Saturday Night Live, which just closed out its 51st season, has been on the upswing for the past few months. Following their disappointing 50th anniversary, a combination of major changes and small course corrections have resulted in a noticeably better show. The departure of Bowen Yang earlier in the season, along with the reduced presence of Chloe Fineman, both of whom had become the faces of the series during one of its most frustrating periods, has been a huge boon, as has the increased presence of the younger cast, at least one of whom is poised to become its next star.
The sketches, as always, were hit and miss, but unlike other recent seasons, it wasn’t difficult finding the standouts. Here are the 10 best sketches of season 51 of Saturday Night Live:
Auctioneers
While there’s no ranking for the rest of this list, this is, far and away, the best of the bunch, and arguably the best sketch SNL has done in years. It’s also an (all-too rare these days) cross-over hit, having gone viral almost immediately. The premise is delightfully silly (a scene from the crumbling marriage of two auctioneers), but it’s the actors’ commitment to the bit that really astounds. As the motormouthed cowboy couple, Sarah Sherman and host Matt Damon deliver some of the trickiest dialog the show has ever done with screwball aplomb. And while they no doubt made use of the cue cards, they weren’t beholden to them as so many SNL performers are. You can tell they rehearsed this until they killed it, and kill it they did.
Substitute Teacher’s Goodbye
If it weren’t for Auctioneers, people would likely be talking more about this sketch from Damon’s turn hosting, in which he plays a painfully earnest substitute teacher who tries, and spectacularly fails, to get his students to join in on an impromptu dance party. For almost two and a half minutes, Damon’s dweeby sub cuts a one-man rug while the rest of the class sit still in embarrassed silence (although Fineman almost ruins the whole thing by breaking). SNL does its share of awkward premises, but this is a rare case of them going all in on cringe comedy. Damon’s physical performance is even more impressive in hindsight, when you realize he had to follow this with Auctioneers just a few minutes later.
Tidy Care Crystals
Damon takes one more spot, this time for his performance of a suburban dad driven to the edge of sanity in this meta-TV ad for cat litter. All seems well when he and his wife (Ashley Padilla) first try out Tidy Care kitty litter, which comes with colorized crystals that alert pet owners to potential health hazards. But when the ad’s omniscient narrator (James Austin Johnson) acts cagey about the meaning behind blue crystals, things take a foreboding turn. Eventually, the narrator reveals that the crystals turn blue “at the first sign of human urine”. This leads to Damon’s character’s psychological breakdown, as he first accuses his teenage son, then his wife, of peeing in the litter box.
Will Ferrell monologue
This weekend’s season finale kicked off by pranking everyone in the audience and at home. Following his appearance in the cold open, former cast member and six-time host Will Ferrell was replaced on stage by his celebrity doppelganger, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith. Smith is hilarious in his short screen time, soaking up the audience adulation until the real Ferrell emerges from backstage (where Smith pushed him down, requiring Lorne Michaels to give him mouth-to-mouth) to kick him out. No sooner does he take back the reigns than the night’s musical guest, Paul McCartney, comes on stage and, mistaking Ferrell for Smith, orders him to “get back behind the drums where you belong”.
Rasta Driver
Andrew Dismukes has been one of the most consistent and underrated cast members of Saturday Night Live since he joined in 2020 (having been a writer for the show since 2017). In this sketch, he plays a working-class Uber driver who suddenly busts out an improvised Jamaican dance hall song while giving a ride to two young clubgoers, revealing, much to his horror, that he’s “one of the most talented Rasta emcees on earth”. Like Auctioneers, this is an impressive feat of verbal virtuosity, with Dismukes nailing the prolonged, tongue-twisting rap without so much as blinking.
The Goo Goo Man
Sometime all it takes for a sketch to work is one great line. Such is the case with this episode closer from Ryan Gosling’s March episode. Gosling and Sherman’s travelling couple attempting to check out of their hotel, only to be hit with a surprise incidental charge for “$1,200 for two visits from the Goo Goo Man”. Both are completely taken aback by this, but for different reasons. She thinks it’s a mistake, until her partner adamantly declares: “I only had one visit from the Goo Goo Man.” Gosling is known for constantly breaking in his sketches, but here he impressively manages to keep a straight face while haggling over absurd amenities like “tummy time” and “cuddle car”.
Mom Confession
It’s taken for granted that Saturday Night Live is and always has leaned left, but the truth is that for as often as it sends up rightwing political figures, it’s far more willing to make fun of smug, often hypocritical liberal voters. That’s all well and good, but it’s refreshing to see them not only take aim at middle class Trump voters for a change, but actually hit the bullseye. In Mom Confession, Ashely Padilla plays a suburban mother who gathers her four grown children together for a shocking announcement. After much strain, she finally admits, “I may have changed my mind … about Trump … I feel now … like he might be…bad for our country.” A perfect encapsulation of much of America’s too-little, too-late buyer’s remorse amidst this current era of carnage and chaos, as well as one of the standout performances from Padilla (more on that below).
Toy Commercial
An update on the classic Philadelphia toy commercial parody from way back in 1994, today’s generation of kids are obsessed with their new favorite movie: best picture Oscar winner One Battle After Another. Host Teyana Taylor reprises her role as revolutionary Perfidia Beverly Hills, kicking down the door of a white family’s home to hand out action figures of “all your favorite heroes and villains from director Paul Thomas Anderson’s critically lauded masterpiece about resistance in the face of racial tyranny”. The best bits involve the little Caucasian kids reciting their favorite lines (“My name is Junglepussy. See this face? This is what black power looks like”) to their nonplussed parents.
Haircut
Despite being only a featured player in her second year on the show, Ashley Padilla has become the new face of Saturday Night Live. Combining a natural talent for physical slapstick with bizarre but always entertaining line delivery (reminiscent of Will Ferrell back in his SNL days), she is the reason to watch. It’s entirely possible that she eventually falls into mugginess (see: Kate McKinnon), but as of now, she has managed to mostly avoid that pitfall. If this were a different era, Lorne would be building a feature vehicle around her, but alas. This stupidly simple sketch about a woman who gets a truly awful haircut and gamely pretends to like it cemented her as the cast standout. Her sad little dance of hesitation as she enters frame is as endearing as it is pathetic, and for as good as the prosthetic wig she wears is, her facial expressions are the best special effects on display.
Pete Hegseth Cold Open
The very first cold open of the season saw the introduction of Colin Jost’s Pete Hegseth, a character that would be almost as prevalent throughout the next 20 episodes as the president. Last season, James Austin Johnson’s Trump made a meta-joke about SNL not having anyone with a strong enough jawline to play his new Secretary of War (nee, Defense). Enter Weekend Update anchor and head writer Jost, who’s always best when leaning into his innate unlikability and frat boy skeeviness. In his first go-round as the character, where he mocked Hegseth’s infamous humiliation of military brass at Quantico, he nails the angry middle-schooler aura that has come to define Hegseth, alongside his alleged alcoholism and utter ineptness. Over the course of the season, both Jost and SNL have somewhat lost the plot, turning him into just another silly clown (a mistake, given that Hegseth is currently racking up one war crime after another), but here they managed to get it right.