Saturday Night Live had quite an unpredictable year! The legendary sketch show has been working through one of its biggest cast shake-ups of recent history, as Season 47 was the final season for cast members Kate McKinnon, Aidy Bryant, Pete Davidson, Kyle Mooney, Alex Moffat, Chris Redd, Melissa Villaseñor, and Aristotle Athari. Season 48 also featured the emotional mid-season departure of veteran cast member Cecily Strong, as well as welcomed featured players Michael Longfellow, Marcello Hernandez, Molly Kearney, and Devon Walker. A number of exciting first-time hosts took the stage, including former cast member Will Forte, stand-up Jerrod Carmichael, rapper Jack Harlow, and Catwoman herself, Zoë Kravitz.

Before we jump head-first into the new year, let’s look back at the best Saturday Night Live sketches of 2022. Live from New York, it’s Saturday night!

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MacGruber: Coronavirus

Nothing is better than when a former SNL cast member returns to their old stomping grounds to host. Will Forte, who was part of one of the best casts in the show’s history (Jason Sudeikis, Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, and Andy Samberg were just some of his cast mates), did not disappoint in his hosting debut. To everyone’s delight, he reprised his famous awful handyman character MacGruber, a humorous take-off on MacGyver. Kristen Wiig also returned to play Vicki as well Ryan Phillippe to play his Piper character from the MacGruber movie and now series. MacGruber! He’s conspiring theories and falling down alt-right rabbit holes. MacGruber!

John Mulaney Five-Timers Club

Stand-up comedian and former SNL writer John Mulaney hosted the sketch show for the fifth time this year which landed him a spot in the fancy Five Timers Club. It’s always fun when someone joins this club because it usually means other members stop by for a proper induction. Mulaney’s episode was no exception, as it featured appearances from Tina Fey, Paul Rudd, Candice Bergen, Elliot Gould, and Conan O’Brien, who also used to write for the show.

Inventing Chloe

It feels like every week we are getting another series dramatizing real-life events. The Staircase, The Watcher, and The Dropout, you name it. But one that stands out from the pact for many reasons is the Netflix series Inventing Anna, which stars Julia Garner as con-artist Anna Delvey. Impression expert Chloe Fineman parodies this larger-than-life series by donning the wardrobe, confidence, and strange accent of Garner’s Delvey and sauntering around the halls of Studio 8H. Everyone is confused, but Chloe knows exactly what she wants.

Maid of Honor

Girly! Zoë Kravitz crushed her hosting debut this year. The Batman star, whose work tends to be on the more serious side, proved that she knows how to let her hair down and tickle your funny bone. Her comic timing was on full display when she played Sarah, the bubbly Maid of Honor to her best friend, Tanya (Cecily Strong). Tanya and Sarah were all smiles as they touched on some of their favorite memories from the years of their friendship, though the groom (Kyle Mooney) was deeply disturbed by all the controversy-laced revelations about his new bride. Who knew she committed so many hate crimes?

Porch Scene

Oh, my good man, you are in for a treat. Kate McKinnon brought back her socially awkward teen boy character Josh when Zoë Kravitz hosted, and it was a cringey delight. All Josh planned to do was drop off Cassie’s (Kravitz) calculator, but things take an unexpected romantic turn when she asks him to stay and join her on her porch swing. Josh doesn’t know how to handle himself around who he considers to be the Hilary Duff of his algebra class, so he calls his even-nerdier best friend Jason (Aidy Bryant) for (clumsy) advice.

Shop TV

Stand-up and actor Jerrod Carmichael had a very impressive 2022. He won an Emmy for his special Rothaniel and was nominated for another for hosting Saturday Night Live. Carmichael deserved the Emmy nomination for this cringey sketch alone. He plays the innocent doll maker Kevin Lickitt who drops by a home shopping network to show off his latest creation Rhylee Rainbowlocks. As you might expect, this doll has some impressive rainbow hair on her head and…some other places. Things get deeply troubling once he tries to get to the doll’s anchor point and things don’t go as planned.

Mother’s Day

One of the stronger hosts this year was Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness star Benedict Cumberbatch, who totally embraced his silly side. He played the gleeful husband to Aidy Bryant’s stereotypical mom character who gets inundated with wooden signs that have increasingly specific and insulting sayings on them for Mother's Day. Bryant’s troubled reactions to these handcrafted and wine-focused signs truly never get old. “Oh look, it’s wine o’clock. I just love watching the sun rise,” one sign reads, to which she responds in a panic, “Is that implying that I’m getting drunk at dawn?”

