Ariana Grande made her Saturday Night Live return over the weekend as the musical guest — for an episode hosted by the delightfully strange Josh Brolin — and she wowed fans with two powerful, beautiful performances.
The songstress took the stage for the first time in a set made up to look like a living room, as she belted out her tune “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait For Your Love)” while watching the song’s music video on a retro TV.
As the tune built up to its first big crescendo, the living room walls — projected on large screens — were flooded with crashing waves, which slowly receded and gave way to a whole slew of seasons and cosmic imagery.
The psychedelic and emotional set found a lot of love from fans watching at home, who took to social media to share their feelings about the performance.
While Brolin introduced Grande the first time around, the songstress’ second set of the night was introduced by her mom, Joan Grande, in a super sweet moment that fans couldn’t help but love.
For her second number, Grande debuted “Imperfect For You” — both songs hailing from her new album, Eternal Sunshine, which just dropped on Friday.
However, Grande’s involvement in the episode didn’t end at simply being the musical guest.
As she’s shown when we hosted in the past, Grande has impeccable comedic timing and is a natural SNL performer. This time around, she actually appeared in two sketches alongside Brolin — and even took the primary role in a bit about all the unused songs sampled in 2001 film Moulin Rouge.
With Grande — complete with long, flowing red locks — portraying Nicole Kidman’s character, and Bowen Yang playing Ewan McGregor’s character, the duo sang, showed off their accents and tried their hardest not to constantly break during the ridiculous sketch.
Needless to say, her performance as a musical guest has some fans wondering when they can expect Grande to be taking the helm as host once again.
Saturday Night Live airs live, coast-to-coast at 11:30p.m. ET/ 8:30 p.m. PT on NBC. In addition to the broadcast on NBC, SNL streams live on Peacock.
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