Saturday Night Live's 17 best moments from season 47

Saturday Night Live’s long and snowy-white history with cast representation gets taken out for a hilariously chilly walk when host and star and cast member Bowen Yang face off in Yang’s dressing room. Their initial embarrassment at having to even address their positions as Asian performers on Saturday Night Live quickly turns personal, though, as Yang and Liu attempt to out-nonchalant each other concerning their various other “first Asian” accolades. “I just think it’s weird that people keep track of this stuff,” Yang shrugs, as he drops the fact that the state of Michigan just gave him the “Good Job (Asian)” award, and Liu brushes off his title, “Mr. Asian Panera.” As the two continually poke fun at both self-congratulatory corporate tokenism and themselves (for really wanting to win awards like “First Asian Man to Deadpan on Splash Mountain”), Yang and Liu playfully make the case that, for actors, there’s no such thing as a meaningless honor. [Dennis Perkins]

After missing the first seven episodes of Season 47 while filming the Tiger King series and allowing some other cast members a chance, Kate McKinnon returned to Studio 8H in time for the . In the standout holiday sketch, “Lonely Christmas,” McKinnon reminded us what we’d been missing. As the seemingly kindly old widow across from teenager Eilish’s apartment, McKinnon wordlessly responded with feel-good-TV-commercial gratitude to Eilish’s handwritten signs inviting her to Christmas dinner. So far, so heartwarming, at least until McKinnon’s grandmotherly neighbor reveals far too much about her variously bigoted, inappropriate, and possibly murderous life for Eilish’s comfort. (“Can you check?,” McKinnon’s innocent-looking neighbor writes in response to the aghast Eilish not knowing whether there will be any Jews at dinner.) [Dennis Perkins]

A viral moment from the , the prefilm “Meatballs” was a breakout bit for featured player Sarah Sherman. She and Chris Redd play a couple who are chilling after a third date when Sherman makes an uncomfortable admission: She’s covered with small meatball-shaped singing growths. It’s just completely left-field and bizarre, and unlike anything else the show is doing—a bit perplexing when it aired, but it proved to be a grower. [Michael Martin]

The greatest commercial parody SNL did this season, “” addresses the online behemoth’s new grab-and-go convenience stores. Just pick up what you want and walk out the door. Can you imagine a demographic that might have an issue with this setup? The spot brilliantly unpacked the variety of objections and uncomfortable situations Black customers and their allies might find themselves in. Stingingly sharp and the rare commercial sendup that makes a social statement, it’s a natural for any future best-of SNL commercial compilations. [Michael Martin]

A solid premise—during a toast at a wedding reception, a maid of honor makes some uncomfortable revelations about the new couple—is elevated by host Zoe Kravitz’s impressive comic timing and the quality of those reveals. It’s millennial dark humor gone Borscht belt. For example: “You’re like a second sister to me, and not just because we’ve both seen my dad naked.” Also: “She’s been kind of a Bridezilla, and not just because she’s attacked a lot of Japanese people.” [Michael Martin]

SNL’s game-show parodies can feel rote, but “Word Crunch” was the best one of the season. It went to weird and laugh-out-loud places as contestants Zoe Kravitz, Aidy Bryant, and Aristotle Athari try to pick words out of a scrambled grid of letters. Kravitz becomes fixated on picking out the word “momhole,” which naturally appears on every single grid, as host Andrew Dismukes simmers in frustration. It’s basically an extended sight gag, but it worked consistently. [Michael Martin]

The best of Please Don’t Destroy’s digital shorts this season, “New Lizzo Songs” was impressive from premise to editing to production. claims she’s shown up ready to host but with no new tunes, so the pallid trio have to whip up two bangers for her on the spot (or, in a nice surreal touch, Andrew Dismukes will kill her). The team’s failed pitches—premised on anxiety, haircuts, looking like a dad, and ’ opening song—are hilarious, as is the winner: their original sketch idea, “Horny Zookeeper,” which gets a snippet of an impressive, fully realized production. [Michael Martin]

Focus groups are a somewhat shopworn sketch premise, but “Blue Bunny” takes things to utterly committed bizarro places. Here, four people are tasked with tasting new ice-cream flavors and providing reactions. Two of them ( and Heidi Gardner) are dour, life-hardened Western types whose feedback is all overwrought hardscrabble rural poetry that spirals into funnier and funnier places, as they compare mint and peanut butter pie to everything from an encounter with a frontier MILF to a “widower in pain.” The two do exceptional character work and demonstrate some real chemistry (an element that’s in somewhat short supply between sketch performers these days). [Michael Martin]

The week that saw the leak of an apparent draft of a Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, SNL and Kate McKinnon rose to the cultural moment with her “Weekend Update” spot as Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett. McKinnon’s impression nailed the essence of the jurist, who came across in her Senate confirmation hearings as in training. On “Update,” Barrett advised women to “just do your nine” and “plop it”—that is, birth an unwanted child and leave it somewhere for someone to adopt, ideally a lesbian (“until we ban that too”). It’s sharply written and performed stuff. [Michael Martin]

SNL’s backstage glimpses and meta moments can seem more indulgent than funny. That’s not the case with “The Understudy,” in which featured player Chloe Fineman got a much-deserved showcase for her excellent impression work. Here, she expertly imitated nearly every SNL cast member to their faces—check out her Kate McKinnon and Cecily Strong. Ultimately, she found her way into host Benedict Cumberbatch’s dressing room in Scarlet Witch drag, where she encountered (who else) Elizabeth Olsen. (“The multiverse is real,” Cumberbatch deadpanned.) Fineman has energy and unique talent to burn; she’s one of the younger cast members in whose hands SNL’s future would be secure. [Michael Martin]