With a little help from many celebrity friends, the brilliant Martin Short finally joined the Five-Timers Club and appeared in most of the episode’s well-written sketches, and Hozier took us to indie rock church for the holidays. Here’s everything that happened on the final Saturday Night Live of 2024.
The Cold Open
Tom Hanks appeared wearing his Five-Timers Club jacket and explained how he inadvertently invented this comical hosting milestone some 35 years ago. Paul Rudd soon joined Hanks, and the pair welcomed host Martin Short, who was joining the club as well. Tina Fey showed up too, and she and Short exchanged some barbs. Alec Baldwin wore a 17-Timers jacket, and we soon encountered Scarlett Johansson and Kristen Wiig, who were funny, and the cameo parade also included Melissa McCarthy and Emma Stone. The audience lost their minds for John Mulaney, and cheered as Jimmy Fallon showed up with Short’s club jacket before this star-studded stunt of a funny open closed.
The Monologue
Beloved and hilarious host Martin Short hit the stage, firing good-natured insults and jokes and further celebrating his entry into the Five-Timers Club. Sarah Sherman appeared to let Short know that she and other cast members were feeling holiday malaise that only he could alleviate, which he obliged to do via a musical tour throughout Studio 8H. It was all very big, bold and charmingly funny.
Road Rage Charades II
Reprising the brilliant bit of physical comedy that Mikey Day and Chloe Fineman engaged in with Quinta Brunson, Day and Fineman and Short communicated road rage by playing a bonkers game of charades (with yelling and highly sexual innuendos) in their respective cars, which was further heightened by Melissa McCarthy going over the top. A great sketch premise that worked well the second time, too.
An Act of Kindness
In this remote, Kenan Thompson played an unhoused person named Ricardo who was helped off the street by an affluent character played by Heidi Gardner, but the whole good natured aspect of this narrative was upended by Ricardo taking advantage of her kindness, which was all a bit intense until the comedic twist at the end.
The Christmas Week Airport Parade
Bowen Yang and Ego Nwodim played TSA agents hosting a show highlighting bizarre air travellers. Short played an aggressively snobbish Delta Lounge supervisor. Wiig and Rudd made cameos, the latter as himself suffering the wrath of Short. Other cast members played some of the terrible people we all encounter at airports and on airplanes, and McCarthy, again, stole a sketch just by showing up. Hanks reprised his Captain Sully for a bit of pilot humour, and this was a fun parade.
Hozier
Ten years since his breakthrough single “Take Me to Church,” Hozier retuned to SNL with “Too Sweet,” an infectious confection that sounded a little bit more like Spoon than casual listeners may have expected.
Emotionally, Hozier stepped up to play one of the greatest songs of all time with his band, tackling “Fairytale of New York,” the seasonal classic by the Pogues. A lovely and inspired choice here.
Weekend Update
Colin Jost got Update started with a brief overview of how weird the news cycle has been, while Che burned Matt Gaetz, but then biffed an Eric Trump punchline. He redeemed himself with a great reading of a Herschel Walker joke.
Jost earned groans for a Bluey bit ahead of Che introducing a New Jersey drone that was played by Bowen Yang, with a sassy attitude.
Jost ridiculed Spirit Airlines while Che made a suicide joke before Jost reminded us of an Update annual tradition, where the anchors each read jokes the other wrote for the first time ever. Jost was instructed to read his AAVE material in a “Black voice,” which he struggled with. Che was mostly given distasteful sex jokes that suggested he was good friends with Diddy. Even ScarJo was employed to observe the awkwardness, with many of Che’s jokes targeting his co-anchor’s marriage. Always a spectacle, this bit of roasting was reliably discomforting though hard to decipher at times, as the tellers giggled throughout their readings.
Sabado Gigante
Another instalment of Marcello Hernández’s Spanish game show, whose involuntary contestants don’t understand what’s happening. Rudd played Greg, who was given some manner of assistance by a strange character played by Dana Carvey. Just pure silliness propelled by Hernández’s chillingly cheery exuberance.
A Charlie Brown Christmas
The entire cast played the Peanuts gang except for Bowen Yang, who joined Short as the campy and bossy Lestat and Drake Tuttle, respectively, who were brought in to run the children’s Christmas play. A fun excuse for group work, this had a few amusing moments.
