He was the first mid-season departure since Cecily Strong also left in December back in 2022, as most cast changes happen between seasons. It’s not a huge surprise, as there were rumors he might leave after Season 50. Plus, it makes sense for him to make his farewell episode one with his friend and Wicked costar Ariana Grande on board as host.

This was just about guaranteed to be a stellar episode, as Ari has proven herself brilliantly hilarious and fantastic already on this show. Throw in musical guest Cher, the annual Weekend Update “joke swap” tradition, and new holiday sketches and it was everything we could have wanted and more!

Ariana Grande’s castrato singer Antonio and his thousand-yard stare from her last episode made a fun cameo return to introduce Cher’s second performance, but we were deeply disappointed when Cher didn’t show up in any sketches herself — until she finally did!

As expected, the episode leaned heavily on Bowen, giving him a fitting farewell night, a former cast member back for an Update return, and a final sketch that reduced him to tears as he managed to stay in character and still make some poignant goodbye comments to his fellow cast members and those who help make the show happen.

The audience reactions and laughs were so much, the show clearly ran over as two cut-for-time sketches quickly wound up on the show’s YouTube page — and they were definitely stronger than some of what made the air. Don’t worry, we’ve got them here below so you won’t miss a thing.

As usual, Jason Hughes is here to rank all the sketches from worst to first, including the Monologue, Cold Open, “Weekend Update” and any sketches that were cut for time but made their way online. We’ll skip the musical guests, because they’re not usually funny — unless Ashlee Simpson shows up. We wrap up with a look at the cast-member who had the strongest week.

A little clunkier than usual, even as he was obviously trying to show a Trump decline in his delivery, and not as funny as usual. James Austin Johnson did get some good jokes in there, like his quip connecting pedophilia to his Hunger Games-esque Patriot Games pivoting into a Jeopardy host commentary. The non-sequiturs are a key part of James’ impression and he was definitely all over the place — perhaps more than ever before, natch! — in this take. The mispronunciations and apparent confusion were fun additions, but even though this was a clear parody of Trump’s actual recent address to the nation, it still felt like a kind of lazy Cold Open to end the year on.

This may have just been an excuse to put Mikey Day back in that Grinch costume because it is still fantastic. That said, we’d have preferred perhaps a few more unlikely pairings to emerge from this as the Grinch-Ariana Grande connection wasn’t quite strong enough by itself to carry this entire sketch. They had some cute moments with the interactions among the other “pod squad” members, and another dig on Sarah Sherman’s looks, but the sketch definitely started to stretch thin by the end.

Ariana put all of her monologue focus on a parody song about the challenge of buying Christmas gifts for random people you don’t know that well with some cute lyrics delivered in her stellar vocal style — though we could have done without all the audience whooping every time she did a run. We already know she can sing so stop acting like it’s a revelation. Also, Ariana graciously shared a lot of her stage spotlight with outgoing cast member Bowen Yang, who joined her early in the song before several other cast members also came out and made it a cast musical number monologue. Ariana was a little giggly in her opening lines where she talked about not liking sequels (with the obvious joke implied), but her presence is so relaxed and endearing, she clearly has a blast when she’s here.

Celebrity impression roundup allowing Ariana Grande to show off her multiple singing impressions like Celine Dion and Katy Perry. James Austin Johnson, after surprising us with his singing voice earlier this season, popped up three times, including with a very impressive Andrea Bocelli take. Some other fun unlikely pairings included Chloe Fineman’s Bjork and … was that Veronika Slowikowska as Post Malone? We also got a huge kick out of pairing Kam Patterson’s Lil Jon with Jane Wickline as herself on one of her signature quirky songs. It was a great little spotlight for Jane and pairing Lil Jon’s “WHAT!” with her folk sound was perfect. The sketch itself wasn’t hilarious, but we did find ourselves looking forward to who we might seen next, or in the case of Kenan Thompson’s Stevie Wonder, “I didn’t see anything.”

Colin Jost and Micheal Che kicked their night off with some fun bits about the heavily-redacted Epstein files, RFK transforming into Wilson the volleyball, the “rock” that led to Marjorie Taylor Greene’s engagement, and Trump’s apparent “alcoholic personality” — which got a claim of “that’s not nice” from Che. But it was funny.

Che’s nephew Tyson is “this many” (a.k.a. 12) and has a message for Santa Claus … which amounts to basically a home invasion threat and possible abduction. Let’s just say Kam Patterson’s take on a not-so-sweet teen is not happy he didn’t get a bike last year. We loved the pivots from sweet with a lisp to tough guy threats, kind of capturing the 12-year-old experience between the innocence of childhood and the terrors of the teen years. This was a great comedic showcase for Kam, who really embraced the moment and sold the character.

To kick off this year’s annual joke swap, Colin read awkwardly from the prompter that Che had specifically told him they weren’t doing it this time only for Che to say, “Okay, I guess you’ll just have to read mine.” What followed was a short series of terrible jokes that attacked Black people, the Catholic Church, and (of course) Colin’s wife Scarlett Johansson. It was still funny, and Che’s jokes for Colin to read were always better, but we still missed the back-and-forth.

