegseth he knew he’d find him there because he “saw all the women covering their drinks.”

From there, the two launched into a bragging contest of controversial achievements. Jost’s Hegseth boasted that he “started a war.” Damon’s Kavanaugh countered that he “ended abortion” — punctuating it with a cheery “Your body, my choice!”

https://youtube.com/watch?v=7N68NjL9cMA%3Ffeature%3Doembed

A third drinking buddy eventually joined them: Aziz Ansari’s FBI Director Kash Patel, a character the Parks and Recreation actor debuted in the May 2 cold open. “Seriously, we’re all living the American dream,” Ansari’s Patel declared. “I’m the first person in my family to go to college — parties, many years after graduating.”

Then came the punchline. Kavanaugh leaned in to share a secret: “We’re going to let Trump do a third term.” When pressed on the small matter of it being unconstitutional, he explained that Trump “found the original Constitution, and at the end, he wrote, ‘Psych!'”

The sketch went viral almost instantly, and it’s not hard to see why. The joke works because the gap between the satire and the actual political moment feels uncomfortably thin. Above the Law noted it was “less ‘political satire’ and more ‘lightly fictionalized documentary'” — and that’s precisely the energy the cold open was going for.

A Character Eight Years in the Making

Damon first played Kavanaugh in 2018, during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the justice’s nomination — a performance that became one of the most talked-about cold opens in recent SNL history. The image of Damon screaming about beer and calendars is practically burned into the collective memory of anyone who watched that era of the show. Eight years later, the character hasn’t lost a step.

This episode also marked Damon’s third time hosting SNL overall, and his first time back since that 2018 appearance. In his monologue, he tackled the awkward timing of plugging The Odyssey — Christopher Nolan’s upcoming film, which doesn’t open until July 17 — while the show goes on summer hiatus before then.

“I have a new movie coming out,” Damon told the audience. “It’s called ‘The Odyssey,’ and it is in theaters not this weekend, not next weekend, but nine weekends from now.”

He also addressed the missing Mother’s Day tradition. SNL typically flies the cast’s mothers in first class for the Mother’s Day weekend episode — but not this year. “Apparently, that was going to happen again this year, but then Spirit Airlines shut down,” Damon said. “So for all of you waiting to see the cast’s moms, I’m sorry, it ain’t happening tonight.” One exception: Marcello Hernandez’s mom made a cameo in the audience as part of a bit involving an unusually enthusiastic audience member.

It’s worth noting the cold open also continued a recent trend — for the second week running, James Austin Johnson’s Donald Trump didn’t appear. The show has been rotating its political roster, with Jost’s Hegseth and Ansari’s Patel increasingly anchoring the opening sketches.

What’s Next for SNL Season 51

Damon’s episode was the penultimate installment of Season 51. The season finale airs May 16, with Will Ferrell returning to host for a record sixth time — and Paul McCartney performing as musical guest. After that, the show heads into its summer break, with new episodes returning in the fall.

As for Damon’s Kavanaugh, the “Psych!” Constitution bit may be the character’s most quotable moment yet. The original 2018 sketch made him SNL canon. This one reminded everyone why.

The post Matt Damon’s Kavanaugh Promises a Trump Third Term on SNL appeared first on Cream.

• Matt Damon returned to host SNL Season 51 and reprised his Brett Kavanaugh impression in the cold open
• Colin Jost played Pete Hegseth and Aziz Ansari played Kash Patel in the booze-soaked political sketch
• The sketch mocked Kavanaugh’s drinking history, Patel’s personalized bourbon bottles, and Trump’s third-term rumors
• Online reaction split sharply between fans praising the satire and critics calling the show repetitively political
• SNL’s Season 51 finale airs May 16 with Will Ferrell hosting and Paul McCartney as musical guest

Three political figures walked into a bar — and Saturday Night Live was waiting for them. The NBC sketch comedy institution opened its May 9 episode with one of its most talked-about cold opens of Season 51: a Georgetown bar crawl featuring Matt Damon back as Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Colin Jost doing his Pete Hegseth impression, and Aziz Ansari crashing the party as FBI Director Kash Patel, personalized bourbon bottles in hand.

The sketch was set inside Martin’s Tavern, the iconic Georgetown restaurant, where Jost’s Hegseth kicked things off by celebrating that he’d finally found a bar where he wouldn’t run into anyone from the White House. “None of Trump’s people like drinking as much as I do,” he quipped. Then Damon’s Kavanaugh strolled in and immediately ordered “six Bud Lights and three shots of Jameson” — prompting the bartender to deadpan that it was a “6-3 decision.”

The Kavanaugh jokes got sharper from there. When asked why he expected to find Hegseth at that particular bar, Damon’s character replied, “I just saw all the women covering their drinks” — a direct callback to the sexual misconduct and excessive drinking allegations that dogged Kavanaugh’s 2018 Senate confirmation hearings. Kavanaugh has consistently denied both drinking excessively and engaging in any misconduct.

