Saturday Night Live kicked off its first episode of 2020 by bringing back a classic cast member and raising a little hell.
The cold open began innocently enough, welcoming back former SNL star Jon Lovitz (1985–1990) to play impeachment witness Alan Derschowitz. Sure, a few jokes were made about the lawyer’s connection to controversial figures like O.J. Simpson and Jeffrey Epstein, but it was relatively tame… until Derschowitz died and went to hell.
That’s where things got a little nutty. The Devil (played by Kate McKinnon) turned out to be a huge fan of Derschowitz’s work, launching into fan-girl mode immediately upon his arrival. Hell, the Dark Lord even managed to book Derschowitz as a guest on his political podcast — because of course Satan has a political podcast.
Derschowitz also encountered a number of familiar faces in hell, including Progressive’s Flo (playd by Heidi Gardner), the guy who wrote “Baby Shark” (played by Bowen Yang) and the recently deceased Mr. Peanut (played by Mikey Day).
But none of Derschowitz’s fellow hellions got a bigger reaction than Epstein, played by host Adam Driver. When asked what he’s been up to recently, Epstein replied, “Just hanging around.” And that joke didn’t even elicit the biggest gasp from the uncomfortable audience.
SNL‘s midseason premiere welcomed Driver back to host for a third time. The Academy Award-nominated star of Marriage Story previously hosted in 2016 (with musical guest Chris Stapleton) and again in 2018 (with Kanye West).
NBC recently announced that NFL superstar JJ Watt will host next week’s episode, joined by first-time musical guest Luke Combs. And on a slightly more exciting note, RuPaul will make his SNL hosting debut on the Feb. 8 episode, with Justin Bieber performing on the Studio 8H stage for a third time.
Hit PLAY on the video above to watch SNL‘s hellish cold open, then drop a comment with your thoughts below.
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