Watch Matt Damon play Brett Kavanaugh in cold air.

Saturday Night Live returned for his 44^e this week, but fans hoping that NBC's venerable sketch show would come out of the celebrity-celebrity rink in which they settled last year had been disappointed by Matt-Damon. The series began with a cold match by Brett Kavanaugh that promised either an exciting return to form or the joy of all. SNLThe laziest comic instinct, according to how you felt for last year. As Kavanaugh, Damon joined Robert De Niro, Scarlett Johansson, Ben Stiller and Stormy Daniels in the long list of A-listers and Stormy Daniels SNL as little players in Trump's orbit. At the same time, Rachel Dratch appeared in the role of Senator Amy Klobuchar, reassuring reminder that we can expect many surprise appearances from former cast members, regardless of the availability of Fred Armisen. And while this is not the first time Kate McKinnon has played Lindsey Graham – check out this 2016 Republican debate sketch for a trip back in time before Baldwin – her brief appearance makes it clear that the makeup department has tabled numerous prosthetic jowls. for the long winter to come. Continuity with change:

But whatever work the open cold does to put Saturday Night LiveThe tone is not so much satire, probably because Kavanaugh is his own caricature. The writers take up the paranoid style of Kavanaugh's thought by giving Damon this line:

I am here tonight because of a simulacrum. A political scam orchestrated by Clinton and George Soros and Kathy Griffin and Ronan Sinatra.

But it's actually Less paranoid than what Kavanaugh said. Kavanaugh of Damon quotes real people who, he says, have made specific and verifiable things, while the real Kavanaugh blames the dark and dark forces:

This two-week total effort was a calculated and orchestrated political success, fueled by an apparently hidden anger about President Trump and the 2016 election, a fear unfairly fueled by my criminal record, revenge on behalf of the Clintons and millions dollars in money from outside leftist opposition groups.

It's simply impossible to improve. Damon's best moments come when he's crying memories remembering workouts with Mark Judge, PJ, Squi, Donkey-Dong Doug, Handsy Hank and Gang Rape Greg, but even here he has the same basic problem with the source material. A Supreme Court nominee named "Brett" who had friends nicknamed "Squi" and "PJ" when they were all together at the preparatory school is not the kind of gag that can be improved by adding "Donkey-Dong Doug" to mix. Kavanaugh, like Trump himself, is a cruel but perfect joke that the universe makes of America. Nobody can make it funnier than it already is.