“I just feel so lucky that I ever got to work here,” Bowen Yang said during his final sketch on Saturday Night Live.
Yang is leaving the show after six and a half seasons as a cast member and he went out with a poignant sketch alongside his friend and Wicked co-star Ariana Grande and musical guest Cher.
Dressed as a Delta Airlines lounge employee, Yang may have been in character, but the tears seemed real and the message was loud.
“This is my last shift. It’s sad, I’m going to miss everything about this place, the way it smells, the celebrities that come through. Just last week, Josh O’Connor was here,” he said, ostensibly about working at the airport, but really talking about his time at Studio 8H.
Some of it was “great”, some was “rotten, and “a lot of it got cut”.
The fact that Yang’s final episode was hosted by his friend Grande was a sweet moment, as she was also clearly emotional. “I wouldn’t miss your last shift for the world.”
“I just feel so lucky that I ever got to work here and I just wanted to enjoy it a little bit longer. It’s definitely the people, I’ve loved every single person that works here because they’ve done so much for me, especially my boss,” Yang said.
The boss in the sketch was Cher, but she was also a stand-in for creator Lorne Michaels.
The episode was a nice send-off for one of the show’s breakout stars. Yang joined the show as a writer in 2018 ahead of Season 44 and joined the cast ahead of Season 45, before being promoted to repertory status ahead of Season 47.
He’s had plenty of viral moments from the iceberg that the Titanic hit to George Santos. He recreated another with Aidy Bryant, who returned for the first time since she left in 2022 to play a Trend Forecaster on Weekend Update.
The episode, however, wasn’t too Yang-centric. He did appear during Grande’s monologue. “Can I just say how much I loved your line in Wicked?” she said. “Thank you,” he replied. “You’re welcome,” she added, before he concluded, “No, no, that was my line in the movie: Thank you.”
He also appeared as Fuller McAllister, the youngest cousin of Macauley Culkin’s Kevin in a deadly Home Alone parody, albeit one that no longer had any arms.
Grande namechecked Yang directly in the goodnights.
“Any success I have after this will be thanks to this place,” Yang said in his final sketch. “This place will always be home.”
