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There were no surprise celebrity guests to come to the rescue of “Saturday Night Live” this weekend — no return visits from Matt Damon as Judge Brett Kavanaugh or Alec Baldwin as President Trump. So the show’s ensemble cast was on its own, for better or for worse, to address Kavanaugh’s contentious confirmation to the Supreme Court in its cold opening, just a few hours after the narrow Senate vote.

This broadcast, hosted by the comic actress Awkwafina (“Ocean’s 8,” “Crazy Rich Asians”) — one of the very few Asian women to host the show in its history — and featuring the musical guest Travis Scott, made an oblique acknowledgment of the representation issues that “S.N.L.” frequently faces. The episode also addressed, in comic fashion, a controversial speech that the rapper Kanye West made on set in support of Trump last week after the closing credits rolled.

But first, that cold open.

In a sketch purporting to be a TV broadcast from a raucous, revelry-filled Republican locker room, Heidi Gardner played the CNN correspondent Dana Bash, quizzing various senators who were cheering Kavanaugh’s appointment. “There a lot of pacemakers being put to the test tonight,” she said.