A surprise return for Aidy Bryant with her recurring trend forecaster character alongside Bowen Yang so we could learn what was in and out as we head into 2026. The characters were as silly as always, though they’ve had better material in the past. Still, it was fun to see Aidy back and she and Bowen have a clear rapport that was fun to see again. Plus, they did a Trendsetters appearance for Aidy’s final episode, so why not have her return the favor?

It’s clear why Bowen Yang announced his departure before the show because this final sketch of the night was so clearly his swan song. In character as the guy who offers eggnog at the holidays for the Delta One Lounge, Bowen was able to say goodbye to a few of the cast members directly, including Kenan Thompson, while both Ariana Grande and Cher made appearances for his final moments as Bowen broke down crying while they sang “Please Come Home for Christmas.” It was a touching goodbye sketch that would not have been nearly as successful had the audience not already known this was him saying goodbye to the show itself and his time here.

Ariana Grande’s anti-vaxx comment came out of nowhere, as did her defense of it, and it was even too much for her to handle, leading to a full on giggle attack. We also were loving what may or may not have been an ad lib with Marcello Hernandez’s chin scruff that brought both of them to the brink of breaking. All in all, though, this pairing brought some great comedy moments as a dance teaching duo, while Bowen Yang was great as an overzealous returning student. The beats of this sketch were not altogether unique, but there were still a lot of laughs from the different dances the class delivered by way of introduction.

Sarah Sherman and Ariana Grande were having a blast as two older gentlemen selling the last of their Christmas tree stock to whoever was desperate enough to still need one at this late hour. The stock was crap, their slogans were ridiculously long, but the wig and props department outdid themselves in making them look like pudgy out of shape dudes. We got a particular chuckle out of Sarah flirting with Chloe Fineman’s wife character, while Ari lost it when she had to threaten to “stroke” Jeremy Culhan as Chloe’s husband. It was so silly, we’re still chuckling.

This fake ad is absolutely brilliant with incredible commitment from every single participant. We were dying at Chloe Fineman and Sarah Sherman as the intoxicated girls who first went into the Espresso Martini Safe room, while Bowen Yang killed it as their fake gay friend behind glass. And Ariana Grande’s evolution through the piece as the founder of the safe rooms was absolutely hilarious — as were her burns on Ben Marshall, in particular. We weren’t ready for Phineas and Ferb!

A riff on Miracle on 34th Street, Kenan Thompson’s “Black Santa Claus” is on trial for breaking and entering, as well as burglary, with Mikey Day presenting plenty of evidence to put him away. But then Kenan busts out a take on Cher’s “Believe” with a Christmas twist and brings in question everything the court thought it knew about his alleged crimes. Is it ridiculous? Absolutely. Was it a missed opportunity to bring out actual musical guest Cher for a cameo? You bet it was! Still, Kenan was so charming in this, we didn’t mind. Ariana Grande was a bit clunky with her line delivery as the judge, but the overall silliness of the piece allowed us to forgive it.

This went a very different direction than we expected and we found ourselves enjoying the hell out of it. If you remember the shockingly violent and bloody Christmas Carol sketch with Martin Short and Steve Martin from a few years back — well, this one is about what would happen if Kevin (Ariana Grande) forgot to dismantle all of the household traps he’d set up to thwart the burglars, leading his family to a series of horrifying mishaps. It was very graphic and over the top with some very fun cast turns, like Colin Jost as his douchey brother. We’re not usually all in with gore for gore’s sake, but the escalating nature of the insanity made sense here and we could not stop laughing.

We were not prepared for Ariana Grande’s delivery of the line, “I just wish elves could die! Why can’t we die!” This support group was all the typical silly things that might happen with those before her, but the visual of Ariana’s elf ripped in half by the family cat was funny enough until her breakdown broke us! We’ll add that the voice effect on all of the characters was an added bonus. The traumas of the other elves were equally grim and hilarious, with Kenan’s story particularly harrowing/hilarious. Add to that the revelation of how they could die — and then Kam’s reaction to a photo Mikey Day shared of his time as an elf at a frat house and this was quickly becoming one of the funniest holiday sketches of all time.

This holiday episode was big on ensemble pieces where no one took the lead at all, like the unexpected duets sketch and the Elf on the Shelf support group. When it wasn’t the whole cast, there were a lot of great pairings with Ari proving she could have amazing chemistry with anyone, like with Mikey Day’s Grinch on Love Is Blind, Marcello Hernandez’s dance instructor, and Sarah Sherman’s Christmas tree salesman.

It made for a very balanced viewing experience but didn’t offer any huge breakout nights for the cast, but perhaps that was for the best. The cast member with the most appearances on the night was, appropriately enough, the one leaving. He also had two key starring roles, with a Weekend Update turn and his final starring role to wrap up the show.

We won’t say that Bowen Yang had the funniest night of his SNL career, but he did bring consistent laughs throughout the night, whether he was the dance class suck-up, Ariana’s monologue support, a fake gay friend behind glass, or whatever the hell that was as Yoko Ono. 

Bowen was a more versatile performer than his commentary about himself in his final sketch would have you believe and will go down in history as one of the show’s best.

New episodes of Saturday Night Live return January 17 with host Finn Wolfhard and musical guest A$AP Rocky.