During the episode’s Weekend Update, too, Michael Che, making the show’s sense of its influence plain, addressed the president directly, in the second-person. “In just the span of one day,” Che said, Trump “was in a losing battle with three federal judges, a decorated war hero [John McCain], and a department store.”

And then: “Dude, pace yourself!” Che advised. He added: “It’s sad, man. I hope he quits. I mean, Donald: Is this really how you want to spend the last two years of your life?”

I mean, Donald. It was a small moment, but a striking one. Here, after all, is one more cliché: Donald Trump is, steadily but also extremely suddenly, changing the American presidency. And the satire that has long served as a back-channel to the American presidency is changing, suddenly and steadily, along with it. It used to be that SNL’s presidential parody took aim at the public perception of the president: Gerald Ford, slapsticking klutz; Ronald Reagan, behind-the-scenes genius; George W. Bush, champion of the fine art of “strategery.” Its impressions tried to insinuate themselves, subtly, into the public’s sense of their presidents; their respective sketches exercised the same kind of soft influence that, for example, would lead many Americans to assume that “I can see Russia from my house!” was something the real Sarah Palin, rather than Tina Fey’s finger-gun-toting impression of her, had uttered.

The kind of satire SNL engaged in this weekend, however, was different. It wasn’t playing the long game, of public perception or historical sensibility. It was playing, rather, an extremely short one: This was SNL using its platform to speak directly to the president. The show had an audience of many, definitely, but also, it seemed to realize, an audience of one: This SNL, even more than its predecessors, was trying to anger President Trump, and make him indignant, and encourage him to question the telegenic fitness of Sean Spicer, and Jeff Sessions, and perhaps even himself. If Trump hates seeing his staffers portrayed by women, the logic went, then what better way to encourage him to doubt those staffers than to have them played by Melissa McCarthy and Kate McKinnon? What better way to create chaos in the mind of the president than to present him with the televised image of his iconic hairdo sported, cheerfully and subversively, by Leslie Jones?

President Trump may well be aware of the game(s) SNL was playing with him, and at him; as of Sunday morning, he has yet to tweet about the episode. So perhaps an armistice has been reached in the cold war of cold opens. Perhaps SNL will be overcome with the anxiety of influence; perhaps President Trump will find better things to do with his Saturday evenings than to watch comedians who, like so many others, want something from him. Or perhaps SNL will remain as a political platform as well as a comedic one. Perhaps PACs will keep buying the show’s ad slots as a way to talk to, and influence, the new American president. Perhaps a show that airs “Live from New York” will be aimed, ever more, at a viewer who watches its episodes live from Washington, D.C.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.