Julia Louis-Dreyfus resurrected a certain character from a certain ’90s sitcom during her Saturday Night Live hosting stint this past weekend, playing Elaine Benes in a sketch with Seinfeld creator Larry David, who returned to the show with his spot-on Bernie Sanders impersonation. The sketch was actually a reunion on two fronts: Louis-Dreyfus and David worked together on SNL in the mid-’80s before her casting on Seinfeld a few years later.
The Elaine character is certainly still in Louis-Dreyfus’s wheelhouse, right down to her original hairstyle and heavy-handed doses of cynicism. You have to imagine if Seinfeld existed today, Benes’s questioning of Sanders represents precisely how the characters would have felt about him. David's Sanders impression—which is more of an embodiment than an imitation—was also great as always. The sketch was teeming with Seinfeld references, with conspicuous callbacks to episodes such as "The Beard" and "The Yada Yada."
In perhaps a wise move, the sketch didn't mention the Seinfeld finale. It's just really nice to see Elaine out of jail, though.