‘SNL’ Cold Open: Britney Spears Gets Ted Cruz, Andrew Cuomo to Apologize

Saturday Night Live opened with a talk show sketch where Britney Spears attempted to coax apologies from Ted Cruz, Andrew Cuomo and Gina Carano, each coming off a scandal-ridden week.

“You all know me from my upbeat Instagram videos and the word ‘conservatorship.’ Basically, I started this show ‘Oops, You Did It Again’ so people can come on and apologize for things they’ve done wrong,” Chloe Fineman’s Spears said. “Because after the ‘Free Britney’ documentary came out, I’m receiving hundreds of apologies a day.”

The singer then welcomed the trio of this week’s newsmakers to her talk show, beginning with Cruz (Aidy Bryant, reprising the role from last week’s cold open). The Texas senator walked onstage clutching a Pina Colada and luggage fresh from a brief trip to Cancun, where he escaped the devastating winter conditions impacting his constituents.

“So Ted, Texas is going through a huge crisis it seems right now,” Spears said. “And you literally abandoned it and flew to Cancun for a family [vacation].”

“And now I’m in a little bit of hot water, which is apparently something no one in Texas has,” Bryant’s Cruz said, who then apologized to Texans. “I deeply regret my actions these last couple days… especially flying United.”

Next out to apologize was New York Governor Cuomo (Pete Davidson), currently involved in an investigation over the state’s nursing homes death toll.

“Some of the people who died in the nursing homes was not counted as nursing home deaths, they were counted as hospital deaths,” the governor said. “Which is basically what happens at Disney World, okay? People die, and they move the bodies. They say, ‘Oh, I guess Brenda died in the parking lot, not on the teacups.’ So we just did the Disney thing.”

After a brief break to read fan mail questions — “Are you okay?” to which she replied with a subliminal #FreeBritney — the final guest, now-former Mandalorian actress Carano (Cicely Strong) joined Spears, but refused to apologize.

“I’m here for the opposite of that. I’ve done nothing wrong. No one can even explain what I did wrong. Explain it!” the actress said.

“Okay, on Instagram you said conservatives have it as bad as people living in Nazi Germany,” Spears said.

“Congrats, you explained it,” Strong’s Carano said. “Look, I never would have made that Nazi comparison if I’d know everyone was gonna be such a Nazi about it.”