“Saturday Night Live” was more reflective than festive in the final episode of its 50th season.
Scarlett Johansson, marking a record for her seventh time as a host, kicked off the show with a monologue involving a song with most of the current NBC sketch show cast. The song was set to the melody of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man.”
The performance looked back on an eventful year that included an election, an epic anniversary special and a star-studded concert.
“Sing us a song, it’s your monologue, the 50th season is through,” sang Johansson, joined by Bowen Yang, Ego Nwodim, Mikey Day, Heidi Gardner, and others. “It’s lasting forever, we did it together, and we got to spend it with you.”
Johansson teased, then took back, a guest appearance that would have been in keeping with the season’s excess of guest stars.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Billy Joel!” she shouted, before adding, “wrote this song.”
There have been no announcements about cast departures after the season, so no tearful goodbyes were necessary. Johansson and the cast playfully mentioned in the song that Sarah Sherman would be leaving.
“It’s been a great season and Sarah is leaving, we’re all gonna miss you next year!” they sang. A stunned Sherman replied, “Wait, what? Did you guys hear something?”
Johansson’s husband, Colin Jost, is a writer on the show and anchor of the “Weekend Update” segment.
Jost and co-anchor Michael Che returned to their annual season-finale tradition of writing and being forced to deliver wildly inappropriate jokes for each other.
Johansson is the subject of many of the Che-written jokes, so this year Jost compelled Che to bring her out and apologize for once comparing part of her body to “Costco roast beef.”
The 50th season brought much media discussion of who might run the show should 80-year-old creator Lorne Michaels ever step down.
Some have suggested Jost might replace Michaels and Che forced Jost to address the issue with one of the jokes written for him.
“It’s SNL’s 50th season, so I want to take a moment to say something to our boss,” Jost said. “Lorne, retire, bitch! let me run the show.”
Jost also appeared in a pre-recorded, behind-the-scenes bit where Johansson has torrid sex with Yang after she confesses to Nwodim and Gardner that she has a crush on him, and learns he has only been publicly pretending to be gay “for the clout.”
Johansson has her heart broken when she learns Yang also has been hooking up with Nwodim, Gardner and guest star Emily Ratajkowski.
In another behind-the-scenes digital short made by the three members of comedy group Please Don’t Destroy, Johansson treats the trio to a first-class flight that becomes a luxe hip-hop video until the men panic when they learn they are landing at the troubled airport of Newark, New Jersey.
Musical guest Bad Bunny appears as an air traffic controller, working alone on his first day.
As in nearly every episode of this season, James Austin Johnson did his impression of President Donald Trump in the cold open segment, which had him “finding love” with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Johnson’s Trump broke the fourth wall and walked into the audience at the end of the bit.
“It’s the ‘SNL’ finale, season 50 — worst one yet!” he said. “See you again in the fall if we still have a country. It’s a coin toss.”
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