Saturday Night Live wrapped up last Saturday, closing the book on the show’s golden jubilee with a Scarlett Johansson-led finale. The energy of this season is what I would categorize as “mid-spectacular”—it wowed well enough, but there were more “meh” moments this season than “great” ones. There were over 100 sketches performed in Studio 8H between September and May, and it’s time to pick the very best ones. I’d like to give another thank you to the readers for sticking with my recaps all season long. For this list, I’m only considering the segments that made it to air, so cut-for-time bits like “Mean Cute” and “Irish Americans” will have to sit this one out. Sketches from the SNL50 anniversary special are also ineligible, though Adam Sandler’s “50 Years” would probably slot in at #1 otherwise. So here they are, the 27 best sketches of SNL‘s 50th season.
27. “A Long Goodbye”
Who let SNL run a 10-to-1 sketch right after Gaga’s monologue? Somehow, a truly kooky concept made it not just to the live show, but to the beginning of it! I applaud the gall, and I think “A Long Goodbye” was actually quite funny once it really got into the groove. When Gaga backs up her rideable suitcase, it felt obvious that we might get a bit that leans heavily on the physical comedy of motorized luggage—something akin to Will Ferrell’s shtick in the “Jeffrey’s” sketch in Season 26. But alas, “A Long Goodbye” became so much more than that, as Alicia (Gaga) leaves for culinary school in France and her boyfriend Jeremy (Hernandez) tells her to have a “delicious life” but regrets letting her go. Cut to Gaga riding her luggage on a highway, accompanied by a biker gang of luggage riders called the Sons of Samsonite. Jeremy isn’t too far behind, eventually catching her at the airport. This might be the only Season 50 sketch with an entire character arc, and it works! I love the recurring “Go around!” gag, and I especially loved that we got to see Hernandez and Gaga driving the luggage around Studio 8H, even backstage.
“Golf Tournament” was one of the better “traditional” pre-recorded sketches this season. We’re dropped into coverage of the Oakmont Fall Classic, and Brady Knoll (Nate Bargatze) is about to crush a drive on the first hole. Quickly, he does his best Randy Johnson impression and smacks the ball right into a bird flying by, obliterating it immediately. He gets a mulligan, and then quickly knocks an eagle’s nest out of a tree with his next shot. Then, as the momentum would have it, his next two shots are just as catastrophic: He mistakes an eagle egg for his golf ball, pulverizing it upon impact, and throws his club into a nearby pond, killing a tortoise named “Fairway Fred” (who had been “a fixture of the golf course” since 1971) by doing so. Knoll holes out from 450 yards away and, in a disastrous conclusion, puts the pin back in and decimates a chipmunk. All the while, a few quick cuts to Toby Doyle, who keeps missing short putts, is an understated part of the skit that becomes so stupidly funny in the context of Knoll’s continued, unintentional animal violence. Bravo.
25. “Simpsons Christmas Gift”
At an office Secret Santa gift exchange, Chris Rock is given a portrait of himself as a Simpsons character by Mikey Day. “So, I’m like, in the show now?” Rock asks. “Well, no,” Day replies, “I just made it using an app called ‘Simpsonsify.’” He says it’s the best gift he’s ever gotten in his life, and then Heidi Gardner (who plays a wheelchair-bound character named Susan Wheels) opens her gift. It’s a jump rope from Andrew Dismukes, who “panicked” when buying it. “I like it, I’m just not sure I can use it for another seven months,” Gardner says, in one of the more subtly funny jokes from last night. “Uh, question,” Rock interrupts. “What would my job be in Springfield?” “Maybe you’re the medical director at a teaching hospital like you are in real life,” Chloe Fineman responds. “Wrong!” Rock declares. Susan suggests that, maybe, he works for Mr. Burns, to which Rock says he’s a dance teacher at Bart’s school. “Bart likes me because I see something in him,” he says. The sketch goes into a spiral as Rock imagines a fake episode of The Simpsons that gets darker (“So it’s funny to drink all day and strangle your son and hit your wife?”) and darker (“I go see Marge and I can tell somebody kicked her ass”) with every added detail (“Chief Wiggum is too stupid and fat, I take matters into my own hands”). The floor for a sketch like this is pretty reachable, but Rock and the crew really hit the ceiling with it. Part of what makes Rock the perfect anchor is that he’s a good storyteller in his stand-up—and that’s the kind of finesse he brings to “Simpsons Christmas Gift.”