Kash Patel Steals the Scene

Things escalated the moment Ansari burst through the door screaming, “Does this bar take Kash?!” — and the crowd lost it. Ansari, who bears a close physical resemblance to the real Patel, came loaded with material. He joked about getting mistaken for a kid with a fake ID because of his wide-eyed official photos, bragged about still living the American dream years after college, and held up a bottle of bourbon with his own name on the label.

“Yes, somehow this is a real thing, that I the FBI director had made. This is real,” Ansari’s Patel announced — a direct riff on an Atlantic report detailing how Patel distributes personalized bourbon bottles bearing his name and references to the FBI. In real life, Patel is currently suing The Atlantic over reporting connected to those allegations, which he has strongly denied.

The sketch kept piling on. Damon’s Kavanaugh grilled Ansari’s Patel over rumors that he’s been making FBI staffers take polygraph tests — but Patel pivoted immediately into chaos, joking that he actually wanted a chart of everyone at the FBI who’s “poly” because his girlfriend supposedly wants an open relationship. Hegseth and Kavanaugh responded with enthusiastic frat-style high-fives.

Trump’s Third Term and a Chumbawamba Finale

The cold open saved its most absurdist swing for last. Damon’s Kavanaugh leaned in and dropped what he called a “top secret” bombshell: “We’re gonna let Trump do a third term.” When Jost’s Hegseth pointed out that three presidential terms are flatly unconstitutional, Kavanaugh fired back with the explanation that Trump had apparently found the original Constitution and scribbled “Sike! We’re gonna live forever” at the bottom.

Kenan Thompson, playing the bartender, eventually called last call — and the three characters stumbled into a slurring sing-along of Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping.” It was a fittingly chaotic button on a sketch that had gone fully off the rails in the best possible way.

The episode was Matt Damon’s third time hosting SNL, and it came ahead of his leading role in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, due in theaters this July. Musical guest Noah Kahan also performed — his second appearance on the show, following the April release of his album The Great Divide.

The Internet Had Thoughts

Reaction online divided almost immediately along predictable lines. Critics of the sketch flooded social media calling the show stale and one-note. “It’s really frustrating to watch a handful of angry activists placate their audience,” one user wrote. Another went further: “Nobody watches SNL, it’s not funny.”

Supporters pushed back just as hard. “SNL has been poking fun at presidents and politicians for quite some time now,” one fan pointed out. Others specifically praised Damon’s energy in the sketch, with one viewer calling it “high-fashion red carpet energy” for political comedy.

It’s a cycle the show knows well. Back in November, SNL drew similar backlash when James Austin Johnson’s Trump impression anchored a cold open built around the unsealed Epstein files — complete with jokes about Trump being “the dog that hasn’t barked” and a closing gag about pardoning “a turkey that was a sex criminal.” That sketch drew the same split reaction: fury from one side, applause from the other.

Whether you loved it or hated it, Season 51 is nearly done. The finale airs May 16 with Will Ferrell returning to host for the sixth time — his first time back since 2019 — alongside musical guest Paul McCartney, whose new album The Boys of Dungeon Lane drops May 29. If the season has been this chaotic, it’s hard to imagine Ferrell and McCartney toning things down for the exit.

The post SNL’s MAGA Bar Sketch Has the Internet Divided appeared first on Cream.

• Matt Damon returned as Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in SNL’s May 9 cold open — his first time in the role since 2018
• Colin Jost’s Pete Hegseth and Aziz Ansari’s Kash Patel joined Kavanaugh for a boozy night at Martin’s Tavern in Washington, D.C.
• The sketch ended with Kavanaugh dropping a “top secret” bombshell: Trump is getting a third term because he found the original Constitution and wrote “Sike!” at the bottom
• This was Damon’s third time hosting SNL — the penultimate episode of Season 51 — with musical guest Noah Kahan
• Season 51 wraps next week with Will Ferrell hosting and Paul McCartney as musical guest

Matt Damon dusted off his gavel and his beer gut for the May 9 episode of Saturday Night Live, reprising his iconic Brett Kavanaugh impression in a cold open that turned into the most unhinged MAGA boys’ night out television has ever seen.

The sketch opened at Martin’s Tavern — the legendary Georgetown watering hole — where Colin Jost’s Pete Hegseth arrived looking for a quiet drink away from the office. “It’s just nice to have my sneaky bar here, where I’m not going to run into anyone from work,” Jost’s Hegseth declared, “because none of Trump’s people like drinking as much as I do.”

He hadn’t even settled onto his barstool before Damon’s Kavanaugh came roaring in, robe and gavel in hand. “Wrong!” The justice immediately ordered what he called a “six-three decision” — six Bud Lights and three shots of Jameson — and Kenan Thompson’s bartender deadpanned, “Yep, a 6-3 decision coming right up.”

When Hegseth asked if Kavanaugh had accidentally included him in a Signal chat, the justice shook his head: “No, I just saw all the women covering their drinks.”

https://youtube.com/watch?v=7N68NjL9cMA%3Fsi%3Do3vV_-CVQe2Wm9Io

The Gang’s All Here

The two wasted no time catching up on their greatest hits. Jost’s Hegseth crowed, “Dude, can you believe I just, like, started a war?” Damon’s Kavanaugh shot back, “Can you believe I ended abortion? Your body, my choice!” When asked how the war in Iran was going, Hegseth offered: “Oh, it’s totally chill. It’s like me at a DWI checkpoint: completely blew over.”

