recap

Fresh off the finale of Netflix’s seemingly endless run of “Stranger Things,” one of its stars, Finn Wolfhard, did one of the rites of passage that child actors sometimes do on the road to adult roles: host “Saturday Night Live.”

If the appearance wasn’t exactly a blow-out comedic performance — Wolfhard seemed game throughout but awkward and too understated in some sketches — it was notable at least for starting what is likely to be a barrage of post-”Stranger Things” appearances and roles for its entire cast, something alluded to in a pre-taped sketch about all the potential spinoffs, sequels and side quests Netflix may have in store.

For his “SNL” debut (his appearance as a page in the “Saturday Night” feature film doesn’t count), Wolfhard got to podcast with the preteen “Snack Homiez” crew (including Sabrina Carpenter, who returned for the sketch), played an indie rock son rebelling against his pop star dad (James Austin Johnson), a well-fed space emperor in a wacky sci-fi sketch, and the boyfriend of a too-enthusiastic guys’ girl (Veronika Slowikowska) who fails to impress his friends.

But his appearance will probably best be remembered for a spot-on “Heated Rivalry” parody set in the “Harry Potter” world (more on that perfect storm of comedy in a bit).

Musical guest A$AP Rocky performed “Punk Rocky” with Danny Elfman on drums and “Don’t Be Dumb/Trip Baby.” Before the closing goodbyes, a title card honored Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir, who died this week.

In 2026, James Austin Johnson’s impression of President Trump is still a rambling marvel, but for the first cold open of the year, the material felt like too much of a recap or retread of previous greatest hits. Marcello Hernández played a mostly-silent Marco Rubio who Trump berates for speaking Spanish. Tina Fey returned as Kristi Noem with some great zingers (“Do I have the situation under control? Noem, I do not.”), but it was almost a beat-for-beat repeat of the bit she did to better effect when Amy Poehler hosted. Colin Jost again played Pete Hegseth as an overly pumped bully. The only new element, apart from Trump looking out windows, was Jeremy Culhane‘s debut as vice president J.D. Vance. “I’m here to kick bubble gum and chew ass and I’m all out of bubble gum,” Vance said. The cold open concluded with Trump promising, “The midterms are canceled.” Which only serves to remind us that there’s likely to be a lot of Trump cold opens between now and November.

For his monologue, Wolfhard was joined by his “Stranger Things” co-stars Gaten Matarazzo and Caleb McLaughlin after showing a few jokey clips illustrating how much he grew up on the show, including going through puberty. Wolfhard tried to prove that he’s a full-grown 23-year-old man now, but he’s still got no real facial hair and doesn’t like alcohol (he spits some into Hernández’s face after congratulating him on his new stand-up comedy special). Wolfhard and his co-stars reaffirmed their friendship before he declared they are “child stars who are now ready to do adult films!”

Best sketch of the night: ‘Heated Wizardry’ is the sexy reboot we didn’t know we needed

Sometimes the best “SNL” sketch isn’t just the funniest, but the one that is perfectly timed, with exactly the right host for just the moment in the zeitgeist for it to hit the hardest. Such is the case with this “Harry Potter” parody timed to everyone’s current obsession with HBO Max’s “Heated Rivalry.” Here, Harry (Wolfhard) and Ron Weasley (Ben Marshall) become romantically entangled Quidditch teammates, but the teaser for the fake series promises that everyone is older than 18 and Hogwarts is now some sort of college. There’s pixelated nudity, grudging approval from Professor Snape (Johnson) and Jason Momoa as Hagrid, who says that like Neville, “You are one long bottom!” Oh, the terrible puns.

Also good: Do you not find these snacks pleasing, emperor?

There are those who will tell you that “Snack Homiez” is the funniest thing “SNL” has done in a long time; I am not one of those people. Instead, I found this goofy sketch about an enthusiastic “Snack Man” to an evil space emperor on a show called “Dark Orbit” to be much sillier and funnier, driven by Mikey Day’s always welcome attempts to push his fellow cast members or hosts into breaking character and laughing. This time, force feeding Wolfhard led to several cast members losing their cool.

‘Weekend Update’ winner: Tamara owes you no explanation for the button collecting

Kam Patterson portrayed NFL legend Michael Irvin in a scattered segment about his devotion to the University of Miami, but it was Jane Wickline (who’s proven divisive among “SNL” fans) emerging as the week’s “Update” winner playing the mysterious woman, Tamara, behind the 365 buttons TikTok meme. As with the comments that inspired the meme, Wickline played Tamara as someone who refused to reveal why they’re collecting a button a day, sparring defensively with “Update” co-host Michael Che. At the end of the segment, she revealed she has a solution to the crisis in Venezuela, but won’t reveal that solution. “I just have to go there and understand how to want to know,” Tamara said.

Just a little over a year after an all-time performance as “Saturday Night Live” host (one of the best of that season, truth be told), Ariana Grande returned again to show off some of her talents: mimicry and comic timing, dance moves, and, of course, a spectacular singing voice.

But she also showed a lot of grace by ceding the spotlight to her “Wicked” co-star Bowen Yang, who confirmed before this week’s episode that he is exiting “SNL” midway through his eighth season. At several turns of this week’s show, particularly in a closing sketch about a retiring Delta Sky Club employee that served as Yang’s emotional goodbye, it was clear that Grande understood the assignment: this was Yang’s night, not hers.

