Cecily Strong Returns to ‘SNL’ As Wine-Spewing Jeanine Pirro
Just one month after giving birth to her first daughter, Cecily Strong made her triumphant return to Saturday Night Live in the same way she left the show a few seasons back: boozing it up as Jeanine Pirro. With Donald Trump appointing Pirro as U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C. this week, Strong’s return was nearly guaranteed. And she didn’t disappoint.
Strong/Pirro immediately broke open her briefcase — er, her cozy for her Merlot-zy — and got to drinking. As the latest member of the Trump team, she raised a glass to her new coworkers: “Russian assets, booze hounds and people famous for the little baby animals they’ve killed.”
After Pirro gave a cringe-inducing toast to Chocolate City, Trump welcomed another refugee from Fox News, Pete Hegseth. Strong and James Austin Johnson were joined by Colin Jost in his suit and tie, not bothering to attempt an imitation of Hegseth, and yet, the bit worked anyway, thanks to Jost’s natural wealthy white guy smarm.
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The comedy got physical quickly, with Strong spit-taking her vino into Jost’s face every chance she got. Surely she wasn’t drinking real wine on stage, because whatever was in her glass stained Jost’s face like he was the teenage victim in a splatter movie. Give Jost credit — he’s a great foil, willing to be the object of embarrassment for a laugh.
If Hegseth was going to get spit on, he figured, he might as well reap the rewards. And so, he handed Pirro a bottle of his favorite booze — the one he promised would never touch his lips — and the next time she spewed in his direction, he opened his mouth to get a buzz. Gross? Sure. Funny? The studio audience ate it up.
“They’re not the A team,” Trump admitted, “but at least they’re the AA team.”
Strong was funny as ever as Pirro, and given that the 50th season is wrapping up, why not bring back as many classic cast members as possible? She gave another tired Trump sketch a welcome jolt of electricity and ran up Jost’s dry-cleaning bill in the process.
