‘Who Better?’ SNL Cold Open Puts Away Mockery For Moving Message On Israel-Gaza Trauma From Pete Davidson

Saturday Night Live opened the show this week without the usual parody cold open, but instead with a more serious monologue on the Israel-Hamas war from host Pete Davidson.

Ordinarily, the cast of the long-running sketch show performs the cold open before the opening credits, a long-running gag in which the show performs a parody — usually related to current events — that ends with performers breaking character and exclaiming “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!”

But on this week’s edition of Saturday Night Live, in a rare departure, Davidson addressed the Israel-Hamas war with a dash of humor and a helping of empathy through the lens of the loss he suffered as a child on 9/11:

This week we saw the horrible images and stories from Israel and Gaza. And I know what you’re thinking. Who better to comment on it than Pete Davidson?

Well, in a lot of ways, I am a good person to talk about it, because when I was seven years old, my dad was killed in a terrorist attack. So I know something about what that’s like.

I saw so many terrible pictures this week of children suffering. Israeli children and Palestinian children. And it took me back to a really horrible, horrible place. And, you know, no one in this world deserves to suffer like that, you know, especially not kids, you know?

After my dad died, my mom tried pretty much everything she could do to cheer me up. I remember one day when I was eight, she got me what she thought was a Disney movie. But it was actually the Eddie Murphy standup special, Delirious.

And we played it in the car on the way home. And when she heard the things Eddie Murphy was saying, she tried to take it away. But then she noticed something. For the first time in a long time, I was laughing again.

I don’t understand it. I really don’t. And I never will. But sometimes comedy is really the only way forward through tragedy. You know, my heart is with everyone whose lives have been destroyed this week.

But tonight, I’m going to do what I’ve always done in the face of tragedy. And that’s try to be funny. Remember I said try.

And live from New York, it’s Saturday night.

Watch above via NBC’s Saturday Night Live.