The second episode of Saturday Night Live’s return brought with it a sendup of the Vice Presidential Debate, which was held on Tuesday and was largely overtaken by a fly that landed on Mike Pence’s head for more than two minutes. That gave SNL plenty of material to spoof, and it did so by explaining just what that fly was doing up there in the first place.
The opening sketch featured Maya Rudolph as Kamala Harris and hit all the notes people seem to remember from “the thing that will change everyone’s minds,” as the intro put it. There was inexplicable talk of fracking, Pence getting shut down for interrupting Harris, and the fly landing on Pence’s head. But that’s when things got weird. Jim Carrey, playing Joe Biden watching the debate at home, decided he needed to get in there to rescue Harris for some reason.
“I need to do something,” Carrey said. “I need to teleport to that debate and save the soul of this nation.”
It was all a bit confusing, but it did allow the show to use Carrey and also reference something that went viral in the wake of the Fly debate. There was no Jeff Goldblum sighting, mind you, but Carrey did his best to play Joe Biden slowly turning into a fly version of the actor while paraphrasing his infamous line from Jurassic Park. The sketch also included Kenan Thompson, who appeared as a dead Herman Cain reincarnated as a fly also trapped on Mike Pence’s head.
It may not have been the Fly sketch that many fans wanted but it at least referenced what many were thinking the show would do, anyway.
