We Ranked All the Saturday Night Live Season 45 Episodes So Far

After seven episodes and some truly spectacular work from people like Harry Styles, Will Ferrell, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and Chance the Rapper, we're ranking the season so far.

By Lauren Piester Nov 26, 2019 12:39 AMTags
Harry Styles, Saturday Night Live 2019Will Heath/NBC

Believe it or not, we're already deep into season 45 of Saturday Night Live. 

Seven episodes in, we've had some truly revelatory moments of comedy and we've had some embarrassing clunkers, and we've had some sketches that ended and we just kinda went "OK!" And we've even had one sketch that forced a poor unsuspecting bread company to temporarily turn off their comments

That's pretty much to be expected from any season of SNL and now that we've had enough episodes to judge, it's time to figure out which host so far has brought it the hardest, or which host got the writers and cast to bring it the hardest. 

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We bet you can probably guess which episode will land in our number one spot, but there are still six other episodes to rank behind it. 

Scroll on down to see where the rest of the season landed so far, and come back throughout the season to find out where new episodes land. 

The show is off next week, but then returns with Jennifer Lopez and DaBaby on December 7, Scarlett Johansson and Niall Horan on December 14, and Eddie Murphy and Lizzo on December 21. 

8. Woody Harrelson and Billie Eilish

Billie Eilish gave us two inventive and fun musical performances, but Woody's hosting was just fine. Not super memorable, not bad, just fine. 

Highs: Kate and Aidy's Apple Picking business and the DNC Town Hall, officially kicking off the Democratic primaries SNL-style. Plus there was Aidy fully losing it after an accidental cameo from her dresser. 

Lows: Heidi Gardner is a delight, but the sketch built around her coach's girlfriend character was less so. 

7. Jennifer Lopez and Dababy

Jennifer Lopez can and does do it all, but we're sorry to say she didn't get enough material during her episode to prove that. Half the sketches started with the premise "Jennifer Lopez is so much hotter than all other people," which is true, but not particularly funny. It just felt like there were a lot of missed opportunities here. 

Highs: NATO high school cold open, JLo's energy in general, and perhaps the hoops saleswomen. 

Lows: Any sketch that was just like "JLo is really hot!," especially the HGTV home makeover one. 

6. Kristen Stewart and Coldplay

Kristen Stewart was unexpectedly great when she first hosted in 2017, but this episode didn't quite hold up (especially because Vanessa Bayer did not return for a Totinos sequel). Kristen was game, but the sketches were all over the place. 

Highs: "New Paint," the soap opera about Aidy Bryant spending all her money on the perfect COLOUR. It was insane, and it was glorious. 

Lows: That Rosie the Riveter thing. 

5. Chance the Rapper and Chance the Rapper

Chance clearly had a great time with this and was down for anything, which made for an extremely strange and fun Halloween-ish episode. 

Highs: All the sketches but one, honestly. The ghost story sketch, about how Chance's character died due to a lightning fetish, was probably the highest high. 

Lows: The first impressions courtroom sketch got into some weird, slightly homophobic territory, but might have been saved by an out-of-the-blue appearance by Jason Momoa. 

4. Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Taylor Swift

This was actually a little bit of a disappointment, mostly because expectations were SO high for Phoebe Waller-Bridge. She was fantastic, but the writing was a little bit sloppier than it could have been. That said...still a great time. 

Highs: "Love Island," "Mid-Day News," and "The War in Words." This episode also marked the debut of Bowen Yang's Chinese Trade Daddy, an immediately legendary performance.

Lows: The political stuff was not so great this week. 

3. David Harbour and Camila Cabello

This was a bit of a surprise, since we didn't quite know what to expect from David Harbour, but he was pretty funny and willing to get really, really weird. 

Highs: The Oscar the Grouch parody of Joker and Little Miss Teacher's Friend. And yeah, dressing Harbour and Kate McKinnon in drag to get horny over sauce was cheap, but we still laughed. 

Lows: The Dog Court sketch just felt like an excuse for Cecily Strong to lose it over dogs, which we don't hate but didn't love. 

2. Will Ferrell and King Princess

Will Ferrell has the ability to make any sketch feel like old school SNL in the best way, so even the lows still got a giggle out of us. 

Highs: Most of this episode was great but is it weird if our favorite was the cut for time Cast List sketch? 

Lows: The First Thanksgiving sketch was just baaarely saved by the end, where Will Ferrell pointed out that yes, the sketch was problematic, but can't we all agree that corn is hard to digest? It would have made more sense if Cast List made it in and First Thanksgiving had been cut for time. 

1. Harry Styles and Harry Styles

Is there anything Harry Styles can't do? We're thinking there might not be. There wasn't a moment of this episode we didn't enjoy. 

Highs: The monologue, the musical performances, Harry as Doug the dog, the sudden implosion of the Instagram account of Sara Lee Bread

Lows: We saw no lows in the Harry Styles episode. No! Lows!

Saturday Night Live airs Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBC.

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