‘SNL’ Season 46 Finale Recap: Anya Taylor-Joy Hosts, Lil Nas X Rips His Pants, And Lots Of Subtle Farewells From Longtime Cast Members

We’ve gone a long while since we’ve seen a proper farewell from any longtime cast members on a season finale of Saturday Night Live. You know, like Bill Hader’s final Stefon. So I looked it up. Hader’s season 38 finale also saw Fred Armisen and Jason Sudeikis leave, and you knew it even before the goodnights at 1 a.m., although they did actually wave goodbye that night.

Four years later, Season 42 ended with cast and crew literally carrying Bobby Moynihan, Vanessa Bayer and Sasheer Zamata. So I suppose we’re due now, four years later, and time for another mass exodus. Not that we should be surprised. The Season 46 cast opened with a record 20 performers precisely because so many of the stars already had one foot out the door, working on other projects.

Here’s the thing about an SNL finale that’s also doubling as a cast member’s finale: It’s almost always looser and so much more fun than a typical episode, precisely because for that cast member, Lorne Michaels lets them do what they want instead of whatever his trusty rusty algorithms and demographic charts tell him he must do to appeal to lamestream America.

What’s The Deal For The SNL Cold Open For 5/22/2021?

If you have your stars crying in the very first minute of the show, then the last minute of the show should end in…a flood? That whole “Chekhov’s Gun” conceit doesn’t really translate to comedy, especially since comedy succeeds largely upon a principle of misdirection and not foreshadowing. Nevertheless, the season finale opened cold with the four longest-tenured cast members onstage, already crying or on the brink of tears: Kenan Thompson (18 years) Kate McKinnon (10), Aidy Bryant and Cecily Strong (9).

For those of you nerds keeping score at home, the typical SNL star (since the late 1990s) has departed after completing somewhere between seven and nine seasons (partially dependent upon how long it took for them to get promoted from featured player to the reparatory cast contract). Others in the current cast in the range? Beck Bennett and Kyle Mooney, hired as a team (8); Colin Jost, hired as a writer first before hitting Weekend Update (8); Jost’s Weekend Update co-anchor, Michael Che (7); and Pete Davidson (7).

The cold open, “What I Remember About This Year,” mixed personal reflections with jokes about what a weird year the cast and the country have survived (including a nod to those who did not survive the year, such as longtime sound guru Hal Willner). Everyone in the cast save Che and Jost contributed on-screen to the open with their own memories, plus one non-cast member who joined the rookies onstage to deliver “my first line the entire season!” They reminded us about their participation in the Morgan Wallen melodrama. Chris Rock surprised us by returning to remind us he hosted the season opener, and that the show went on, even after Trump (and Alec Baldwin) left the building. “Even Jim Carrey knew it was time to go home!”

But leave it to McKinnon to make everyone else tear up when she barely got out these words: “This was the year we realized we’re more than just a cast — we’re a family.”

How Did The SNL Guest Host Anya Taylor-Joy Do?

Looking like a Scandinavian angel, this Argentinian-Brit born in Miami let us in on the fact that this was the first time SNL had performed in front of a fully vaccinated audience. Anya Taylor-Joy is only 25, but already so accomplished, even before stunning everyone with her starring role in The Queen’s Gambit. Her prowess shown through with her polished performances tonight, reminiscent of how quickly and easily Scarlett Johansson and Emma Stone before her took to the trappings of SNL. Will Taylor-Joy become a regular recurring host? Hopefully definitely. Will she also wind up marrying an SNL writer? No comment. Back to her monologue, which included a Gambit reference in which the studio’s ceiling put cast member’s faces on chess pieces and replaced the board’s squares with cue cards. Nothing to worry about here! Bonus: Taylor-Joy delivered her closing lines in Spanish!

The first sketch of the night effectively demonstrated how much we didn’t know in 1998, with a tribute to that era’s Hollywood Squares in which Taylor-Joy’s Baby Spice was the only celeb who didn’t get censored by moral posterity. Also commentary on cancel culture? Erasing the memories of our fawning over Bill Cosby (Thompson), Jared Fogle (Mooney), Matt Lauer (Alex Moffat), and even Jeff Dunham (Mikey Day). Our apologies to Mary Kate and Ashley (Chloe Fineman and Heidi Gardner) for seating them next to Fogle.

Bennett starred as Tom Bergeron in the Hollywood Squares sketch, as well as the short film, “Picture With Dad,” in which his joking attempt at bringing a shotgun to his daughter’s prom date photo (Gardner and Andrew Dismukes) ends in self-mutilation. Not even Taylor-Joy’s ER doctor could save this case. And then there was the “Making Man” sketch, which essentially took the familiar stand-up premise of joking about how poorly men’s bodies were designed, and setting the sketch as an origin story in heaven. If you’ve never heard any such jokes, then this sketch was good news to you.

