Every Scarlett Johansson Sketch From SNL Season 45 Ranked Worst To Best

On the December 14, 2019 episode of Saturday Night Live, Scarlett Johansson returned for an impressive sixth hosting stint alongside musical guest Niall Horan, promoting her critically acclaimed Netflix original film Marriage Story and celebrating her engagement to Weekend Update co-anchor Colin Jost. Unsurprisingly, the Black Widow star was game for anything — playing opposite SNL's core cast members with aplomb, despite some disappointing skits.

Johansson sat a few sketches out — including the Cold Open, which focused on three different families struggling to talk about politics over the holidays, as well as a message from TIME's Person of the Year, Greta Thunberg, played by Kate McKinnon; a clever ad for Macy's children's clothing; and Weekend Update. But during her time on screen, the Marvel Cinematic Universe standout showed a willingness to lean into every character, clearly having a great time during her holiday hosting gig. 

From office parties gone wrong to Hallmark parodies, here's every Scarlett Johansson sketch from SNL season 45 ranked worst to best.

In the first sketch of the night, Scarlett Johansson and Kenan Thompson appear as a couple of singing elves at the mall, but they're not exactly trained for the job. Nobody else was available, so a couple of employees from the hair extension kiosk have filled in. Unsurprisingly, they're pretty terrible — singing dirty Christmas songs about Mrs. Claus and cocaine, and leaving some of the parents in the audience (played by Beck Bennett and Heidi Gardner) pretty confused.

Ultimately, "Singing Elves" feels like a still unsuccessful retreat of the "Hip Hop Carolers" sketch from the week Jennifer Lopez hosted Saturday Night Live: between the lackluster songs and Bennett's weird, unexplained Todrick Hall obsession, the sketch just doesn't go anywhere. Really, the only upshot is Bowen Yang's delightful performance as the songwriter behind these disturbing ditties.

It can be hard for celebrity couples to go out for dinner and enjoy themselves, which Bowen Yang and Johansson know all too well. In the Saturday Night Live sketch "Celebrity Sighting," Johansson and Yang play the couple depicted on New York City's most popular choking safety poster, who can't go out without getting mobbed. Though the restaurant host, portrayed by Heidi Garder, seems skeptical, it turns out that the couple is insanely popular — particularly with the kitchen staff. Before long, they're besieged by their fans from the back of the house, who immediately start texting friends at other kitchens to come and see the couple.

Thanks to insanely specific choices by the hair and makeup department — Kate McKinnon's chef is particularly inspired — the sketch is fun to watch. Eventually, it's even elevated a bit by the twist that neither member of the couple actually knows how to do the Heimlich maneuver that made them so famous. However, solid performances from Johansson and Yang don't make "Celebrity Sighting" a standout sketch of the evening. The couple isn't interesting enough to remain particularly memorable, resulting in a pretty middling sketch.

Scarlett Johansson is an old pro when it comes to her time in Studio 8H, and for her sixth go-around hosting Saturday Night Live, she says the pressure's off. In the first of several references to Colin Jost, she jokes, "If the show's bad, what will they do — fire my fiancé?" However, when Aidy Bryant's Elf on a Shelf (a joke that doesn't have time to land, partly because hardly any other cast members wear costumes during the monologue) gets "dusted," Johansson snaps back into Black Widow mode and must figure out who's behind this latest Snappening.

Johansson's monologue is unusually self-aware for SNL. As people disappear, we discover that nobody can tell Mikey Day and Alex Moffatt apart, Bowen Yang says the show will get eaten alive on Twitter for dusting its first Asian-American cast member, Beck Bennett tells Johansson her monologue is weirdly irrelevant before vanishing himself, and people wonder if Pete Davidson got dusted — although Cecily Strong thinks it's just one of those weeks where Davidson probably won't show up. In the end, Johansson cracks the case: Davidson is the one behind the dusting. He found the Infinity Gauntlet on eBay, and Johansson tells Kenan Thompson (the show's longest-running cast member ever) that once you've been on SNL for a long time, you can just take as much time off as you want, much to Thompson's obvious chagrin. 

This scene is marked by a few awkward line stumbles (especially when Davidson is on-screen) and Jost's stiff appearances both fall flat, but all in all, it's a fun monologue.

In one of the show's pre-taped sketches, Saturday Night Live takes on ScarlettnJohansson's latest film and adds a political bend by reimagining a version of Marriage Story that stars Kellyanne (McKinnon) and George Conway (Beck Bennett). Between Kellyanne's job as the mouthpiece of the Trump administration and George's constant criticism of the President, many have wondered how the two can possibly stay married, but apparently, they find a way.

The sketch mimics Marriage Story's opening scene, in which a therapist (played by Johansson this time) asks Kellyanne and George to write down everything they love about each other. Yes, it's just as messed up as you might expect. Despite the couple's obvious political difference, they love their nicknames for each other ("loser" for George and "ghoul" for Kellyanne), and Kellyanne really loves how George always reads... the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM–5) to figure out what's wrong with her boss. (He eventually settles on "narcissism.") 

Everything considered, "A Conway Marriage Story" is a successful take on both Marriage Story and one of the country's most confusing couplings. Still, McKinnon — whose Kellyanne is as pitch-perfect as ever — and Bennett do all the heavy lifting, leaving Johansson in a supporting role and keeping this skit from being the best of the evening.