‘SNL’ Recreates ‘Hallelujah’ Cold Open With Trump, Scarlett Johansson
Well, there’s no telling what politics will look like when SNL resumes this fall, but a season oriented around Trump was bound to send him off in style. So it was, that Saturday’s season finale called back to Kate McKinnon’s moving “Hallelujah” with a cold open paying tribute to the Trump players, including Scarlett Johansson!
It was the immediate post-election SNL with Dave Chappelle that used its cold open for a somber cover of the late Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” as performed by McKinnon in her Hillary Clinton garb. Saturday’s Season 42 finale reprised the performance, save for Alec Baldwin’s Trump at the piano, eventually joined by McKinnon’s Kellyanne Conway, Beck Bennett’s Mike Pence, Alex Moffat and Mikey Day’s Eric and Donald Jr., Aidy Bryant’s Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and the deathly Steve Bannon
As if that weren’t enough, Scarlett Johansson’s “Complicit” Ivanka Trump also joined the crowd alongside Cecily Strong’s Melania. Once the song concluded, Baldwin even repeated McKinnon’s line about “not giving up,” alluding to the real Trump’s weeks and weeks of scandals, before quoting the man himself to say he couldn’t speak for anyone else in his administration avoiding prosecution.
It was too much to expect Melissa McCarthy’s Sean Spicer to join the group, but you can watch the original Kate McKinnon performance below, and stay tuned for more from Saturday’s Season 42 finale.
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