Kavanaugh then pulled out what appeared to be a gerrymandered Tennessee voting district map — shaped suspiciously like a dinosaur — before correcting himself. “Oh, wait. Actually, no. That’s a field sobriety test. They told me to draw a circle.”

The real emotional gut-punch came when Kavanaugh confessed his deepest worry. Not the war. Not the courts. Male loneliness. “I used to have all my buddies to hang out with,” he lamented. “I just wish there were more people in this administration who could really hang.”

Right on cue, the doors swung open.

“Does this bar take Kash?!”

Aziz Ansari’s FBI Director Kash Patel — eyes bulging, energy unhinged — slid into the booth carrying personalized bourbon bottles engraved with his own name. “Somehow this is a real thing that I, the FBI director, have made,” Ansari’s Patel marveled. “This is real!” The bottles are, in fact, a real thing that exists.

Patel explained why he brings his own alcohol to bars: “Sometimes people think I’m a kid with a fake ID. They say, ‘Nobody would make this face in official photos.'” He then reflected on his journey. “We are all living the American dream. I’m the first person in my family to go to college — parties, many years after graduating.”

When Kavanaugh pressed him on rumors that he’s been ordering FBI staffers to take polygraph tests, Patel denied it emphatically. “No, I told them to make a graph of everyone in the FBI who’s poly. My girlfriend wants to open up our relationship!” The trio exchanged frat-style high-fives. “She says she wants to bring other guys into the bedroom and for me to stay in the living room.”

The Top Secret Bombshell

Just when things couldn’t get more chaotic, Damon’s Kavanaugh leaned in conspiratorially. “Can I tell you guys a secret?” he asked. “We’re gonna let Trump do a third term.”

Hegseth and Patel lost their minds — until Hegseth caught himself. “I thought that was unconstitutional?”

“It was,” Kavanaugh replied, “until Trump found the original Constitution, and at the end, he wrote, ‘Sike!’ We’re going to live forever!”

The sketch closed with the trio — plus the rest of the bar — belting out Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping,” with drink orders subbed in for the lyrics. It was the perfect ending for a sketch that leaned hard into the real-life fact that both Hegseth and Kavanaugh faced pointed questions about their drinking during their respective confirmation hearings.

A Solid Night for Damon Overall

The cold open was the highlight of what turned out to be a genuinely strong episode. Damon — hosting for the third time, his first since 2018 — threw himself into everything. He played himself in a pre-taped Mother’s Day sketch called “Mom: The Movie,” a film deliberately stripped of all conflict because, as the premise went, “Moms have enough stress. Why not let them feel good for a day?” In it, Ashley Padilla’s character is blissfully married to Matt Damon, and they met when he noticed her giant turquoise necklace. It streams on HomeGoods Plus.

In his monologue, Damon addressed the elephant in the room: he’s hosting SNL nine weeks before his summer blockbuster The Odyssey opens on July 17, because the show will be on hiatus by then. He also explained why the beloved Mother’s Day tradition — flying cast members’ moms in for the show — wasn’t happening this year: Spirit Airlines shut down. The one exception was Marcello Hernández’s mom, who made it to the audience and got her own little moment.

The standout non-cold-open sketch of the night was a late-show bit pairing Damon with Sarah Sherman as two auctioneers having a marriage-ending fight — auctioneering their way through infidelity, their sex life, and eventual divorce terms in front of four young sons (played by adult cast members holding numbered signs). It was a genuinely bold piece of live comedy, and Damon’s acting chops gave it real weight underneath the absurdity.

Weekend Update featured Marcello Hernández and Mikey Day as government-employed kamikaze dolphins, Jane Wickline in a musical rant about always being late, and Jeremy Culhane’s Tucker Carlson impression — which leaned hard into Carlson’s tendency to see everything through a very particular lens. Describing ASAP Rocky’s Met Gala pink robe, Culhane’s Carlson noted the performer was “wearing my least favorite color… African-American.”

Musical guest Noah Kahan performed “The Great Divide” and “Doors.”

Next Saturday, Season 51 wraps with Will Ferrell returning for his sixth time hosting, alongside musical guest Paul McCartney. After that, SNL heads into its summer hiatus. Damon’s Kavanaugh, one assumes, will keep ordering 6-3 decisions until the show needs him again.

The post Matt Damon’s Kavanaugh Is Back and SNL’s Bar Tab Is Huge appeared first on Cream.

• Matt Damon hosted Saturday Night Live for the third time, with musical guest Noah Kahan.
• Damon reprised his Brett Kavanaugh impression in a bar-set cold open alongside Colin Jost’s Pete Hegseth and Aziz Ansari’s Kash Patel.
• A Mother’s Day fake movie trailer called Mom featured Damon as the world’s most ideal husband.
• The episode — the penultimate of Season 51 — aired ahead of the May 16 finale with Will Ferrell and Paul McCartney.
• Damon also promoted his upcoming role as Odysseus in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey during his monologue.

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.

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