"Saturday Night Live" fan favorite Bowen Yang took his final bow on Saturday's episode of the show, hosted by “Wicked” co-star Ariana Grande.
Yang bid farewell with a closing skit in which he played a retiring Delta Air Lines club attendant serving eggnog to passengers on his last shift. He was joined by Grande and musical guest Cher.
Yang and Grande joked about serving the drink to passengers over the years. “Some of it was great, some of it was rotten,” said Grande, playing the role of his wife.
“And a lot of it got cut,” Yang interjected. “But, you know, I also think eggnog is a lot like me — it’s not for everyone, but the people who like it are my kind of people.”
“I just feel so lucky that I ever got to work here, and I just wanted to enjoy it for a little bit longer, especially the people. I’ve loved every single person who works here because they’ve done so much for me, especially my boss,” he told Grande.
Yang became tearful as he sang “Please Come Home For Christmas” to close the skit alongside Grande and Cher, who was playing the role of Delta's "CEO of eggnog."
Yang also sang with Grande during her opening monologue and reprised his role as one half of the “trend forecasters” alongside Aidy Bryant on “Weekend Update.”
Yang had announced on Instagram that he was departing the show, writing, "I loved working at SNL, and most of all i loved the people."
Yang went on to express gratitude to the show and everyone involved.
"i’m grateful for every minute of my time there," he said.
"thank you to ari for sending me off in the dreamiest way i could imagine," he later added.
The comedian joined the show as a writer in 2018 during its 44th season. He was added to the cast in 2019, becoming the show’s first Asian cast member.
He quickly became one of the show's breakout stars, appearing in multiple sketches per episode. His popular imitations included Rep. George Santos, photographer Fran Lebowitz and "Brat" artist Charli XCX. He also cosplayed as viral pygmy hippo Moo Deng and the iceberg that sank the Titanic.
“SNL” marked a major milestone earlier this year with a star-studded 50th anniversary special, which aired on NBC and Peacock in February. (“SNL” airs on NBC, a division of NBCUniversal, which is also the parent company of NBC News.)
The long-running Lorne Michaels-helmed sketch comedy show underwent another routine shake-up recently, with several cast members, including Heidi Gardner, Ego Nwodim, Devon Walker, Michael Longfellow and Emil Wakim, exiting earlier this year.
Yang, who co-hosts a popular podcast called "Las Culturistas" with comedian and actor Matt Rogers, said in September that he had spoken to Michaels about possibly leaving but decided not to.
“I’ve always gone by the instinct of, do I have more to do? And I feel like I do,” Yang said in an interview with People magazine published in September, when asked about Season 51. “Even Lorne and I talked about it, and Lorne was like, ‘You have more to do,’ and that means a lot, because I even confessed to him. I was like, ‘I feel the audience is maybe getting sick of me.’ And he was like, ‘That’s not true. There’s more for you to do. I need you.’”
At this year's Emmys awards, held in September, Michaels addressed the recent cast changes.
“The show has always brought people in from different ages and different generations, and it’s how it revives itself,” Michaels told Entertainment Tonight in an interview on the red carpet. "It’s always hard when people leave but there’s a time for that and our audiences always stayed relatively young and more so now with TikTok, and change is good. And the people we’re bringing in I’m really excited about.”
