“Saturday Night Live” saved their best cold open for last.
The sketch show’s season finale started off with the standard opportunity for James Austin Johnson to show off his Donald Trump impersonation, but once his octogenarian Trump fell asleep on the Resolute Desk, things took a weird, Dickensian turn. Host Will Ferrell showed up as the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein, complete with quarter-zip and chains.
“I thought you were dead,” Austin’s Trump said.
“I am, remember? I killed myself, wink,” Ferrell’s Epstein replied.
Trump caught Epstein up on his tanking approval rating (“Call me when it hits 17,” he said). Epstein reciprocated with a report on “heaven.”
“It’s really, really hot,” he said. “Mahjong every Wednesday with Stalin and John Wayne Gacy… I just wrote for the Kevin Hart roast. Got some zingers in there.”
Epstein then offered a glimpse into the future of several current and former members of the administration. Kristi Noem was shown selling handheld vacuums on a home shopping network while Kash Patel and Pete Hegseth were hawking products on their own podcast. When Trump said that Hegseth’s new career must mean the war with Iran is over, Epstein spilled the beans.
“Yep, we came in second,” he said.
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Ferrell’s Epstein shared his regrets with his still-living friend, before closing the sketch with a duet of “Just The Two of Us.”
“We should have taken more pictures,” he said. “No matter how many wars you start or how bad you tank the economy, people will always associate you with me. My dear close friend, that is a beautiful thing.
Watch the sketch below via YouTube:
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