Pete Davidson Apologizes to Wounded Vet on Saturday Night Live

It's only been a week since Pete Davidson made headlines for all the wrong reasons by criticizing a wounded war veteran-turned-congressional candidate for his appearance, but he managed to put together a mea culpa that's bound to change the conversation to something positive.

Appearing once again on Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update," Davidson started out his segment by admitting that he'd made a major error by picking on Lt. Com. Dan Crenshaw for the way he looked, since Crenshaw is a war veteran who wears an eye patch as a result of his field injury from an IED on his third tour in Afghanistan.

"So, in what I'm sure was a huge shock for people who know me, I made a poor choice last week," Davidson said. "I made a joke about Lt. Cmdr. Dan Crenshaw, and on behalf of the show and myself I apologize. The man is a war hero, and he deserves all the respect in the world. And [if] any good came of this, maybe it was the fact that for one day the left and the right finally came together to agree on something: that I'm a dick."

Though his words alone may have been satisfactorily apologetic, it didn't end there. Davidson was then joined by Crenshaw himself, who thanked him for "making a Republican look good" (indeed, Crenshaw won his election for a Texas congressional seat) and agreed to participate in a little payback, first by letting his Ariana Grande ringtone play on a bit, and then by hosting his own roast of Davidson.

"This is Pete Davidson. He looks like if the meth from Breaking Bad was a person," he joked of the SNL star's bleached-hair visage. "He looks like a troll doll with a tapeworm. Pete looks like Martin Short in The Santa Clause 3. By the way, one of these people was actually good on SNL."

Davidson laughed along, accepting of the well-deserved ribbing, and then Crenshaw took a more serious tone to reiterate the importance of this Veteran's Day weekend for people like him and others who've served.

"Seriously, there's a lot of lessons to learn here. Not just that the left and right can still agree on some things, but also this. Americans can forgive one another. We can remember what brings us together as a country and still see the good in each other. This is veteran's day weekend, which means it's a good time for every American to connect with a veteran. Maybe say, 'Thanks for your service.' But I would actually encourage you to say something else; tell a veteran, 'Never forget,'" he explained. "When you say 'Never forget' to a veteran, you are implying that as an American, you are in it with them, not separated by some imaginary barrier between civilians and veterans but connected together as grateful fellow Americans who will never forget the sacrifices made by veterans past and present, and never forget those we lost on 9/11. Heroes like Pete's father. So, I'll just say, 'Pete, never forget.'"

Davidson seemed especially touched by that tribute to his late father, an FDNY first-responder who perished while trying to rescue civilians in the Marriott World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

"You're a good guy," he could be overheard saying as the segment ended. "Thank you."

Before that touching highlight happened, though, the episode's cold open went in on another political subject of interest for the week: the firing of long-embattled Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Reprising the role was Kate McKinnon, who lamented being replaced by Matthew Whitaker.

"I don't understand how Mr. Trump could replace me with Matt Whitaker, who's just a shady businessman who's blindly loyal to Donald Trump ... okay, hearing it out loud, that makes sense," NotSessions lamented before being joined by a few other Washington personalities, like Sarah Huckabee Sanders (Aidy Bryant), Mike Pence (Beck Bennett), Eric Trump (Alex Moffat), Donald Trump Jr. (Mikey Day), and, last but not least, Robert Mueller (Robert De Niro), who thanks his former boss for his help with the in-progress final report on the Russian election interference investigation.

"Just tell me, am I in the report?" Faux Sessions asks.

"A little bit," NotMueller responds.

"What about Mr. Trump?"

"A lotta bit."

"Well, I guess I'm leaving at the right time. Thank you for seeing me out."

Meanwhile, Cecily Strong also contributed to some timely political punning by portraying the previously unknown White House intern whose effort to relieve CNN's Jim Acosta of his microphone during Donald Trump's press conference became the source of some debate, after the Press Secretary appeared to share a doctored video of the encounter to further an argument that he'd stricken the woman's arm. This time, though, it's her that's doing the karate-chopping arm action before literally ducking out of frame.

Just another wild week on SNL, folks.