The Big Picture

  • Kate McKinnon's return to Saturday Night Live after leaving in 2022 shines a light on her comedic talent.
  • The cold open of the episode, centered around a holiday award show, dragged on for too long and failed to stand out.
  • McKinnon's emotional opening monologue, in which she celebrates her time on the show and is joined by fellow cast members, highlights her status as one of the best actors to come from SNL.

Kate McKinnon returned to Saturday Night Live after leaving the series in 2022. Joined by musical guest Billie Eilish, McKinnon brought her comedic prowess back to Studio 8H and shined in sketches as we all knew she would. A mix of an episode with most of the sketches having to do with the upcoming Christmas holiday, it was a lot of highlighting what we loved about having McKinnon in the cast and just really made us miss her altogether.

While it was a pretty solid episode overall, the cold open kicked off the episode with lukewarm energy, making fun of the "Christmas awards" and setting the theme for the rest of the night. Paired with a lovely and emotional monologue from McKinnon as she took on a new position at Saturday Night Live as host, it was a pretty great night overall! This is to be expected when a Saturday Night Live legend like McKinnon comes back.

A Classic Christmas Cold Open

Sometimes, you can only take a bit so far and when the cold open for this week established that there would be three performances, it meant that we had to see all three of those performances. Unfortunately, the sketch just kept going on and on for far too long to make it that funny. The idea was that it was a holiday award show where Bowen Yang and Heidi Gardner were announcing a series of awards like worst gift (which included grandma giving clothes) or the family member who had to help grandpa in the bathroom.

Overall, the joke got boring very quickly, which was at least better than the previous cold open, and whatever was funny about it just didn't stay funny for long. The performances, like Mikey Day being a dad so excited to get a very large shirt that says "I'd rather be golfing" despite never going golfing, were funny enough, but ultimately it was an underwhelming cold open that didn't have anything to make it stand out in SNL's long history.

Kate McKinnon Gets Emotional During Her Opening Monologue

McKinnon has been in plenty of monologues, a point she made in her very first. She points out that she is often the "weird" person next to the hot one, reinforced by showing her next to Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Josh Hutcherson, and more. But what made this monologue work was that she gets emotional and is brought to tears almost as soon as she hears the applause for her when she walks on stage. Having joined the cast in 2012, McKinnon was part of the show for 10 years before she left. She celebrated her time as a cast member and even had some fellow cast members come out to help her talk about what it is like returning to the show after time away.

After McKinnon sang a song about the holidays (because Lorne Michaels told her to, according to McKinnon), Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph came out to join McKinnon for the rest of the show. With plenty of hilarious holiday sketches reminding us how talented McKinnon is, it's clear why she was one of the best actors to come from SNL.

The full episode of Saturday Night Live is available to stream on Peacock in the U.S.

Watch More Clips From Kate McKinnon Hosting SNL Last Night

SNL Poster
SNL
TV-14Comedy

A famous guest host stars in parodies and sketches created by the cast of this witty show.

Release Date
October 11, 1975
Creator
Lorne Michaels
Cast
Bowen Yang , Chloe Fineman , Colin Jost , Ego Nwodim , Sarah Sherman , Kenan Thompson
Seasons
49
Network
NBC
Streaming Service(s)
Peacock

Watch on Peacock