On ‘Saturday Night Live,’ Alec Baldwin Sings a Swan Song for Trump

It was a night of milestones on “Saturday Night Live,” which in the final episode of its 42nd season, said goodbye to the longtime cast members Bobby Moynihan (who is joining the CBS sitcom “Me, Myself & I”) and Vanessa Bayer (who confirmed her departure in a bittersweet Instagram post).

Was it also a retirement party for Alec Baldwin’s impersonation of President Trump, a role that Mr. Baldwin has played all season and occasionally suggested he did not expect to have for quite so long? (“Look, I’d love to keep doing this per my availability,” Mr. Baldwin told The Hollywood Reporter this week, “but I have other things I’m going to do, so I guess we’ll figure it out.”)

Rather than answer that question, the cold open of this weekend’s “S.N.L.,” hosted by Dwayne Johnson, seemed to wonder what would be left of a Trump administration for Mr. Baldwin to come back to in the fall.

The show started with an homage to a previous sketch that opened “Saturday Night Live” on Nov. 12, following the 2016 presidential election, in which the cast member Kate McKinnon donned the guise of the defeated Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, sat at a piano and played the Leonard Cohen song “Hallelujah.” (Mr. Cohen had died earlier that week.)

This time, it was Mr. Baldwin as Mr. Trump, sitting at a piano and playing “Hallelujah.” One by one, he was joined by other cast members and guest stars who have portrayed other members of Mr. Trump’s administration and family, including Beck Bennett as Vice President Mike Pence and Ms. McKinnon as the presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway.