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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!