24. “The Couple You Can’t Believe Are Together”
The first “Couple You Can’t Believe Are Together” bit flew under the radar, but Marcello Hernandez and Jane Wickline were incredible as a loud, football jersey-and-backwards-cap-wearing guy named Grant and a bookish, glasses-wearing, Steven Universe-loving gal named Alyssa. The premise riffed on the then-recent marriage between Lana Del Rey and swamp tour guide Jeremy Dufrene; Colin Jost couldn’t stop cracking up, and you could tell that Wickline was struggling to keep a straight face throughout the entire bit—and you could see why, as Hernandez was chucking up nothing but half-court shots and draining each one (“Opposites attract, man! That’s science, bro!” Grant says. “Like magnets,” Alyssa snickers). The two met at Club Sweat during a “Trap Night,” and it’s hard to dislike a joke that’s centered around body language: Grant goes berserk to a dance track, bumping into Alyssa and pushing her closer and closer to Jost. It was a wholesome and well-executed sketch about two types of people that everybody knows in some way or another. In only a few episodes, Wickline really came into her own. Hernandez, ever the viral workhorse of chaos in the cast, remains seismic.
23. “Bridesmaid Speech”
“Bridesmaid Speech” gave us something special: Ariana Grande intentionally singing off-key. Four bridesmaids (Heidi Gardner, Ego Nwodim, Sarah Sherman, Grande) sing a song their bachelorette weekend with the bride (Chloe Fineman), a song delivered to the tune of Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso.” “They say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” Grande boasts. “But, we didn’t go to Vegas—we went to Charleston. Hit it!” Gardner exclaims. The song starts off all well and good, making jokes about the bride needing a break from her new husband Matthew (Dismukes). But, all quickly dissolves into pure dread, as the bridesmaids’ ditty becomes a recounting of the bride cheating on her then-fiance with a man named Domingo (Marcello Hernandez)—a random guy they all met and certainly didn’t tell Matthew about. And, well, you probably know the rest—considering how uber-viral the sketch went online. “Bridesmaid Speech” was an opportunity for the leading women of SNL to share the stage together. They’re all dynamite together, and we didn’t get enough of that—having Grande in the saddle this season lent them a perfect opportunity.
I don’t agree with most of Dave Chappelle’s comedy, but his monologue this year was the season’s best. I was hesitant to include a monologue, since it’s not really a “sketch”—especially when it’s a stand-up routine like Chappelle’s was—but this one I can’t deny the inclusion of. Across 17 minutes, Chappelle mentions President Trump’s comments about Haitian immigrants eating pets in the comedian’s home state of Ohio, conspiracy theories, Luigi Mangione, Diddy, and snitching. While smoking a cigarette, he delivers an incredibly well-executed joke about poor people wishing ill on celebrities affected by the Los Angeles fires. He tosses in a gay joke in there about West Hollywood being unaffected by the fires, because you “can’t burn what’s already flaming.” It all goes on for so very long, but there are barely any hiccups. Even Chappelle’s riffing serves a purpose.
The greatest moment of the monologue, however, was Chappelle illustrating how bad people who say bad things can also say good things. He got up on a stage and, in front of millions of people, advocated for Palestine without making a joke about it. He celebrated the late Jimmy Carter’s courage upon his visit to the Middle East and pleaded for all of us, including Trump, to “do better” and to show decency towards displaced people in the Palisades and Palestine. Kudos to him for doing that; the genocide in Palestine was almost completely avoided by SNL this season.
21. “What’s That Name: Election Edition”
First made popular years ago when Bill Hader was still in the cast, the premise of Season 50’s “What’s That Name” revolved around the show’s host, Rick Blake (Longfellow), grilling the contestants, Ben (John Mulaney) and Margaret (Sarah Sherman), on the names of current political figures. It all starts off easy for Ben, as he correctly identifies Doug Emhoff and Jack Smith, but things quickly get tense when Blake brings out former vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine and Ben is unable to guess his name. The genius part of this bit is that it digs right into the gist of contemporary political knowledge two-fold—that Clinton picked a running mate so boring in 2016 that the collective consciousness forgot him, and that political alignments are often more performative than earnest. Then, Blake pulls up one of Ben’s old tweets about remembering the names of Black victims of police brutality—none of which he can actually remember, besides George Floyd. He wagers a guess: Tomeka New Orleans. “I’m bad at remembering names, okay?” Ben gestures, to which Blake puts a picture of a “somewhat popular” pornstar named Aurora Snow on the screen and Ben gets it right immediately. It’s all done very, very well, even if Longfellow can’t quite fill Hader’s shoes completely (Longfellow’s Blake looks like Hader’s Blake took The Substance). But, in a resounding plot twist, after Ben says that Trump winning the election could result in a real-life Handmaid’s Tale, it’s not only revealed that Ben doesn’t know who wrote the book, but that the “Margaret” competing against him is the book’s author, Margaret Atwood.
