Don’t get us wrong, the strongest sketches of the night were absolutely incredible — with the best performance coming from perhaps the most surprising and unlikely source with a return of Colin Jost as Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. But Melissa McCarthy still knows how to wring a laugh with a look, a gesture, or an ad-libbed moment that even the cast wasn’t expecting.

She was in fine form throughout the night and even managed to elevate some subpar material to watchable with the quality of her comedic work. Some entertainers are just fun to watch no matter what they’re doing and Melissa is definitely one of those artists. She is naturally funny and you find yourself excited to see what ridiculous way she’s going to find a laugh next. In almost every case, whatever choice she makes is the funniest one.

Jost’s Hegseth touched on both the boat bombings and his “fog of war” as well as President Trump’s perceived penchant for falling asleep and getting a little confused in recent weeks. Elsewhere on the night, the show explored the power of “A Helping Hand” during the holiday season to bring people together, free samples doing the same thing at the market, and maybe even a game of truth or dare for — well, same.

As usual, Jason Hughes ranks 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.

Considering this was her sixth time hosting, Melissa McCarthy’s delivery was a lot more clunky than we expected. Pair that with some technical timing issues with stunts like the snow and we were one our way to a subpar monologue with a few moments of brightness. The piano moment with Marcello Hernández was nearly enough to redeem the whole thing, but ultimately, it was just fairly charming and very forgettable.

Bowen Yang and Melissa McCarthy were cute as a couple showing off their holiday decor, but the whole Spectrum News segment and Tommy Brennan as host just did not work at all. His role was completely ineffective and unnecessary as they could have just talked directly to the camera, as they were largely doing anyway. He did manage to find one funny moment when he assumed about their relationship, but his name reveal and everything else just fell flat. Fortunately for him, the whole piece was kind of meh, explaining why it was the 10-to-1 piece the end of the show; it just didn’t ever fully come together (and may have been cut short for time, too).

The moms during a sleepover kick off an unexpected game of truth or dare that mosty made us painfully aware of how out of sorts and uncomfortable Jane Wickline was throughout this piece. She was also woefully underutilized. Even in a group of five women, the other four had substantial lines and exchanges, and she was relegated to one exchange and a lot of supporting background chatter. We know she’s been struggling to find her place on the show this season, but if anything, this sketch just showed that she’s not even being used in sketches she is a part of. Aside from that, the humor from the truths was adorable and the dares mildly amusing, leaving the whole sketch more about what it could have been, but wasn’t.

A deeply weird and intentionally lo-fi parody song, you can tell that even Lorne Michaels wasn’t sure about this one because he slotted it almost at the tail end of the show. Veronika Slowikowska had more animation in her delivery than Jane Wickline, but we definitely appreciated that both women got a chance to showcase their unique comedic voice. Sarah Sherman used to be the weirdo comedy voice of this current cast, but she’s settled her Squirm side quite a bit these last couple of seasons, which is a shame. But we’re glad to see other women stepping up to keep weird alive. It’s always been an essential part of the SNL DNA to sometimes pause and go … what just happened? As for the song, we loved the whole concept, visuals, and execution because that’s how we remember it, too.

Michael Che and Colin Jost were definitely having fun as they poked fun at FIFA’s “made up” peace prize for President Trump, the Franklin AI children’s book fiasco, and Kristi Noem’s Mexican birthday. Jost got some audience gasps for some Epstein jokes, including about the island and a closer examination of the president’s Home Alone 2 cameo. It wasn’t their strongest segment, but the jokes that hit definitely went hard.

Ben Marshall hit the Update desk for the first time as a redhead who just went on vacation and … this was not his forte. His delivery didn’t work, the jokes fell superflat and even the visual gags were one misfire after another. He could have held an open TV dinner and had smoke come out of it, but no, let’s just hold the box with no visual cue at all — just a ding. This was a mess and a massive disappointment.

Jost continued to make the audience uneasy with his joke about short-form videos causing mental cognition problems and his Columbia Star Wars joke, while Che was a little better with his material, but overall, this Update continues to be the biggest disappointment of the season by far. At least they went all out on the drunk raccoon viral news story by making it their next guest!

