The Best of Scarlett Johansson on Saturday Night Live

After joining Saturday Night Live's Five-Timers Club in 2017, Scarlett Johansson returns for hosting gig number six on Saturday. Only now, she returns as head writer and Weekend Update co-host Colin Jost's fiancée. And while it would be inaccurate to describe this relationship as giving ScarJo clout (in the star chamber of this relationship, clearly it's Johansson giving Jost clout), there does seem to be the familial air of your brother bringing his fiancée home for the holidays for the first time. She's definitely getting the once-over from the fam.

One point of interest that definitely goes to the clout ScarJo affords Jost will be to see how many non-Update sketches he appears in this week. It's likely that their real-life relationship will be fodder for something, perhaps the monologue, perhaps an Update segment. But if Jost starts showing up in other sketches, we'll know why.

However Johansson fares on this week's show, it should be noted that her Five-Timers status has come with a handful of truly memorable sketches. Since ScarJo has been largely a dramatic actress throughout her career, her moments of inspired comedy on Saturday Night Live have enjoyed an element of surprise. But when it comes to comedy, she can definitely bring it. Observe:

Ivanka Trump's "Complicit"
Episode Date: March 11, 2017

While it was an eyebrow-raiser to see Saturday Night Live throw the c-word around so freely after they were pretty complicit themselves when they welcomed Donald Trump to host their show in 2015, ScarJo wasn't tainted with that brush. So she got to play Ivanka, a first-daughter who "knows what she wants and knows what she's doing." The fake perfume ad cloaks itself in the gilded beauty of Ivanka, but makes sure to clock her at every turn.

Mike's Marbleopolis
Episode Date: April 21, 2007

Probably ScarJo's best SNL work to date. The accent is both on-point and completely over-the-top in the best way, and the breathless monologue she gives about how nuts it would be to have these marble columns in front of your house earned her a mid-sketch applause break, and for good reason. She and Fred Armisen make for such a great pair, it's a wonder she was never on Portlandia.

Black Widow: The Rom-Com
Episode Date: May 2, 2015

The 2015 release of Avengers: Age of Ultron is right about the time the MCU backlash began, raising questions about whether they were doing enough for representation. In particular, why were there no MCU movies in the pipeline that starred women? Why was Black Widow the only Avenger besides dumb Hawkeye without a movie of her own. SNL's take on this angle was to have Marvel produce a Black Widow movie in the worst way possible: as a cliched romantic comedy.

Millionaire Matchmaker
Episode Date: November 13, 2010

In one of the most blistering parodies SNL has ever done, Johansson played Bravo's notoriously awful "Millionaire Matchmaker" Patti Stanger as she doubled down on cruelty and insults, this time to find a match for her dorky millionairess client (Vanessa Bayer). Even if you didn't know the show, Johansson's brash, acidic, and deeply accurate take on Stanger gave you a decent idea of the horrors it featured.

Shud the Mermaid
Episode Date: March 11, 2017

Keeping up with Kate McKinnon on a comedic level is a challenge for any SNL guest host. For ScarJo to step into the aquatic realm with McKinnon's Shud — a blobfish mermaid — was a huge challenge. But hang with McKinnon she did, playing a similarly hideous anglerfish mermaid, whose sexual congress with Shud is best left to the theoretical.

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Joe Reid is the senior writer at Primetimer and co-host of the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast. His work has appeared in Decider, NPR, HuffPost, The Atlantic, Slate, Polygon, Vanity Fair, Vulture, The A.V. Club and more.