20. Featured Players on Weekend Update
I wanted to shout out this season’s featured players, who all flourished behind the Update desk this year. Admittedly, I was not immediately a fan of Jane Wickline’s party song on Update, but I did come around to it. I don’t know what her future with the show is, or whether or not SNL hopes that she and her keyboard will become as synonymous with Update as Adam Sandler and his guitar were 30+ years ago, but I’m in favor of it. The song, which mimics something you would see on Wickline’s popular TikTok page, didn’t initially register with audience and maybe even went on for a minute too long, but her musicality is a fun reprieve from the more conventional parts of SNL—and, when the show is doing wel, her work is elevated even more. And, thanks to her, I’m never going to let myself be the last person at a party I didn’t throw.
Mid-season, JoAnn Fabrics filed for bankruptcy, so JoAnn herself (Ashley Padilla) showed up, flask in hand, to hype up the brand one final time before it closes its doors for good. I am always a fan of letting the newbies have their moments on Update, but Padilla really struggled to make this character interesting. There’s a funny joke at the beginning about all of the JoAnn Fabrics employees being retired nurses with the biggest breasts you’ve ever seen, and Padilla rests on shock-value punchlines, like telling Colin Jost that the Michael from Michael’s sexually assaulted her or sniffing industrial glue, to sell us on the chaos. Save JOANN! Women will die if we don’t! The featured players this season were all great, but Padilla was the one whose command of the camera felt the most-seasoned (check out the also great “I Got One” sketch for further proof). She’s going to be a big star in this group after Heidi Gardner and Chloe Fineman eventually leave the show.
The rate of young Americans who feel patriotic is at an all-time low, Emil Wakim stopped by Update to talk about how hard it is being from this country, especially with an immigrant father. His long-winded joke about how the way we interact with our UberEats drivers shows our hypocrisy was great, as was his one-liner about the Hell we’re in now that an M&Ms store is by a church. He takes a shot at Brooklyn residents who think they’re above capitalism and, even through all of the jokes and the bit’s referential ending (Colin Jost joking that he’s looking forward to reading the YouTube comments about Wakim’s monologue), Wakim delivers a painfully needed moment of clarity: “I’m part of the problem.”
19. “One Uppers”
I really thought the “One Uppers” sketch was barely three minutes long—that’s how quick and fun the damn bit was. A bunch of college friends are getting together for a meal, and some of them worry that the remaining two friends (Jack Black, Bowen Yang) are going to, you guessed it, one-up each other the entire meal. And they do just that, talking themselves up and shooting quick glances at all six or seven camera angles scattered across the restaurant. Black quit social media, only reads physical books now, and got his sweater while thrifting. Yang made his own sweater. The peal call of an eagle scores every blue-steel face, as each person at the table tries to flex their good deeds. The faces get more obtuse and distorted; each cut to a new person reveals two or three people breaking behind them. It was infectiously funny and full of momentum, even if Heidi Gardner’s appearance at the end—which reveals that the noisy eagle belongs to her—nearly made the whole sketch die on the vine. But I love a good wink at virtue signaling, and watching the cast members break every time Black made eye-contact with a camera made this one sing well enough.
18. “Trump Executive Orders Cold Open”
While SNL was on a three-week break, Trump’s second term eclipsed the 100-day mark. But, as President Trump (James Austin Johnson)—perhaps the next Pope?—would have you believe, it felt like 100 years. I have been a vocal critic of this season’s run of cold opens, and I still think this team of writers has yet to really figure out how to make them good on a consistent basis, but I would be remiss to ignore how easy last night’s sketch went down. To be honest, any cold open that is five minutes long and isn’t a slog is a winner in my book. JAJ felt particularly sharp last night, riffing on Trump’s bans on paper straws and defunding PBS.
Elmo got apprehended by ICE and there’s a good Count von Count joke in there, while he goes through a bunch of executive orders that need signed—including protecting Columbus Day for “our great Italian-American friends” like Childish Gambino, reducing the number of interracial couples in TV commercials (“It’s just too many, right? You see them in the kitchen together making meals from Hello Fresh!”), and making it socially acceptable for men in their 70s to date young women. Here’s looking at you, Coach Belichick. Trump pardons JK Rowling, who he calls “Jackie,” and congratulates her on creating a Wizard World for “overweight millennials to stake their entire identity well past the point of it being cute.” Then comes the kicker from JAJ: “I’m a Hufflepuff! No, bitch! You work at Staples.” Mikey Day does Stephen Miller Kylo Ren-style, playing up the creep role so much that even Trump has to acknowledge it. Marcello Hernandez stops by as a broken down, submissive Marco Rubio to oversee an executive order preventing Hispanic babies from getting their ears pierced. “We got grown, white, American tweens trying to get into Claire’s and they gotta wait behind a thousand tiny Latina babies to get their ears pierced. It’s no bueno, right Marco?”
