The season finale of Saturday Night Live\u2019s 51st season kicks off in the oval office. President Donald Trump (James Austin Johnson), fresh from a three-day diplomatic visit to China, commiserates with his vice-president, JD Vance (Jeremy Culhane). Trump apologizes for not taking Vance along with him to China, explaining that \u201cI didn\u2019t want to.\u201d<\/p>\n
After giving Vance the boot, Trump takes a nap (using a gold bar gifted to him by Sweden as a pillow), during which he\u2019s visited by the ghost of his good friend Jeffrey Epstein (tonight\u2019s host, Will Ferrell). Epstein has been keeping busy in hell playing mahjong with Stalin and John Wayne Gacy, as well as writing for the recent Netflix Roast of Kevin Hart (this dig clearly comes from SNL head writer Michael Che, who took to social media earlier this week to criticize<\/a> the roast for hiring all-white writers and giving hosting duties to Shane Gillis).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Epstein shows Trump visions of the future: Kristi Noem (Ashley Padilla) is hawking vacuum cleaners on informercials (\u201cThe best way to clean up that mess your dog made, besides a gun \u2026 it can even handle balloon scraps left over from when your husband\u2019s giant balloon breasts popped\u201d), while Pete Hegseth (Colin Jost) and Kash Patel (Aziz Ansari) are hosting a booze-soaked podcast following the end of the Iran war (\u201cWe came in second\u201d).<\/p>\n Epstein reminds the president that no matter how things go in the future, people will always think of him when they think of Trump. The two then sing a rendition of Just the Two of Us, before almost kissing. As Epstein points out, this Trump presidency has been so insane that the revelation that the head of DHS\u2019s spouse is a cross-dresser was only a one-week story, so there\u2019s no way SNL could have fit all this season\u2019s headlines into one cold open. Still, this was a game effort, with Ferrell being the show\u2019s best Epstein yet.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n In the cleverest opening the show has done in ages, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer and Ferrell doppelganger Chad Smith attempts to hijack the show after assaulting Ferrell backstage. The real Ferrell comes out and kicks him off stage before taking questions from the audience, where the night\u2019s musical guest, Sir Paul McCartney<\/a>, is sitting front row and center. McCartney confuses Ferrell for Smith, telling him to \u201cget your ass behind the drums where you belong.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Ferrell then plays a doctor informing a patient (Mikey Day) and his wife ( Padilla) that his appendix surgery went well, except for one little mistake: \u201cSome wires got crossed and I accidentally removed your penis.\u201d Things get worse when he reveals that he also removed one of the man\u2019s testicles. There\u2019s not much to this beyond the premise, and it\u2019s further dragged down by Day\u2019s constant breaking.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n A new Midnight Matinee short from Dan Bulla is a musical spin on the Battle of Helm\u2019s Deep from Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Ferrell stars as a Hobbit who volunteers for a suicide mission to save his band of brothers, only to betray them by attempting to switch sides and join forces with the invading orc army. His plan doesn\u2019t work out, as he\u2019s quickly beheaded, but not before telling the orcs where to find the women and children. These Bulla segments have been hit or miss all season, with very little to distinguish them from other pre-filmed shorts.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n