Saturday Night Live returned Pete Hegseth (Colin Jost) and Kash Patel (Aziz Ansari) to the cold open, this time as they cavort in a booze-filled night along with Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh (Matt Damon).
Following last week’s debut of Ansari as Patel, the fact that SNL returned to the same theme this week is not a huge surprise.
The opener has Hegseth arriving at Martin’s Tavern, the legendary Georgetown watering hole, where he encounters Kavanaugh, still in his robe and carrying a gavel. In reality, both Hegseth and Kavanaugh faced questions in their confirmation hearings over excessive drinking.
“Hey, can I just say that we are both kicking ass right now,” Damon’s Kavanaugh said.
“Dude, can you believe I just, like, started a war?” Jost’s Hegseth said.
Kavanaugh responded, “Can you believe I ended abortion? Your body, my choice.”
The justice asked Hegseth, “How is the war going, by the way?”
He responded, “Oh’ it’s totally chill. It’s like me at a DWI checkpoint. It completely blew over.”
The skit went on to riff on the Supreme Court’s recent decision gutting the Voting Rights Act, setting off a wave of redistricting in southern red states to draw out Democrats. In Tennessee, a Black majority district covering Memphis was carved up, raising the possibility that it will be represented by a Republican from elsewhere in the state.
At one point, Kavanaugh held up a drawing of an irregular, horizonal shape. “It’s the new voting district that I approved in Tennessee,” he said.
Then, he corrected himself. “Actually, no, that’s a field sobriety test. They told me to draw a circle.”
The two were joined by Patel, who proudly displayed his “own FBI bourbon with my name on it. Yes, somehow this is a real thing that I, the FBI director has made.” The Atlantic reported this week that Patel has traveled with a supply of his own personalized branded bourbon, including an image of the FBI shield.
Ansari’s Patel said, “I bring my own alcohol to bars because sometimes they think I’m a kid with a fake ID. They say, no adult would make this face in official photos.” Ansari then bulged his eyes.
“We’re all living the American dream. I’m the first person in my family to go to college … parties, many years after graduating.”
Kavanaugh then asked him, “Is that rumor true that you make everybody in the FBI take a polygraph?”
Patel responded, “No, I told them to make a graphy of everyone in the FBI who is Polly. My girlfriend wants to open up our relationship. Yeah. She says she wants to bring other dudes into the bedroom and for me to stay in the living room.”
Kavanaugh then told Hegseth and Patel a secret.
“We’re gonna let Trump do a third term,” as the two screamed out wildly.
“I thought that was unconstitutional,” Hegseth said.
“Yeah, it was, but Trump found the original and at the end, he wrote, ‘Psych! We’re going to live forever.’”