17. “Skydiving”
The first Please Don’t Destroy film of the season—John Higgins and Martin Herlihy celebrating their birthday by going skydiving—finds the troupe stepping out of their office and onto a plane 10,000 feet in the air. Ben Marshall, who plays the skydiving instructor, can’t stop talking about all the bad vibes he’s getting (“I just have a weird feeling in my stomach,” “Luck’s not on my side”). The other instructor (Michael Keaton) just lost custody of his kids (“Maybe there’s just a small part of me that always wanted to die”), and the pilot (Emil Wakim) is watching a “how to fly” TikTok on his first day on the job. It’s a shame that the audience didn’t seem too keen on this one in the moment, because it exemplifies exactly what Please Don’t Destory do best: absurdity unfolding across a seemingly high-stakes situation. A grandpa-shaped apparition appears in a selfie, while Herlihy declares his romantic love for a reluctant and spooked-out Higgins before kissing him on the cheek. “We’re jumping into the unknown,” Marshall says. “That’s why we do this, to figure out who we really are.” Then, as he and Higgins are about to jump, their parachute deploys prematurely and they get sucked out of the cabin and into the plane’s turbine.
16. “Banger Boyz”
Sometimes, the best SNL sketches are the ludicrous bits that are outdated, but “Banger Boyz” is so married to contemporary brain-rot that it’s too topical to fail. This isn’t the first time the show has riffed on podcast trends (“Father-Son Podcasting Microphone” is still great), but it might be the best iteration of the joke. “Banger Boyz” is the podcast that goes hard every single week, a show featuring three Trump-loving bros (Andrew Dismukes, Marcello Hernandez, Emil Wakim) and their producer Cara (Charli XCX). The juxtaposition between getting punched in the ballsack by an InstaBaddie (facts!) and discussing how they “built the pyramids” was unbelievably stupid and got a big LOL from me. “Banger Boyz” was full of details, like an “I <3 To Fart” mug, a hamburger phone, bottles of Prime on a table covered in ZYN tins, and a power glove. I also loved Hernandez’s hat, which says “Pube Whacker” on it (which also happens to be one of the podcast’s many sponsors). Apparently, these bros had Trump on their podcast before he got elected, and the president-elect has taken it upon himself to call two of them and ask them to be in his cabinet. Hernandez’s Dugan gets invited to be the Secretary of Commerce, which the boys have surmised is someone who is in charge of “all the commercials.” “Bro, first thing I’m gonna do in office? I’m gonna fire that little GEICO snake.”
Some discourse around whether or not the GEICO mascot is a snake or a gecko ensued (“Agree to disagree, my brother,” delivered in perfect, obtuse fashion by Hernandez), segueing into the next, inevitable topic: friend of the pod Jake Paul fighting Mike Tyson. This segued into my favorite part of the sketch, in which Hernandez talked about his dad abusing him (“My dad’s 64 and still kicks my ass every week”). Marcello went over-the-top with the bit by delivering the line of the night: “I hit my head so hard I can’t even taste anything.” Cara pops in periodically to dish the what’s-what on some of the show’s sponsors, including Cargo Condoms (the only condoms with pockets), ZYN Junior (for kids!), TopGolf (find out which one of your co-workers is an alcoholic), Male Chimp (a guy named Doug just has one), Warm Plunges (cold plunges that just got a hell of a lot more comfortable) and the aforementioned Pube Whacker (be very careful). PJ (Wakim) gets asked to be the United States’ new ambassador to Iran, to which he, upon realizing the implications, let’s out a somber “I don’t know if I wanna do that. Do you think I have to, like, live there?” “Maybe you can do it on Zoom!” Dugan replies.
15. “My Best Friend’s House”
In “My Best Friend’s House,” which was written by the great Dan Bulla (the guy who produces movies with Adam Sandler and wrote the “Tiny Horse” sketch), Ariana Grande goes to her best friend’s house and gets sentimental about the smells and sights: a brother’s deodorant, candles, a father’s cooking, a full refrigerator and a warm fireplace. But then, things get dark real quick, as Grande returns to her friend’s home and finds it condemned into a crime scene, as the father (Mikey Day) turns out to be a serial killer with more than a dozen victims, including the decapitated head in the fridge belonging to Sarah Sherman. The reason a sketch like “My Best Friend’s House” works is because, even though you know that a turn or surprise is coming, the payoff is executed well despite the anticipation. The way that Bulla focuses on how Grande’s character missed all of the signs because she was too busy enjoying her own nostalgia is a stroke of excellence.
