Earlier this week, New York Magazine’s Vulture blog ran a season-wrap up package for Saturday Night Live, including a fascinating (to me, anyway) statistical breakdown of cast member appearances, surprise guests, and frequent impersonations. As much as I appreciated the attention to the show, which gets ignored or dismissed in a lot of episode-by-episode TV-watching outlets, Vulture undermined their exhaustive research by putting out these pieces before the season actually ended which seems to me a bit like putting out a summer movie season recap in the second week in August. Actually, this probably will start happening soon or already has, but it doesn’t make it not stupid.

And yet, there was something odd about the Will Ferrell-hosted season finale this weekend. To Vulture’s extremely tiny credit, it felt more like a spirited encore than a parting shot. It’s been a longer-than-average season for SNL; following a strike-shortened 13-episode season, they came back earlier and wound up doing 22 episodes rather than the recent standard 20, plus a bunch of those Thursday extras. This whole episode felt like an extra, a Ferrell-led tribute to nothing much in particular.