“Saturday Night Live” opened this week by mocking Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Trump administration’s response to sailors who returned home on the USS Abraham Lincoln after nearly a year at sea, in a deployment that included shortages of fresh food and problems with plumbing.
Dressed in a blue suit, a red tie and a belt of Fireball shooters across his chest, Hegseth (once again portrayed by Colin Jost) addresses the sailors from the ship — and acknowledges the booze-filled apparel across his chest: “I’m wearing an ammunition belt made of Fireball cinnamon whiskey, the only alcohol designed to taste better on the way back up.” (He adds that he brought it only to christen the ship.)
Jost then asks the service members, “How are you sailors doing tonight?” To which one flatly responds, “We’re bad.”
“Okay, I heard awesome,” Jost says.
“After seven months at war, you are back home safe in sunny San Diego,” Jost continues, “which the president just asked Iran to blow up.”
Then Jost lauds the crew: “You executed over 3,000 combat missions, and you did it with zero casualties, zero flight mishaps and zero working toilets.” He brings out featured player Kam Patterson, a sailor who “instead of complaining simply held it like a man for 300 days.”
Patterson, dressed in a spherical costume reminiscent of Violet Beauregarde after she ingests the Magic Chewing Gum in “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” asks whether there’s a bathroom nearby.
“Yeah, there’s probably a Starbucks like three blocks from here,” Jost says.
Continuing the trend of bathroom humor, Jost jokes, “I realize you all returned home with a ship full of weapons-grade diarrhea. But your health is of our utmost concern. Starting … now.”
He then brings out James Austin Johnson, playing Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. rather than his usual impression of the president.
Johnson rambles for a few moments about various health scares in the United States, mimicking Kennedy’s distinct vocal tone. “Yes, 200,000 pounds of pork, beef and goat meat have been recalled, but I just want to stress that catfish, pony and cricket are viable proteins for any American family.”
Eventually, Johnson devolves into unintelligible muttering, causing Jost to deliver a swift strike to his back. Johnson then coughs a few times and continues speaking, now completely without the secretary’s rasp.
Shane Gillis joins the three-timers club
In 2019, stand-up comic Shane Gillis was announced as a cast member before being fired as a result of backlash to his past use of racist, homophobic and sexist language, but Saturday marked the third time he has hosted the show.
Gillis got through his monologue with only a few uncomfortable moments and minor curse words, but later, he played a character getting confrontational with the protagonist of the children’s book “Green Eggs and Ham.” As Sam-I-Am insists that Gillis’s father eat green eggs and ham, the comedian accidentally drops a four-letter word. “Oh no! Hey!” he exclaims before recovering and working in an apology at the end of the sketch.
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