Kate McKinnon returns to ‘SNL’ to host with some help from Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig

Kate McKinnon‘s first time hosting “Saturday Night Live” was a reminder that she left an off-kilter, screwball humor void when she departed in 2022 that has taken multiple cast members to fill. A day after the movie started streaming on Max, McKinnon, who played Weird Barbie in the film, was joined by musical guest Billie Eilish, who performed the movie’s sure to be Oscar-nominated theme song, “What Was I Made For?” That song was introduced by McKinnon and “Barbie” director Greta Gerwig. Best sketch of the night: Stringing along a song at the Tampon Farm McKinnon strummed a guitar and got folksy in this filmed music video for “Tampon Farm,” a place where, “The moon makes the menses, and the menses meets the fibers, and they sing.” The hilarious piece, which featured farmers pulling tampons from the fields like cotton crops, included Rudolph, Wiig, Eilish and even former “SNL” writer and “Girls5Eva” actor Paula Pell. It’s an excuse to put together a musical super group consisting of McKinnon, Rudolph, Wiig and Yang, all wearing brightly colored sparkly costumes, belting out holiday songs including “Santa Queen” and “Frostitita.” “Waterloo” is imagined as an over-Americanized “Barbecue!” It’s not very timely, of course, but Wiig and Rudolph singing in each other’s faces trying to crack each other up is its own Christmas miracle. Jost delivered jokes about needing drinks to get through his wife’s movies, concluding with a mock apology to his wife: “You’re an even better Black Widow than Coretta Scott King.” If you like jokes that feel like punches in the gut, this was the best Christmas “Update” ever.