Which isn’t to say Grande wasn’t great. She started strong with an “All I Want For Christmas” takeoff in her monologue, played an Elf on the Shelf who’s been cut in half in a support group sketch, exchanged a costume soul patch with Marcello Hernández as one of two dramatic dance instructors, and perhaps most memorably in this outing, played Macaulay Culkin‘s character Kevin in an extremely bloody parody of “Home Alone.”

She dated The Grinch (Mikey Day) in a “Love Is Blind” reunion sketch, played a judge in a courtroom scene featuring Black Santa Claus (Kenan Thompson) before portraying Katy Perry and Celine Dion in a promo for a Peacock special that mashes up different singers like the viral David Bowie/Bing Crosby “Little Drummer Boy” video.

But in his last show as a cast member, Yang got to appear in nearly every sketch as well, from a brief appearance in the “Home Alone” sketch to playing Yoko Ono in the Peacock special skit to reprising his Trend Forecaster character on “Weekend Update” with former cast member Aidy Bryant.

If Grande wasn’t as locked in as last time (she broke character laughing a few times), it didn’t matter much because she was as funny, energetic and eerily accurate in all her impressions. It felt very much like Grande was there less to promote the new “Wicked” movie than to help a friend say goodbye.

Musical guest Cher appeared in Yang’s Delta Sky sketch as his boss and performed “DJ Play a Christmas Song” and “Run Run Rudolph,” the latter introduced by Grande as her Castrati character, Antonio. A title card before the goodbyes honored Rob Reiner, who was killed with his wife Michele Singer Reiner in their home last week.

Not surprisingly, President Trump (James Austin Johnson) had a lot to say in a holiday address to the nation while also hugging a Christmas tree (“Remember when I did this with flag? I’m hugging tree now.”) and reading his stage directions out loud, an interesting new wrinkle to Johnson’s masterful impression. Trump reminded the country that “Arctic immigrants are coming in through our chimneys and stealing our milk and cookies” and discussed the recently voted on name change to the Kennedy Center, now “The Trump-Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts No Homo,” saying it is just the beginning. His name will be on the Trump Washington Monument, the Trump Lincoln Memorial and “Big Elphaba,” his name for the Statue of Liberty. Why so many names on things? “We had to take it off so many files,” he said, a reference to the much-redacted, newly released Epstein Files. Johnson’s impression is getting slurrier and even more meta, but continues to deliver on random pop culture references, which this week included the Indigo Girls, “The Hunger Games” and the videogame “Metal Gear Solid.”

Grande’s monologue briefly touched on the idea of bringing back old sketches such as “Domingo” from her last appearance before declaring cheekily, “When something is perfect, it doesn’t need a sequel.” She talked about how hard it is to find gifts for people she doesn’t know well, like her cousin’s boyfriend, Steve, which led to a whole music number to the tune of “All I Want for Christmas,” including Yang and other cast members giving suggestions on gifts like back massage coupons or a box of raw oysters. The lyrics weren’t all easy to understand unless you had captions enabled, but Grande sang the heck out of the Mariah Carey song.

Best sketch of the night: Take a bow, Bowen

Was it the funniest sketch of the night? No, that would probably be the Elf on the Shelf support group or the “Love is Blind” reunion. But Yang’s last sketch, about an elderly Delta Sky Club worker passing out eggnog and working his last shift, was heartfelt and sweet. Even a casual fan of Yang and “SNL” would be hard pressed not to get choked up by Yang talking about his time on the show to his wife (Grande), who replied, “All the egg nog you’ve made over the years. Some of it was great. Some of it was rotten.” “And a lot of it got cut,” he replied. Bowen broke down a few times while expressing his love for the people who work on “SNL” and sang through tears a version of “Please Come Home for Christmas” with Grande. “Egg nog is kind of like me — it’s not for everyone, but the people who like it are my kind of people,” he said to riotous applause. When he said he wanted to go out on top, she responded, “Oh, everyone knows you’re a bottom.” The capper to the sketch: Cher appearing as his Delta boss to tell him, “Everyone thought you were a little too gay. But, you know what? You’re perfect for me.”

Also good: The holiday duets you didn’t know you needed

When you’ve got Grande on board, it’s hard to resist falling back on lots of celebrity impressions, especially if they involve singing. For this piece, random performers are paired up for duets to try to replicate the magic of David Bowie and Bing Crosby’s “Little Drummer Boy” to varying degrees of success. Grande and Johnson were paired up twice: as Katy Perry and Bob Dylan and then again to close the sketch as Andrea Bocelli and Celine Dion. It’s impossible to overstate how good Grande is at mimicking other singing voices, but the surprise here is how well Johnson keeps with her as Bocelli. Other standouts: Hernández as Bad Bunny, a backflipping Benson Boone (it was likely a stunt person and not a cast member, we never see his face) and Veronika Slowikowska as Bjork.

‘Weekend Update’ winner: Mistletoe, you are on watch!

Kam Patterson did well as Michael Che’s 12-year-old nephew Tyson, who goes back and forth between being a sweet kid and threatening Santa Claus for not bringing him a bike for Christmas last year. And this year’s holiday joke swap was weirdly one-sided with only Michael Che writing heretofore-unseen jokes for “Update” co-host Colin Jost to read. But Bryant returning to reunite with Yang for their arch Trend Forecasters bit won the week. They targeted mistletoe, musical intros that go “1, 2, 3, 4!” and in Chinese Trends, orange chicken. The duo repeated their catchphrase, “Go to bed, b—!” to each of these outgoing trends before declaring that waving pride flags, Marge Simpson hair and Michael Che are out. Of course, a stunned Michael Che was shown with a big blue wig and little pride flags in his hands.