Another week, another 34,989 sexual assault and harassment stories in the news (that’s an official number). On Saturday night, Saturday Night Live tackled the highly icky report that Alabama Republican senatorial candidate Roy Moore engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a minor with the man whose seat he’s filling: Jeff Sessions.
This week's cold open started with a sensible Vice President Mike Pence (Beck Bennett) counseling Judge Moore (Mikey Day) on the best course of action. His counsel: Stepping aside isn’t the worst thing in the world, if you look at it the right way.
"Don’t think of it as ending your campaign, think of it as going to conversion therapy to turn yourself into someone who’s no longer a candidate," Bennett’s Pence said.
As soon as the VP left the room, out popped current attorney general and former Alabama senator Jeff Sessions (Kate McKinnon) from the cupboard, where we can just assume Keebler elves live when they’re in town from the forest.
“I was just doing what I always do – cooking up nightmares for children,” McKinnon explained.
Sessions went on to implore Moore to back out of the race. He may be racist and homophobic, but creeping on 14-year-old girls is a step too far for the AG.
"I’m usually the creepiest one in the room, but I look at you and I’m like, ‘Oh my God.'" McKinnon's Sessions added: "I’m Alabama but you, you sir are too Alabama."
SNL then doubled down on its "Jeff Sessions is an urban marsupial" theme, as a distraught Sessions sought counsel from his stuffed possum father.
Seriously.
"Have I both fostered and benefitted from a culture of systemic oppression?" McKinnon’s Sessions asked.
But alas, there would be no such reckoning, neither on SNL or in real life. Not tonight.
Topics SNL