14. “Indiana Jones”
One thing I can say about this season of SNL is that the writers went light on the show’s tradition of using a game show template right after the monologue. But Love Match was chosen as the tone-setter for Jack Black’s episode, as host Todd (Andrew Dismukes) gives contestant Jamie (Chloe Fineman) three mystery bachelors, Allan (James Austin Johnson), Dan (Marcello Hernandez), and Gene (Black), to question. Gene is dressed in full Indiana Jones garb but denies knowing who—or what—that is, despite holding a whip in his hand. Jamie asks Gene about his biggest fear. Snakes, he tells her. What made this sketch work was watching Black and Dismukes go at it, especially after Gene reveals that “Indiana” was just a nickname for Dr. Henry Walton Jones Jr.
13. “Wedding Interruption”
I really love an SNL bit that is just a universal idea stretched into a four-minute punchline. This time, it was the act of substituting physical gifts with well-meaning, affectionate coupons. We’ve all done this to a significant other or even a parent, and it’s entertaining getting to see my life become less and less unique because a couple of writers also are sometimes too cheap to buy real presents. The idea in this sketch is simple: One of Angela’s (Sarah Sherman) ex-boyfriends (Shane Gillis) interrupts her wedding to cash in on the never-expiring “one free handjob” coupon she gave him as a gift years prior. She argues that it was a joke gift and that it doesn’t count anymore, but then her husband-to-be (Devon Walker) pulls out a coupon of his own—for one free night of butt stuff, before or after dinner—and says that both offers are valid. Angela even used the same kind of paper and calligraphy for both coupons, which was a nice touch. Suddenly, everyone in her wedding has a coupon—her dad, her maid-of-honor and, most importantly, the priest. She keeps calling the priest a judge, to which we get one of my favorite Kenan Thompson line deliveries of the season so far: “Can’t be no judge with the record I have.” Add an extra minute to this sketch and it would have gone stale fast, so I’m impressed with SNL for not letting the joke overstay its welcome.
12. “Grandma’s Birthday”
My stance has always remained the same: SNL is at its best when the 10-to-1 sketches shine. And “Grandma’s Birthday” was a real winner. A 96-year-old woman (Sarah Sherman) is celebrating her big day. One of her granddaughters, Chelsea (Heidi Gardner), is bringing her new boyfriend (Timothée Chalamet) with her, the youngest cardiologist at Johns Hopkins. When Grandma collapses, Chalamet implements his new CPR technique by squatting over her body, taking a deep breath, yelling “Clear!” and then ripping a big, wet fart into her mouth. The shit-smelling massacre brings Grandma back to life, and she’s got a brand new lease on it. She claims that she is now looking through rose-colored glasses, to which the doctor says that it’s probably just pinkeye. “Get this woman a glass of water and an Altoid,” the doctor tells the room, before recounting the food he ate prior, including White Castle, all of the ethnic chili at a cook-off, Taco Bell, and deviled eggs. One of the family members (Kenan Thompson) is on the brink of death and begs for them to let him go so he doesn’t suffer the same fate as Grandma. Call me immature, but a fart joke is going to get me every time.
11. “Pip”
Dan Bulla, you son of a bitch, you’ve done it again! In “Midnight Matinee,” we get a short about a high school weightlifting competition happening at the same time a referendum for a new roof is being voted on. The whole sketch is ridiculous, be it the very-obviously-non-muscular students lifting 250- and 500-pound weights, or the fact that the story’s titular hero, Pip, is a mouse who can barely lift cheese barbells. Just as Bulla did with Ariana Grande when she hosted in the fall, the writer/musician made good use of Lady Gaga’s singing, as she conjures the stardom of “Tiny Horse” while rhapsodizing to Pip and inspiring him to train hard for the upcoming event. It’s all good fun, and James Austin Johnson’s straight-laced teacher character is refreshingly dry. There’s even a moment where, after Brad (Marcello Hernandez) lifts 500 pounds, Sarah Sherman stands up and yells, “That’s my high school boyfriend!” It’s very Walk Hard-coded. Of course, Marcello plays the bully and targets Pip. But, after Pip fails to lift a two-ounce barbell, the roof falls on the rest of his classmates and, as school officials try to lift it up, they realize that it’s two ounces too heavy for them. In comes Pip to save the day, and Brad tries apologizing for his mistakes. It’s too late, though, and Pip can’t hold on any longer. The roof debris crushes Brad into a bloody pulp. It didn’t awe in the same way that “Farewell, Mr. Bunting” did eight years ago, but “Pip” captures that classic SNL shock value.
