Just a little over a year after an all-time performance as “Saturday Night Live” host (one of the best of that season, truth be told), Ariana Grande returned again to show off some of her talents: mimicry and comic timing, dance moves, and, of course, a spectacular singing voice.
But she also showed a lot of grace by ceding the spotlight to her “Wicked” co-star Bowen Yang, who confirmed before this week’s episode that he is exiting “SNL” midway through his eighth season. At several turns of this week’s show, particularly in a closing sketch about a retiring Delta Sky Club employee that served as Yang’s emotional goodbye, it was clear that Grande understood the assignment: this was Yang’s night, not hers.
Which isn’t to say Grande wasn’t great. She started strong with an “All I Want For Christmas” takeoff in her monologue, played an Elf on the Shelf who’s been cut in half in a support group sketch, exchanged a costume soul patch with Marcello Hernández as one of two dramatic dance instructors, and perhaps most memorably in this outing, played Macaulay Culkin‘s character Kevin in an extremely bloody parody of “Home Alone.”
She dated The Grinch (Mikey Day) in a “Love Is Blind” reunion sketch, played a judge in a courtroom scene featuring Black Santa Claus (Kenan Thompson) before portraying Katy Perry and Celine Dion in a promo for a Peacock special that mashes up different singers like the viral David Bowie/Bing Crosby “Little Drummer Boy” video.
But in his last show as a cast member, Yang got to appear in nearly every sketch as well, from a brief appearance in the “Home Alone” sketch to playing Yoko Ono in the Peacock special skit to reprising his Trend Forecaster character on “Weekend Update” with former cast member Aidy Bryant.
If Grande wasn’t as locked in as last time (she broke character laughing a few times), it didn’t matter much because she was as funny, energetic and eerily accurate in all her impressions. It felt very much like Grande was there less to promote the new “Wicked” movie than to help a friend say goodbye.
Musical guest Cher appeared in Yang’s Delta Sky sketch as his boss and performed “DJ Play a Christmas Song” and “Run Run Rudolph,” the latter introduced by Grande as her Castrati character, Antonio. A title card before the goodbyes honored Rob Reiner, who was killed with his wife Michele Singer Reiner in their home last week.
Not surprisingly, President Trump (James Austin Johnson) had a lot to say in a holiday address to the nation while also hugging a Christmas tree (“Remember when I did this with flag? I’m hugging tree now.”) and reading his stage directions out loud, an interesting new wrinkle to Johnson’s masterful impression. Trump reminded the country that “Arctic immigrants are coming in through our chimneys and stealing our milk and cookies” and discussed the recently voted on name change to the Kennedy Center, now “The Trump-Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts No Homo,” saying it is just the beginning. His name will be on the Trump Washington Monument, the Trump Lincoln Memorial and “Big Elphaba,” his name for the Statue of Liberty. Why so many names on things? “We had to take it off so many files,” he said, a reference to the much-redacted, newly released Epstein Files. Johnson’s impression is getting slurrier and even more meta, but continues to deliver on random pop culture references, which this week included the Indigo Girls, “The Hunger Games” and the videogame “Metal Gear Solid.”
Grande’s monologue briefly touched on the idea of bringing back old sketches such as “Domingo” from her last appearance before declaring cheekily, “When something is perfect, it doesn’t need a sequel.” She talked about how hard it is to find gifts for people she doesn’t know well, like her cousin’s boyfriend, Steve, which led to a whole music number to the tune of “All I Want for Christmas,” including Yang and other cast members giving suggestions on gifts like back massage coupons or a box of raw oysters. The lyrics weren’t all easy to understand unless you had captions enabled, but Grande sang the heck out of the Mariah Carey song.
Best sketch of the night: Take a bow, Bowen
Was it the funniest sketch of the night? No, that would probably be the Elf on the Shelf support group or the “Love is Blind” reunion. But Yang’s last sketch, about an elderly Delta Sky Club worker passing out eggnog and working his last shift, was heartfelt and sweet. Even a casual fan of Yang and “SNL” would be hard pressed not to get choked up by Yang talking about his time on the show to his wife (Grande), who replied, “All the egg nog you’ve made over the years. Some of it was great. Some of it was rotten.” “And a lot of it got cut,” he replied. Bowen broke down a few times while expressing his love for the people who work on “SNL” and sang through tears a version of “Please Come Home for Christmas” with Grande. “Egg nog is kind of like me — it’s not for everyone, but the people who like it are my kind of people,” he said to riotous applause. When he said he wanted to go out on top, she responded, “Oh, everyone knows you’re a bottom.” The capper to the sketch: Cher appearing as his Delta boss to tell him, “Everyone thought you were a little too gay. But, you know what? You’re perfect for me.”
Also good: The holiday duets you didn’t know you needed
When you’ve got Grande on board, it’s hard to resist falling back on lots of celebrity impressions, especially if they involve singing. For this piece, random performers are paired up for duets to try to replicate the magic of David Bowie and Bing Crosby’s “Little Drummer Boy” to varying degrees of success. Grande and Johnson were paired up twice: as Katy Perry and Bob Dylan and then again to close the sketch as Andrea Bocelli and Celine Dion. It’s impossible to overstate how good Grande is at mimicking other singing voices, but the surprise here is how well Johnson keeps with her as Bocelli. Other standouts: Hernández as Bad Bunny, a backflipping Benson Boone (it was likely a stunt person and not a cast member, we never see his face) and Veronika Slowikowska as Bjork.
‘Weekend Update’ winner: Mistletoe, you are on watch!
Kam Patterson did well as Michael Che’s 12-year-old nephew Tyson, who goes back and forth between being a sweet kid and threatening Santa Claus for not bringing him a bike for Christmas last year. And this year’s holiday joke swap was weirdly one-sided with only Michael Che writing heretofore-unseen jokes for “Update” co-host Colin Jost to read. But Bryant returning to reunite with Yang for their arch Trend Forecasters bit won the week. They targeted mistletoe, musical intros that go “1, 2, 3, 4!” and in Chinese Trends, orange chicken. The duo repeated their catchphrase, “Go to bed, b—!” to each of these outgoing trends before declaring that waving pride flags, Marge Simpson hair and Michael Che are out. Of course, a stunned Michael Che was shown with a big blue wig and little pride flags in his hands.
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