{"id":461882,"date":"2025-12-21T08:57:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T08:57:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/461882\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T08:57:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T08:57:18","slug":"snl-recap-bowen-yang-says-goodbye-with-help-from-ariana-grande","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/461882\/","title":{"rendered":"‘SNL’ recap: Bowen Yang says goodbye with help from Ariana Grande"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Just a little over a year after an all-time performance as \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d host<\/a> (one of the best<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

But she also showed a lot of grace by ceding the spotlight to her \u201cWicked\u201d co-star Bowen Yang, who confirmed before this week\u2019s episode<\/a> that he is exiting \u201cSNL\u201d midway through his eighth season. At several turns of this week\u2019s show, particularly in a closing sketch about a retiring Delta Sky Club employee<\/a> that served as Yang\u2019s emotional goodbye, it was clear that Grande understood the assignment: this was Yang\u2019s night, not hers.<\/p>\n

Which isn\u2019t to say Grande wasn\u2019t great. She started strong with an \u201cAll I Want For Christmas\u201d takeoff in her monologue, played an Elf on the Shelf who\u2019s been cut in half in a support group sketch<\/a>, exchanged a costume soul patch with Marcello Hern\u00e1ndez as one of two dramatic dance instructors<\/a>, and perhaps most memorably in this outing, played Macaulay Culkin\u2018s character Kevin in an extremely bloody parody of \u201cHome Alone.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

She dated The Grinch (Mikey Day) in a \u201cLove Is Blind\u201d reunion sketch<\/a>, played a judge in a courtroom scene featuring Black Santa Claus<\/a> (Kenan Thompson) before portraying Katy Perry and Celine Dion in a promo for a Peacock special<\/a> that mashes up different singers like the viral David Bowie\/Bing Crosby \u201cLittle Drummer Boy\u201d video.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cHome Alone\u201d sketch to playing Yoko Ono in the Peacock special skit to reprising his Trend Forecaster character on \u201cWeekend Update\u201d with former cast member Aidy Bryant.<\/p>\n

If Grande wasn\u2019t as locked in as last time (she broke character laughing a few times), it didn\u2019t 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 \u201cWicked\u201d movie than to help a friend say goodbye.<\/p>\n

Musical guest Cher appeared in Yang\u2019s Delta Sky sketch as his boss and performed \u201cDJ Play a Christmas Song<\/a>\u201d and \u201cRun Run Rudolph<\/a>,\u201d the latter introduced by Grande as her Castrati character, Antonio<\/a>. A title card before the goodbyes honored Rob Reiner, who was killed with his wife Michele Singer Reiner in their home last week<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

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 (\u201cRemember when I did this with flag? I\u2019m hugging tree now.\u201d) and reading his stage directions out loud, an interesting new wrinkle to Johnson\u2019s masterful impression. Trump reminded the country that \u201cArctic immigrants are coming in through our chimneys and stealing our milk and cookies\u201d and discussed the recently voted on name change to the Kennedy Center<\/a>, now \u201cThe Trump-Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts No Homo,\u201d saying it is just the beginning. His name will be on the Trump Washington Monument, the Trump Lincoln Memorial and \u201cBig Elphaba,\u201d his name for the Statue of Liberty. Why so many names on things? \u201cWe had to take it off so many files,\u201d he said, a reference to the much-redacted, newly released Epstein Files.<\/a> Johnson\u2019s impression is getting slurrier and even more meta, but continues to deliver on random pop culture references, which this week included the Indigo Girls, \u201cThe Hunger Games\u201d and the videogame \u201cMetal Gear Solid.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Grande\u2019s monologue briefly touched on the idea of bringing back old sketches such as \u201cDomingo\u201d from her last appearance before declaring cheekily, \u201cWhen something is perfect, it doesn\u2019t need a sequel.\u201d She talked about how hard it is to find gifts for people she doesn\u2019t know well, like her cousin\u2019s boyfriend, Steve, which led to a whole music number to the tune of \u201cAll I Want for Christmas,\u201d including Yang and other cast members giving suggestions on gifts like back massage coupons or a box of raw oysters. The lyrics weren\u2019t all easy to understand unless you had captions enabled, but Grande sang the heck out of the Mariah Carey song.<\/p>\n

Best sketch of the night: Take a bow, Bowen \"\" <\/p>\n

Was it the funniest sketch of the night? No, that would probably be the Elf on the Shelf support group or the \u201cLove is Blind\u201d reunion. But Yang\u2019s 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 \u201cSNL\u201d would be hard pressed not to get choked up by Yang talking about his time on the show to his wife (Grande), who replied, \u201cAll the egg nog you\u2019ve made over the years. Some of it was great. Some of it was rotten.\u201d \u201cAnd a lot of it got cut,\u201d he replied. Bowen broke down a few times while expressing his love for the people who work on \u201cSNL\u201d and sang through tears a version of \u201cPlease Come Home for Christmas\u201d with Grande. \u201cEgg nog is kind of like me \u2014 it\u2019s not for everyone, but the people who like it are my kind of people,\u201d he said to riotous applause. When he said he wanted to go out on top, she responded, \u201cOh, everyone knows you\u2019re a bottom.\u201d The capper to the sketch: Cher appearing as his Delta boss to tell him, \u201cEveryone thought you were a little too gay. But, you know what? You\u2019re perfect for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also good: The holiday duets you didn\u2019t know you needed \"\" <\/p>\n

When you\u2019ve got Grande on board, it\u2019s 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\u2019s \u201cLittle Drummer Boy<\/a>\u201d 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\u2019s 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: Hern\u00e1ndez 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.<\/p>\n

\u2018Weekend Update\u2019 winner: Mistletoe, you are on watch! \"\" <\/p>\n

Kam Patterson did well as Michael Che\u2019s 12-year-old nephew Tyson<\/a>, 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\u2019s holiday joke swap<\/a> was weirdly one-sided with only Michael Che writing heretofore-unseen jokes for \u201cUpdate\u201d 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 \u201c1, 2, 3, 4!\u201d and in Chinese Trends, orange chicken. The duo repeated their catchphrase, \u201cGo to bed, b\u2014!\u201d 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just a little over a year after an all-time performance as \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d host (one of the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":461883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[179,69818,1582,276,74514,44679,210677,52081,48218,2961,224,5337,7088,69821,5204,3546,1933,210678,2452,33758],"class_list":{"0":"post-461882","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ariana-grande","9":"tag-bowen-yang","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-cast-member","13":"tag-christmas","14":"tag-closing-sketch","15":"tag-goodbye","16":"tag-johnson","17":"tag-la","18":"tag-los-angeles","19":"tag-losangeles","20":"tag-lot","21":"tag-michael-che","22":"tag-name","23":"tag-people","24":"tag-snl","25":"tag-viral-david-bowie","26":"tag-week","27":"tag-yang"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115756731793434141","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}