It started out familiar: a “Saturday Night Live” sketch centered on impersonations of political figures. But then it was rescued by something even more familiar: the show’s ability to wrangle real-life politicians to come on the show during an election season — which in this case yielded Senator Elizabeth Warren, who announced on Thursday that she was exiting the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The sketch — which led an episode hosted by Daniel Craig and featuring the musical guest the Weeknd — was framed as an episode of the Fox News program “The Ingraham Angle,” with Kate McKinnon playing its host, Laura Ingraham. She traded quips with her cast mates Cecily Strong (playing Jeanine Pirro), Mikey Day and Alex Moffat (as Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump) and the “S.N.L.” veteran Darrell Hammond, who returned in his recurring role as the “Hardball” host Chris Matthews (for what could be his last go-round as that character).

Then McKinnon introduced Warren, playing herself, and asked her how she’d been since dropping out of the race.