Saturday Night Live cold open skewers Johnny Depp, Amber Heard

While last week’s Saturday Night Live cold open was a little more challenging to identify, it was somewhat harder to pin down what we were getting this time around. Was there one central event worth focusing on? What subject matter would be covered?

Well, the show took on something we honestly did not expect that they would: The Johnny Depp / Amber Heard trial. For starters, we’re not sure how much comedy there really is to be mined from it; the whole situation is just sad, really, and most of the opening sketch tried to convince us that the whole trial was just “funny.” To be specific, the nature of human waste on a bedsheet.

We also don’t know if this sketch is going to land with anyone, mostly because the trial itself is so incredibly divisive. Kyle Mooney did play a pretty good Johnny Depp, but the writers chose to not have anyone play Amber Heard.

At the end of the day, we think this sketch is going to get headlines, but who was it for? What was the punchline? It felt like someone told the writers that they had to present something on the trial and they came up with a pretty dud of a sketch since nobody wanted to take that clear a point of view. Comedy needs that to work since you need something to laugh it. The show didn’t really want to go there and because of that, they really shouldn’t have done the sketch at all.

If the rest of the show is similar to the cold open, we really could be in for a long night. That’s a real shame, given that Selena Gomez is super-talented. Her cold open was actually pretty fun, mostly because so many cast members tried to offer themselves up as potential romantic partners for her.

Related – Be sure to get some more news on Saturday Night Live right now

What did you think about this Saturday Night Live cold open?

Be sure to share right now in the comments! Once you do just that, stick around for some other updates. (Photo: NBC.)