The Season 47 finale ofSaturday Night Liveaired in May and marks a turning point for the show. Longtime cast members like Kate McKinnon and Pete Davidson made their departures alongside Aidy Bryant and Kyle Mooney. However, this season finale also marked the end of what was a very successful span of episodes throughout 2021-2022.
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This season featured a plethora of first-time hosts for the show, including Owen Wilson, Oscar Isaac, and Selena Gomez. In addition, it saw the return of manySNLalumni with Jason Sudeikis and Will Forte as hosts. These sketches were the best of the best in Season 47, and are definitely worth a rewatch on YouTube in the near future.
10Monkey Trial
Former SNL writer John Mulaney joined the illustrious Five-Timers Club during his episode on May 24, 2025. Mulaney has become a legacy host at this point, hosting at least once a season since 2018. During each visit,the popular stand-up comedian has revived some rejected sketchesfrom his behind-the-scenes days at 30 Rock.
One of these sketches was “Monkey Trial,” featuring Mulaney as Judge Tango, an articulate ape presiding over a settlement case. Most of the humor comes from Mulaney’s performance here, walking the line between a no-nonsense officer of the court and a primate with animal instinct. The sketch definitely works best with Mulaney at the helm.
9Six Flags
Some of SNL’s best sketches come when they put their faith in their cast members' weirder interests. Sarah Sherman, a featured player who joined the cast in Season 47, is a good example of this. The sketches with her playing the lead often win over audiences with how over-the-top and unique her comedic voice is, as seen in the “Six Flags” sketch.
The sketch findsdouble-duty host and musical guest Lizzocoming home with her date, played by Mikey Day. There, Mikey Day’s character is shocked to discover Lizzo’s grandfather is the dancing old man from old commercials for Six Flags Great Adventure. It’s a very niche premise, but Sarah’s performance as the old man sells it to the audience.
8The Understudy
Chloe Fineman has been onSaturday Night Livefor three seasons, and ever since the show has made great use of her cavalcade of celebrity impressions. “The Understudy,” however, might be her best impression parade yet. The mockumentary sketch finds her imitating her SNL co-stars to fill in as their understudies between sketches.
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It’s hilarious to see Fineman perfectly parrot cast members like McKinnon or Cecily Strong. She also gets to invade host Benedict Cumberbatch’s dressing room imitating hisDoctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madnessco-star, Elizabeth Olsen. When the real Elizabeth Olsen shows up, however, it becomes a mind game for a confused Cumberbatch.
7Aaron Rodgers Trump Cold Open
On the topic of impressions, featured player James Austin Johnson joined the SNL cast this season and cemented himself as a necessary tool for the show. He was even given the responsibility of opening up the season with his impression of U.S. President Joe Biden. However, his real shining moment came with his portrayal of Biden’s predecessor.
In several cold opens of the season, Johnson appeared as Donald Trump.He quickly outshines Alec Baldwin’s four-year portrayalof the 45th president, focusing more on Trump’s ability to free-associate and ramble about nonsensical topics. His first appearance as Trump in this cold open perfectly captures the magic of the audience’s reaction.
6MacGruber: Coronavirus
Will Forte made a highly-anticipated return to SNL to host. He was there to promote his Peacock series,MacGruber,based on the recurring SNL sketch of the same name. It made sense that he would be joined by his co-stars Kristen Wiig and Ryan Phillippe to reprise the sketch, with a timely look at how MacGruber is dealing with COVID-19.
This time around, MacGruber’s attempts to defuse a bomb go haywire with his refusal to accept the reality of the coronavirus. By the third entry in the trilogy, he’s donning the outfit of the infamous Viking man from the January 6th insurrection. It’s definitely familiar territory for the character, but it’s a joy to see Forte return to his roots in these brief sketches.
5Mellen
Jason Sudeikis also made a return to SNL this season to promote his Apple TV+ series, Ted Lasso. Like that show, this episode was equal parts hilarious as it was heartwarming to see Sudeikis reprise roles like the dancing guy in “What’s Up With That?” Possibly his most surprising success was “Mellen,” a parody of Ellen made by men, for men.
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Whereas regular Ellen is your typical daytime show affair, “Mellen” is meant to be more hardcore and male-oriented. This includes groin hits to audience members, awkward male dancing, and surprise vaccinations for athlete Kyrie Irving. It’s a sketch that lets Sudeikis do what he does best: be both charming while also slightly unhinged.
4Word Crunch
The Batmanstar Zoë Kravitzmade her SNL hosting debut in March 2022. Thankfully, the writing staff let Kravitz’s comedic chops shine in many of the sketches that aired live. One of which was “Word Crunch,” a game show hosted by Andrew Dismukes where contestants must solve a word search, only the rules seem hard for Kravitz to follow.
While fellow contestants played by Aristotle Athari and Aidy Bryant easily find words like “happy” and “cat,” Kravitz is only able to find the word “momhole.” This leads to some delightful frustration from Dismukes as Kravitz insists the word should be accepted. As the sketch continues Kravitz’s word discoveries only get more and more profane.
3Mattress Store
Rami Malek is a unique kind of SNL host, one who fully embraces the weirdest sketch concepts. In “Mattress Store,” for example, Malek and Aidy Bryant play a married couple searching for the right mattress. However, the mattress store employee, played by Bowen Yang, is put off by their weird ways of testing out if their new bed will suffice.
To test the mattress by jumping on it, Malek and Bryant’s characters act out an overdramatic play that involves infidelity and other marital troubles. As it goes on, it only gets more absurd, finding Malek stopping a home intruder with a gun he keeps under the pillow. Bowen Yang assists by playing a bewildered straight-man to this chaos.
2TikTok
The Billie Eilish-hosted episode featured the first of two sketches that parody TikTok accounts during Season 47. The sketch is in the format of an iPhone screen, scrolling past out-of-context TikToks. Not only are there absurd and over-the-top scenarios that play out, but it also makes great usage of almost the entire SNL cast.
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Highlights include Eilish and Sarah Sherman as twerking nurses ignoring their patients, James Austin Johnson dressed as Homer Simpson doing ASMR, and Chloe Fineman uncovering a conspiracy behind Blake Lively’s Met Gala dress. It also features a cameo from Billie Eilish’s brother, Finneas, promoting the “classic” hit “Old Town Road.”
This season also saw the SNL debut of Please Don’t Destroy (Ben Marshall, Martin Herlihy, and John Higgins), a comedy troupe hired as writers after going viral on TikTok and Twitter. This group has gained attention with their sketches on the show, which are often fast-paced and self-deprecating. However, they’ve also attracted some A-list co-stars.
This sketch finds the troupe teaming up for a song with Pete Davidson. Throughout, Davidson humiliates them by calling them “three sad virgins.” It only gets worse for themwhen the episode’s musical guest, Taylor Swift, joins Pete for a catchy bridge about the group’s shortcomings, such as John’s big head and Ben’s lack of sex appeal.
