The final Saturday Night Live of 2020 once again went political with its cold open, but it more importantly set the trajectory of the show heading into the new year by introducing a new comic spoofing president-elect Joe Biden. Alex Moffat took over on Saturday, introducing the role that Jim Carey had declared he was done playing hours before the new episode aired on NBC.
Saturday’s sketch covered current president Mike Pence getting the COVID-19 vaccine on live TV, but the biggest news was that the show officially introduced a new Biden to its audience in the final episode of 2020. Biden has been played by several guest hosts in 2019 and 2020 before Carey famously signed on to play the eventual president-elect this season. But Saturday morning brought word that Carey was done playing his version of Biden, which admittedly drew mixed reviews of the Delaware politician through its unprecedented run of six straight episodes before and after the 2020 election.
Maya Rudolph, who also quite famously returned to SNL to play vice president-elect Kamala Harris, did return on Saturday to slap Mike Pence for denying the election results and, later, to sing during the show’s opening monologue. It’s clear that Rudolph is here to stay as Harris in future episodes in 2021, but we’ll see if Moffat is supplanted if Harrelson or Suedekis decides to return to the show anytime soon.