The Bernie Sanders who lives in your head and the Bernie Sanders that exists in the real world are expected to collide tomorrow night, when the candidate joins two–time impressionist Larry David on Saturday Night Live. Although no one at the show has said anything about the appearance—presumably because its staff is still laboring under the delusion that surprises can still happen in this world—CNN is reporting that the Sanders camp has confirmed that they’ll be there. “He is going,” correspondent Jeff Zeleny reported. “He has been invited.”
Provided that he does take the stage with David, Sanders will be the latest in a stream of major political candidates appearing alongside their Studio 8H doppelgangers this season. Hillary Clinton showed up in the season premiere as a bartender offering a sympathetic ear to Kate McKinnon’s version of herself, while Donald Trump slid even deeper into the great orange-skinned echo chamber that is his life by flanking himself with a pair of fellow Donalds. Sanders and David will make it three, giving audiences a chance to clap along with their favorite cranky, straight-talking Jewish senior, and also the junior senator from Vermont.
It remains to be seen whether the other current Republican frontrunner, Ted Cruz, will also deign to squint his way through an awkward appearance next to a probably uncomfortable-looking Taran Killam, or if Jeb Bush will show up to hang out with his own SNL counterpart, the studio’s desperate, pleading applause sign.