‘Saturday Night Live’ Director Liz Patrick Still Has Questions About Bowen Yang’s Final Sketch

Despite having directed the December 20 episode of “Saturday Night Live” hosted by Ariana Grande, with musical guest Cher, which served as five-time Emmy nominee Bowen Yang’s final episode as a cast member, Liz Patrick still has questions about his swan song sketch titled “Delta Lounge.” 

“Was Cher always the plan?,” she asked Yang during a USG University Panel with the two of them, moderated by IndieWire. 

While the music icon’s cameo in the sketch about a Delta Lounge employee working his final shift during Christmastime was something added after the first table read (Yang co-wrote the sketch with fellow “SNL” alum Celeste Yim), the bigger change that the departing cast member realized that Patrick was alluding to had to do with the eggnog machine in the background.

“The machine was supposed to go haywire, and it was supposed to be gushing, and there was supposed to be kind of a fountainous sort of aspect to it where other cast was just slipping and falling in the back,” he said. “The daunting thing for me was, between dress and air, we were just like, ‘Do we keep the fountain? Do we keep it crazy in the back or do we have Sarah Sherman and Mikey Day tripping over themselves screaming as we’re singing or what do we do about this aspect?’ And credit to Lorne Michaels who just is able to think of this on such a high level, just comes up to Celeste and me and says, ‘You want to keep it tender. Just take out all the other stuff. Mikey and Sarah will live. They’ll be okay. They just want this to be a good show for you. Keep it just intimate. And then that’ll make the Cher thing sing.’”

Patrick recognized that kind of challenge as commonplace for those who work at “Saturday Night Live,” and live TV in general. “Knowing the show and how it works and my background, I feel like I’m not rattled by change. I’m used to it,” said the TV veteran, who’s directed everything from “TRL” and “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” to Yang’s other Emmys-eligible project, the inaugural “Las Culturistas Culture Awards.” “I’ve always worked on shows that you had to be quick and you had to make a change or you had to have a solution, and you had to spin quickly. And it’s like, ‘Ok, it’s not that we’re doing it wrong, it’s just we want to do it better,’ or there’s a new idea. So it’s like, you gotta leave your ego at the door. It’s not like ‘My way or the highway.’ It’s like, ‘What’s best for this show or this sketch?’”

Yang said in the moment, receiving that final note from Michaels, head honcho of “SNL,” he thought, “He’s totally right. He’s seen it all. This wonderful cycle of trust between me, him, Liz, our crew, the writers. It’s everything I love about that place, which is just, as Liz was saying, this collaborative spirit of no one person having all the answers.”

Patrick shared that, had they planned to go through with the faulty machine bit, “I was afraid if we sprayed Cher. I would have been like, ‘Oh no.’”

“And I didn’t even consider that,” deadpanned Yang.

To hear Yang and Patrick talk more about the craft that went into making “Saturday Night Live” Season 5, watch IndieWire’s full interview with the pair above.

“Saturday Night Live” Season 51 is now streaming on Peacock.

IndieWire partnered with Universal Studio Group for USG University, a series of panels celebrating the outstanding artistry and artisans behind the 2025–2026 television season across NBCUniversal’s portfolio of shows. USG University, a Universal Studio Group program, is presented in partnership with the Motion Picture & Television Fund.