Mr. Dooley

Oh, Mr. Dooley! Is he dead? Maybe we should tickle him and see. The Season 47 finale was an emotional one, as we said goodbye to many long-time cast members. But, it was also an incredibly fun episode, too, largely thanks to this sketch. Natasha Lyonne crushed her hosting debut and proved that she was down for anything. In this 9 to 5 meets Weekend at Bernie’s parody, she plays Mr. Dooley, a misogynistic and bigoted boss of three women (Heidi Gardner, Cecily Strong, Ego Nwodim) who have had it with his inappropriate behavior. When one of them shoots him dead, they scramble to make him seem alive in order to fool the others (Kyle Mooney and Fred Armisen). You know those sketches where you can tell the performers are having way too much fun? This is one of those sketches. Try not to giggle.

Final Encounter Cold Open

The Emmy-winning Kate McKinnon has gifted us over the years with many wonderful oddball characters. Arguably her most popular character is Miss Rafferty, the woman who is regularly questioned by the Pentagon about her alien abduction experiences. Why is it that the other people who were also abducted always have transformative, angelic experiences and Rafferty’s are super specific and traumatizing? In the Season 47 finale, McKinnon played her alien abductee character one last time, and things got very emotional and very hairy.

ManningCast Cold Open

Season 48 kicked off quite the transitional period for the legendary comedy show, with long time cast members Kate McKinnon, Pete Davidson, Aidy Bryant, Melissa Villaseñor, Chris Redd, Kyle Mooney, and Aristotle Athari not returning and Molly Kearney, Michael Longfellow, Marcello Hernandez, and Devon Walker joining the cast as featured players. The cast smartly gets ahead of the scrutiny by having their Cold Open in the season premiere call out the show’s weak spots and potentially awkward scenarios. Miles Teller’s impression of Peyton Manning during this ManningCast parody got the season off to a strong start.

Nicole Kidman AMC Theaters Ad

Anyone that’s been to an AMC movie theater knows about it. And by it, I mean the mystical dreamscape that is Nicole Kidman’s AMC Theaters advertisement. Is it a little unnerving? Sure. But is it also incredibly comforting? Absolutely. Chameleonic comedian Chloe Fineman gets her Aussie on and recreates Kidman’s casual walk through the empty theater. In this commercial parody, though, there’s a bit of a sci-fi twist.

AA Meeting

So, have you ever, like, had a really great idea for a movie but never knew the right place and time to talk about it? Jesse (Jack Harlow) feels your pain. Rather than keep the idea for his Pixar movie to himself, he decides to open up about it at his Alcoholics’ Anonymous meeting. Harlow’s timing and deadpan delivery of the throw away line, “I drank recently, by the way” is one of the funniest moments of the year. And wouldn’t Jason Bateman kill it as that uptight and funny briefcase?

Horror Movie Trailer

SNL does a number of political sketches and parodies, but this fake horror movie trailer is one of the most creative ones by far. The show capitalized on the many scary movie releases this year that included Halloween Ends, Smile, and Barbarian, by creating a trailer for a horror movie about the troubling and unpredictable impending 2024 election. The thought of having a president in his 80s is downright terrifying. What if he falls off his bike again?

David S. Pumpkins Returns

The man, the myth, the legend is back! Tom Hanks dropped by Jack Harlow’s episode and resurrected the cult favorite enigma that is David S. Pumpkins, right in time for Halloween. During a haunted mansion style-experience, three friends (Ego Nwodim, Harlow, Andrew Dismukes) get spooked by horror movie favorites like Michael Meyers and Annabelle, but get confused when a man and his skeleton companions (Bobby Moynihan and Mikey Day) dance around to weird music. You know David S. Pumpkins and you love him dearly, but you can’t exactly put your finger on why. Is it the hair? The jacket? The mysterious middle initial? He asks if we have any questions, and boy, do we ever.

A Christmas Carol

Martin Short and Steve Martin totally nailed their hosting duet this year. But, is that really a surprise when it comes to these two comedy legends? A stand-out from the festive episode was this gruesome interpretation of the Charles Dickens Christmas story classic A Christmas Carol. Scrooge (Short) is ready to embrace the Christmas spirit and make up for the time he wasted being a curmudgeon. But nothing could prepare Scrooge for the chaos that would ensue from a simple coin toss to a boy (Sarah Sherman) in need. This snowy white wonderland quickly becomes a bloody battlefield. Add this to the SNL Christmas special immediately.