10. “Earring”
Paul Mescal’s episode sucked, but it started well enough to put some hope on the table. The first post-monologue sketch, “Earring,” works because it features a few cast members yelling some of the most outlandish things—it’s like a pissing contest with no end goal or point, and that’s when SNL thrives. The premise is simple: A son (Mescal) is home from college and has a new ear piercing, and his parents (Heidi Gardner, Emil Wakim) overreact to the news. This sketch rocks, largely because Gardner is putting everyone else in a blender during it. Wakim does his best to keep up, but it’s Heidi’s time to shine. “Earring” is basically just a bunch of really good one-liners cobbled into five minutes of jokes, so here are a few of my favorites:
“Maybe one day I’ll bring a goat home, stick a gun to its head and blow his little brains out! That’s pretty freaking cool, huh?”
“Poli-Sci major got us good! College student owns Ben Shaprio!”
“You think we’re homophobic? Your father’s been gay for 15 years!”
“Does your carpet match your drapes? Blue!”
“Honey, cancel my doctor’s appointment tomorrow, I want a sex worker to take my cholesterol!”
“Brah-vah to the edgelord!”
“I guess there’s nothing cooler than hurting your own mother!”
“What if I roundhouse kicked Nana in the stomach?”
The mom throws Nana (Ashley Padilla) through a window twice, and even sticks a spatula through her own earlobe to show her son how cool a body piercing is. Blood is gushing and the whole scene is a mess. “Earring” was easy, formulaic and damn funny to watch unfold. Sometimes it’s cool to just enjoy a few cast members trying to one-up each other in a sketch. Heidi even breaks for a second. We also got a quick, unexpected shot of the son’s younger brother (Michael Longfellow) showing up to the meal in full leather and piercings. There was also a Gummo shoutout in this sketch, which was very, very cool and unexpected.
9. “Sushi Glory Hole”
It felt surreal getting the first SNL Digital Short in six years this season, and “Sushi Glory Hole” marked the return of 66% of the Lonely Island—as Akiva Schaffer joined Samberg but Jorma Taccone was M.I.A. No worries though, as Samberg and Schaffer give us a refreshing return to form, one that sees them rapping about exactly what the title says. The beats sound as good as ever, and the Lonely Island dress up like Wolf of Wall Street extras to deliver their “pitch” to a board of unimpressed investors (Maya Rudolph, Bowen Yang, Kenan Thompson). “You head to a club, hit the bathroom stall,” Samberg raps. “Find a sushi-sized hole in the bathroom wall, then make a wish and prepare for some shockingly high-grade fish.” Digital Shorts are always just a whole mess of fun, even if this one made no real sense (these clips almost never do and that’s why we love them). No Please Don’t Destroy? No problem. I’ll be humming “hear us out, hear us out” all week. Oh, and the first Digital Short premiered way back in 2005. Kenan Thompson started his still-going tenure on the show two years before that. Huh, imagine that!
8. “Evacuation Alert”
A Los Angeles family (Dave Chappelle, Ego Nwodim, Devon Walker) has to evacuate their house during the wildfires, but what’s in their go bags isn’t quite enough. The dad (Chappelle) pulls out a sledgehammer and tears down a wall, revealing half-a-million in cash and a fake passport. Behind a painting are guns and a thumb-drive of bank accounts. A Bosnian hitman (Michael Longfellow) attacks the family, but the dad shoots him in the neck. Blood—a lot of blood—sprays everywhere, covering Chappelle, Nwodim, and Walker. There’s a fun interaction between the father and son, the latter admitting that he’s never held a gun before because he’s in high school and plays the bassoon. “I’m sorry, son, I let you down,” the dad says. “I raised you soft, like a bitch.” When the family begins to worry about where their dog Buster is, the dad locates him and cuts open his stomach. With blood gushing everywhere, the dad pulls a cell phone out of the dog’s guts, calls a number and begins speaking fluent Chinese. Surprise! The evacuation alert was a false alarm. “You passed my test,” the dad says, clapping. “Just gotta be a little bit faster next time, that’s all.” The mom kicks him out of the house and he leaves, but not before telling them that the cat has a pager in his ass. I don’t know why, but every time an SNL sketch has fake blood spraying everywhere, I buy into it.
7. “Christmas Joke Swap”
The joke swap is a tradition well-honored and always amusing. It’s the same shtick every year, in which Michael Che makes Colin Jost say some racist shit and Colin Jost makes Michael Che lean into his own penchant for perverse and misogynistic jokes. It’s a formula that works because it’s just two friends trying to make each other as uncomfortable as possible in front of millions of viewers. This year, Che has Jost read a joke about Kamala Harris’s support for slave reparations in a blaccent and repeat the phrases “shizz” and “I ain’t afraid of you mofos.” Che has to then respond to the news that women in touch with their body signals, like heart-rate and breathing, are more likely to have an orgasm, as opposed to the women he sleeps with, who “just hold their breath until it’s over.” Part of the joke swap’s charm hits when Che and Jost struggle to get through the material because they’re laughing so hard. That’s what happens when Che makes Jost recite a few jokes about his wife Scarlett Johansson, who is shown watching the segment elsewhere in the studio.