But the remainder of the night found Taylor-Joy ably supporting one or more of the potentially several stars who’ll leave SNL this summer. Most evidenced in this ad for “Celtic Woman.” Strong and Bryant kept it loosey-goosey for extra kicks.

Bryant and Taylor-Joy anchored two other sketches. This NYU panel with the cast of a TV comedy felt like a targeted critique of the media and how too many of us perhaps unfairly interview SNL comedians, giving softball questions to the white guy while focusing only on the race, ethnicity, gender or sexuality of everyone else? “Are there questions that are fun or less devastating?” Good question, Bowen.

Meanwhile, the “Lingerie Store,” which took its street names after New York City but delivered a particularly Pittsburgh vibe, seemed like something Bryant and/or McKinnon have roped many a guest host into before, just for the silliness of it.

How Relevant Was The Musical Guest Lil Nas X?

Lil Nas X is the American Zeitgeist. While you perhaps were focused on how much his backup dancers might rub up on or lick him, the 22-year-old singer named Montero was solely focused for the final 40 seconds on the hole in his ripped pants while singing the song named for himself. So he probably didn’t intend to keep his hand on his crotch for the rest of the performance. But what if he hadn’t? Perhaps he learned something from Lenny Kravitz after all.

Good thing he had a costume change to perform “Sun Goes Down.”

Which Sketch Will We Be Sharing: “Pride Month Song”

Based upon who actually announces their SNL departures, we may be sharing plenty from this season’s finale. But nothing screams viral quite like this short film and music video about Pride, featuring Taylor-Joy and the cast’s openly LGBTQ members, which notably show how much McKinnon’s success paved the way for Bowen Yang and eventually Punkie Johnson to shine in their own ways. The video also included several barbs at the gay community’s own expense, as well as the influx of straights dressing like they’re LGBTQ and joining their parade. Plus, more Lil Nas X!

Who Stopped By Weekend Update?

Is this the swan song for Jost and Che? Maybe???? Che, as is his wont, served up conflicting messages on social and traditional media in the past week. Jost opened the segment by saying, “It is our last Weekend Update,” which might not have intended for us to read more into it. And yet the word choice feels deliberate, since every word choice is so deliberate and painstakingly decided for the cue cards every week. So, go figure.

Both Pete Davidson and Cecily Strong sent pretty clear signals without saying the actual words.

Davidson jibed Jost, saying “You wouldn’t know this, because your life is perfect,” before launching into commentary about Mental Health Awareness Month. He joked about how he’d hoped less people would recognize him with a mask on, to no avail due to his eyes. He poked fun at AIDS and compared it to SNL, still around but largely ignored since the 1990s, then credited Lorne Michaels for that zinger. But the kicker came when he closed by telling us all: “It’s been an honor to grow up in front of you guys.” That has some notes of finality to it, doesn’t it.

Strong, returning one final time as FOX News shouter Jeanine Pirro, sang “My Way,” which is close to a closer as you can find. She also threw plenty of “wine” in Jost’s direction and bathed herself in it, too, for good measure. Good God, we’ll only appreciate how great Strong was on SNL once she’s gone, won’t most of you knuckleheads?

As for Jost and Che? Who knows. But they did close out the season by doing the one thing that brings them, if not also the audience, the most joy, surprising one another with racist and roast jokes for the other to deliver live on air. By not saying it was their last Update, though, they kept the door open for one more go-around should they want it.

Update segued to commercial with a silent card in tribute to Charles Grodin, who hosted an amazingly bizarre episode during Season 3 (Episode 4) in which he acted as if he hadn’t attended any rehearsals beforehand. (It’s on Peacock, so if you have it, you can click on that link.)

What Sketch Filled The “10-to-1” Slot?

At 12:56 a.m. Eastern, Bennett sent up Vin Diesel’s F9 promo from last month about cinemas reopening by putting Diesel in a specific AMC Theater and causing consternation all around him. This isn’t a very traditional end-of-the-night five-to-one sketch for SNL, but then again, when you have the bulk of the show celebrating the longest-tenured SNL cast members, perhaps you’ve got to give Bennett one more? During the good-nights, I did notice Bryant pushing Bennett (still in Diesel disguise) up toward the front of the stage. Take note of that as you will.

Who Was The Episode’s MVP?

Clearly, the night belonged to Beck Bennett, Aidy Bryant, Kate McKinnon and Cecily Strong. Whether some or all of them, or even more cast members depart this summer, we’ll find out soon enough. But they certainly went out with a bang!

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.

Watch Season 46, Episode 20 of Saturday Night Live on YouTube