Every 'SNL' 50th Season Episode Ranked and the 7 Best Sketches of the Year

The 50th season of SNL wrapped up over the weekend with host Scarlett Johansson, and we didn’t get any sense of who may be leaving, save for the fact — from what I saw — Colin Jost and Michael Che seemed a little verklempt during “Update,” but that may have just been me.

I’ve been covering SNL weekly for I don’t know how many years now: More than 15 but less than 20. And every week, I grade the sketches, and I am typically very hard. I have given less than five 10 out of 10 scores in all these years, because that should be reserved for something very special. A great score from me is typically a 7.5 or an 8. As such, an episode has to be truly spectacular to break 6.5 and, likewise, truly abysmal to fall below 5.0.

With that, here’s a ranking of this year’s episodes from worst to first. I genuinely had no idea how they would rank before I revisited each post, but this makes total sense. I would say that anything above a 5.7 is a good episode, and anything below 5.0 is a bad one. There were a lot of middling episodes, and then two episodes so good that they ranked better than the 50th Anniversary Special.

I should also note that Charli XCX’s episode was much better than the score suggested. She had a lot of great sketches, but a couple of really bad ones dragged the episode down (and also, Kyle Mooney appeared in that episode, and y’all know how I feel about Kyle Mooney).

21. Shane Gillis — 4.45
20. Dave Chappelle — 4.7
19. Mikey Madison — 4.7
18. Michael Keaton — 4.7
17. Charli XCX — 5.25
16. Paul Mescal — 5.25
15. Walton Goggins — 5.3
14. Jean Smart — 5.4
13. Scarlett Johansson — 5.4
12. Chris Rock — 5.5
11. Nate Bartgatze — 5.7
10. Quinta Brunson — 5.86
9. Timothee Chalamet — 5.95
8. Jon Hamm — 6.0
7. Bill Burr — 6.0
6. Martin Short — 6.1
5. Jack Black — 6.18
4. Ariana Grande — 6.2
3. The 50th Anniversary Special — 6.47
2. Lady Gaga — 6.9
1. John Mulaney — 7.3

For the curious, I did not give 10 out of 10s to any sketch this season, although I did give one 9.5 out of 10 to Adam Sandler’s number during the Anniversary Special. Here are the seven best sketches of the year. Interestingly, it turns out that I really like the musical numbers, as six out of the seven fall into that category.

7. Celine Dion Sports Promo

6. Goth Kid on Vacation

5. My Best Friend’s House

4. What’s that Name: Election Edition

3. Pip

2. Port Authority Duane Reade

1. Adam Sandler’s Song

And finally, for what it’s worth: Overall, I thought that the best thing about <>SNL’s 50th season was actually Jane Wickline’s “Update” segments. The worst thing was the celebrity cameos playing various political figures ahead of the election.