Moana 2 is setting box-office records and, like Che’s good friend Jeffrey Epstein used to say, “there’s nothing like an island adventure with a teenage girl.” “I’m just kidding,” Che affirms, “I would never, ever sleep with a girl as dark as Moana.” Che says that Jay-Z is innocent and is adamant that he knows Hova wasn’t at Diddy’s parties because he himself was there. He then speaks to Diddy directly: “When it comes to the charges against you, I’ll say the same thing I always said at your parties: I will help get you off.” But the best joke from the anchors’ swap came with the news that Costco is taking its roast beef sandwich off their food court menu. “I be eating roast beef every night since my wife had the kid,” Jost says, with pain in his eyes. “Nah, I’m just playing, baby. You know I don’t go downtown!”
6. “Two Bitches vs. a Gorilla”
Once a timely sketch but now a bygone trend, “Two Bitches vs. a Gorilla” puts the age-old question to the test: Who would win in a fight, 100 men or one gorilla? Except, it’s two bitches (Quinta Brunson, Ego Nwodim) versus one gorilla. And the answer is: two bitches. This sketch was driven entirely by Brunson and Nwodim’s ability to use each other as launch pads for escalating drama. It took the live audience a minute to really rally behind them, but everyone was hollering by the sketch’s end. It’s Brunson’s birthday weekend, which means she and Nwodim are allowed to break into the gorilla enclosure, talk shit to the animal’s face, and sing Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us” at it. Brunson hits the gorilla with her purse, shouting, “Yeah, I bet that hurt. We goin’ to CoinStar after this, I got hella nickels in here.” In fact, the whole sketch is beefed up by its one-liners. Here are a few that stood out to me:
“You think this the first time I’ve fought a 400-pound bitch? I used to work at Lane Bryant.”
“Square up, Donkey Kong. You about to meet Harambe today.”
“I guess this ain’t Planet of the Apes. You ain’t no Caesar.”
“Are you an original human or no?” “Yeah, why you ain’t changed? Why you ain’t evolute?”
“You just out here stank, fat, no job.”
5. “Shrek: The Musical”
“Shrek: The Musical” was one of the best 10-to-1 sketches of the season, and an example of the show leaning on one of its strengths: an absurd premise anchored by a sorely underused combination of Bowen Yang and Sarah Sherman. Five friends (Charli XCX, Yang, Sherman, Ego Nwodim and Emil Wakim) go see a performance of Shrek on Broadway. One of them (Charli XCX) returns from the “bathroom” with green makeup all over her mouth and hands. She’s accused of hooking up with Shrek (Michael Longfellow) and, before Sherman walks out with green handprints on her chest, we get this great exchange between Yang and Wakim: “Sorry, three chatty ladies on Adderall and a gay guy—kinda hard to get a word in!” Wakim says. “Hey! I’m on Adderall, too!” Yang exclaims. “Shrek: The Musical” succeeds because all five players really go for it. Yang raises the stakes especially, hiking up the tensions and going on the defensive. His chaotic, interrogating demeanor worked well with this ensemble, and the reveal of ogre handprints on ass-cheeks is capped off with him admitting to getting an OTPBTWMB (“over-the-pants-below-the-waist-motor-boat”) from Shrek. Yang calls the group “biphobic” for assuming he hooked up with Shrek and not Fiona post-ogre reveal, to which Sherman asks him if he’s bi. “Ew, no!” he retorts, trying his best not to break.
4. “Beppo”
Written by the great Dan Bulla, “Beppo” was legitimately cinematic and thrilling. There was a moment when I felt sorry for the titular chimp once it was revealed that, after he completed the first ever orbit around the Earth in 1962, NASA wasn’t going to be able to safely bring him home. And then, as Mulaney’s technician character has to break the news to the chimp that his life is coming to an end, watching him try making sense of death so that the astronaut can understand it is painfully funny. But then swooped in Ego Nwodim, playing a Hidden Figures-like character, who “did some calculations with paper and pencil” and figured out how to bring Beppo home. No dice; after an explosion, all seems tragic for Beppo. The NASA men mourn their fallen chimp, until he falls down to Earth, survives the crash, and sleeps with Mulaney’s (soon-to-be ex) wife. It was a near-six-minute production, and I loved every second of it. It’s not every week that an SNL sketch is good enough to take its audience across a spectrum of emotions, but Dan Bulla is not your average filmmaker.
