S.N.L. Gives Hope Hicks the Send-Off She Deserves

Unlike most of Donald Trump’s top advisors at the White House, Hope Hicks, the latest communications director to leave the West Wing, wasn’t a regular fixture on Saturday Night Live. That’s because unlike Kellyanne Conway, Sean Spicer, Jeff Sessions, and a number of other Trump familiars, Hicks has largely dodged the broader media spotlight. It’s an anomaly Cecily Strong addressed as she brought out her Hicks impression for only the second and, possibly, last time on “Weekend Update.” Anchor Colin Jost set her up saying, “I feel like I’ve never heard you speak,” and Strong’s Hicks explains she hasn’t, much, because the media, as a whole, has treated her with kid gloves because her “face” and “hair” are “good.”

But while S.N.L. is right to call out the double standard Hicks has received in the media, generally, the show then leans right into that narrative of Hicks as shiny-haired bambi by having Strong read her goodbye to the White House in the form of a child-like letter written to all her friends from her “summer abroad” at the White House. This version of Hicks reserved her highest praise for “BFF” Ivanka Trump who “told me about this internship, or job, or what is it?” This teen-influenced Hicks impression dovetails tidily with Strong’s February 3rd appearance where she played Hicks as the Gossip Girl of the West Wing.

But credit where it’s due, S.N.L. doesn’t let Hicks skate by completely on a sparkling smile and fresh highlights. Alluding to one of the darker chapters in Hicks’s West Wing tenure, her relationship with former White House Staff Secretary Rob Porter, Strong’s depiction of Hicks hints at a woman who is not so innocent. The kicker, however, is the final reference to the legal hot water Hicks has reportedly found herself in: “To everyone else at the Trump White House, I’ll see you at the reunion in ten years—seven with good behavior.”