Sarah Sherman almost single-handedly redeemed this whole Update segment with her performance as the drunk raccoon. Even without the usual sick burns on Jost she usually manages to work in, though she did find a few, this was a tour de force of physical comedy and ridiculous over-the-top antics. We thought we were going to get another Bowen Yang character piece, but honestly, Sarah delivered something much stronger than he would have with her ability to get so fully into it — we still can’t get over her trying to open her liquor bottle, and then losing it.

A pre-taped holiday piece, Melissa McCarthy portrays an elderly neighbor who unexpectedly forges a connection with a young boy after he shovels her walk for her — but this is SNL, so you know it wasn’t going to stay in that heartwarming lane. It’s well worth not spoiling, so we’ll just say that the young actor they hired to portray the boy was the perfect opposite McCarthy’s well-meaning character, while Mikey Day as the boy’s father was a flawless addition — and we’re still giggling at Kenan Thompson’s surprise turn. People really can surprise you!

After a shaky monologue as herself, Melissa McCarthy turned it up to 11 with a fantastic character performance totally in her wheelhouse as a socially inept woman who reads way, way too much into a free sample offer at a local grocery store. Jeremy Culhane is fine opposite her in a fairly straight role, but props to Mikey Day for pouring another layer of odd onto her character, and Melissa for eating up this second opportunity to make everyone uncomfortable. Melissa remains one of the funniest people in entertainment and never fails to deliver.

Everyone has faced moments where they either got excited or just had a different emotional response to others around them and it created an awkward exchange followed by embarrassment. It’s human, but not when that individual is Andrew Dismukes and he got too excited about the idea of supper every Sunday with his friends because everyone was having a great time — only one one else could really commit to that. That’s it, that’s the foundation of the piece, but it’s where it went from there, with both Andrew and Melissa McCarthy committing fully to the direction, that really made this funny. Melissa took second role in this one but Andrew brought every bit of her usual character commitment to his role, making the perfect comedic pairing.

Mikey Day struggled to keep it together as Melissa McCarthy brought her physical comedy prowess to the role of a UPS worker having to own up to her behavior captured on a Ring video. Melissa was fantastic in her antics on the camera, and in the room as she sat with Mikey and Ashley Padilla reviewing it and discussing the possible consequences. It was clear she was straying a bit off-script in some unexpected ways, but her brilliance as a performer and comedians proves she knows when to milk a moment, push a little further, and she never loses her character.

Who would have thought that Colin Jost would deliver one of the most entertaining political caricatures in modern memory. His Pete Hegseth is just a classic jock high school bully but he really nails all of the awful mannerisms, picking on the reporters as much as he deflects real answers. We almost didn’t need James Austin Johnson’s Trump to join him toward the end, but we did enjoy the “fog of war” commentary, and having him fall asleep repeatedly. Honestly, this was one of the most successful press conference parodies we’ve seen — perhaps not ironically — since host Melissa McCarthy brought Sean Spicer to life during Trump 1.0. And to his credit, for a non-sketch performer, Jost really only cracked out of character noticeably one time, which is better than a lot of the rest of his castmates.

We’re surprised at how hit-or-miss the night was because when it was on, Melissa McCarthy and this cast delivered some of the best sketches of the season. As with many shows with a powerhouse lead like Melissa, though, the rest of the cast spent much of the night in very supporting roles. Ashley Padilla, Bowen Yang, Sarah Sherman, and Mikey Day showed up over and over to support Melissa, as did newcomers Jeremy Culhane and Veronika Slowikowska.

And then there were the likes of James Austin Johnson, Marcell Hernandez, Chloe Fineman, and Kenan Thompson who showed up two times or less on the night, really having an impact on the overall voice of the episode, and really how we could decide what to do here.

Basically, it came down to who had a combination of a big(ish) night and who really had a standout moment. There were some hilarious turns throughout the night, including Colin Jost’s Pete Hegseth at the top, but also Andrew Dismukes as a wannabe runaway huband and Bowen’s wacky holiday house co-owner.

Outside of Jost’s strong Cold Open, the cast member that had us laughing the hardest was Sarah Sherman and her drunk raccoon on Weekend Update. Combine that with the versatility of her work across the night, and her continued growth as a performer who does not break and immerses herself in these roles, and she had the strongest night of anyone not named Melissa McCarthy.

Saturday Night Live returns next week with host Josh O’Connor and musical guest Lily Allen.