3. “Miss Eggy”
Ego Nwodim is SNL’s star. When the White House Correspondents’ Association announced that its annual dinner would no longer feature a comedian, Nwodim volunteered herself for the job, promising to joke about the food instead of politics. We get a look into her Def Jam-esque, “Miss Eggy” alter-ego, and it even leads to a great call-and-response moment featuring Nwodim asking, “Men ain’t what?” and the audience yelling “shit” in unison. SNL censored the moment on their YouTube upload of the bit, because they are cowards, but the FCC still fined them for the slip. As the outrageousness of Nwodim’s delivery escalates, she can barely keep it together—Che and Jost certainly don’t hold back in their gut-busted background reactions—and seeing her stretch out like this was a big highlight of the season for me. And her reprise of the character during the season finale was a huge win, too. Thank you, SNL, for havin’ a bitch!
2. “Water Park”
“Water Park” rests on the premise of an octogenarian with a bad heart dying at the top of a waterslide after climbing 255 steps. Two lifeguards (Devon Walker, Jane Wickline) and two EMTs (Nate Bargatze, Michael Longfellow) debate over what to do with the man’s body, whether to carry him down all those steps and past all of those eager kids, or, naturally, just push him down the slide. “He did wait in this long line,” Bargatze says. “It actually seems respectful!” Longfellow’s deadpan delivery properly matches Bargatze’s—the two of them make the sketch soar. But what makes something like “Water Park” most successful is the writing. As soon as we see the dead body positioned perfectly at the top of the slide, we can immediately guess that our protagonists are going to want to send him right down it. But there’s tension and anticipation, as that moment takes 4.5 minutes to actually happen. You’re waiting for gut-busting horror to come, but it never does. It’s just Bargatze, Longfellow, Wickline and Walker debating on what to do with this fresh corpse for nearly five minutes—and all of it is just pure comedic bliss, so much so that users online were openly wondering if Bargatze wrote the whole thing (in my opinion, a good measure of a host being in-sync with the cast and the material).
I could’ve watched 90 minutes of Bargatze and Longfellow doing sketches together, so it’s a shame that we only got just this one. When Wickline mentions how, when you come out at the bottom of the slide, your picture gets taken and questions what the dead man’s family would think, Bargatze levels with her: “We just wouldn’t buy the picture,” he says, in the driest reply imaginable. Then, we get this perfect exchange:
“I wanna see how big the splash is,” Walker says.
“Well, don’t say that, man,” Bargatze replies. “That’s not helping.”
“I mean, I just wanna see if the splash is different,” Walker clarifies.
“We all do, but let’s not say it,” Longfellow chimes in. “This was a human being.”
1. “Charades with Mom”
The chemistry between Ariana Grande and Bowen Yang Well came to a head in “Charades with Mom,” when two parents (Grande, Andrew Dismukes) meet their son’s (Michael Longfellow) boyfriend (Yang) for the first time. The premise is simple at first: a family game night, featuring two other siblings (Jane Wickline, Emil Wakim), gets a little competitive. I’d like to come out and say that, in these moments, Longfellow really does channel his best David Spade—(ironically) playing his character straight while fastening himself into a great deadpan. My apologies go out to Dismukes, Wickline, Wakim and Longfellow, though, as this sketch was all Grande and Yang, who went toe-to-toe with each other during a few rounds of charades. After correctly guessing three answers, Yang gloats in celebration. “In your face, Diane!” he says. Grande’s smile dissolves into an angry gaze, as she levels with her son’s beau: “You got a tiny pecker, or something?” Normally, I’d argue that this angle rarely works, because it’s mighty difficult to pull off dick jokes without getting too profane—even on television at midnight. But, Grande and Yang sold it well, and we got one of the funniest line deliveries of the season so far, courtesy of Grande:
“Josh, I was just teasing,” Diane says.
“Okay, phew. Well, you’re going down this next round, girlfriend!” he replies.
“Well, I’ll shoot ya point-blank in the head,” Diane responds.
The father tries to get Diane to guess The Green Mile in the next round, and points at Josh’s green shirt to help with the clue. Grande starts rattling off a laundry list of insults: “Pathetic, fat, bad, evil, no nuts, poor, ugly short guy, pathetic little gay guy.” Of course, Grande “didn’t mean it like that,” as she meant “gay” as in “stupid and bad.” Diane doesn’t have a problem with Josh; she has love and a family. What does Josh have? “A toad chode,” according to her. The two get into a fight and Josh flings Diane’s body across the living room. “You did it,” Diane says. “Finally, one of my son’s boyfriends stood up to me. I need my son to have a man like you, who will protect him—because my son is so, so weak. And I don’t have any respect for him.” It was all so perfectly pulled off, thanks to Yang and Grande’s great energy—which culminates in, as expected, of course, a massive make-out sesh between the two at the sketch’s conclusion. Not bad for a guy with a “rinky-dink pinky between his legs.”
Matt Mitchell is Paste’s music editor, reporting from their home in Northeast Ohio.
