This week’s SNL wasn’t just the final episode of 2022. It was also the last dance with one of its most acclaimed cast members: Cecily Strong. The show’s resident Judge Jeanine Pirro (and lest you forget, Catherine Deneuve) surprised viewers by announcing her retirement from the late night sketch show, which she did not once but twice: on a RadioShack sketch that turned into her and host Austin Butler singing “Blue Christmas”; and on Weekend Update, where she bid adieu in the guise of one of her beloved characters.
That character was Cathy Anne, the unlit cigarette-wielding, very opinionated neighbor of co-host Michael Che. “Actually, I’m a little emo tonight because the truth is, I’m here to say goodbye,” she told the crowd, revealing that after years of wrongdoing, she was finally going to jail. She wasn’t that worried, alluding to “friends on the inside” who “seem to be doing OK,” prompting a photo of recently departed cast members Kate McKinnon and Aidy Bryant, who both left at the end of Season 47.
Strong stayed in character for most of the bit, but slightly broke it as she mildly choked up. “Everybody has to go to jail at some point, right? It’s just my time now,” she said. “But I had a lot of fun here and I feel really lucky that I got to have so many of the best moments of my life in this place with these people that I love so much.”
Strong joined SNL in 2012 and over the years has proven a game and inventive performer. Her possible departure has been discussed many times, including in 2021, when it seemed like she was saying goodbye (by way of her Pirro impersonation), only to return in the fall. But this time is real.
You can watch Strong’s Weekend Update farewell in the video above and you can watch her crooning with Austin Butler below. Congrats on the fantastic run.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvTmjdhBRVs
