UPDATE 9:10 p.m. ET
Alec Baldwin, who apparently picked up from his impersonation of president-elect Donald Trump a tendency towards fights with the media, clarified his statements from earlier today to say Saturday Night Live didn't want to "endorse" anyone.
See original story below.
Kate McKinnon's cold open performance of the late Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" on Saturday Night Live this weekend gave mourning voters a brief moment of comfort. "I'm not giving up, and neither should you," McKinnon, again playing Hillary Clinton, told viewers. That comfort was eventually derailed with a timely reminder that, just one year earlier, this same show had attempted to make the President-elect a cuddly public figure by tossing him into a cringe-inducing "Hotline Bling" parody. Like many other disappointed viewers, television critic Daniel D'Addario hasn't forgotten:
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D'Addario were soon spotted by Alec Baldwin himself, whose take on the President-elect was missing from the first post-election episode of SNL. Baldwin, who's apparently had D'Addario blocked "for years," suggested the show's disappointingly mild political commentary can be attributed to NBC bosses stepping in and squashing any hopes of of an outright endorsement:
D'Addario certainly has a point. Though McKinnon's cold open "Hallelujah" hit all the right notes, the episode quickly returned to lazy observations about each candidates' likability factor. Will we see SNL return to the punk rock days of, say, Sinéad O’Connor ripping up Pope photos? Their next chance to do so is this weekend, as SNL veteran Kristen Wiig hosts alongside music from the xx:
