Host Amy Poehler asked Kate McKinnon on her posdcast Good Hang with Amy Poehler streamed on October 28, 2025 about her farewell Saturday Night Live sketch describing how powerful and emotional it had felt to watch.
They mentioned how the sendoff scene in a spaceship where McKinnon, as her beloved character Rafferty, walks up the stairs to the waiting aliens was both moving and beautifully symbolic of her departure from the show.
Reflecting on that moment, the host Amy asked that it was never clear whether Miss Rafferty was finally meeting the aliens she had spoken of for years, being taken away by them, or possibly choosing to go willingly.
She further asked McKinnon what she thought happened to her character in that scene, and what the entire experience of that last show meant to her personally.
Kate reflected on her final Saturday Night Live sketch saying that she found it really beautiful, even though the idea was not originally her own but the Final Encounter was actually pitched by Mickey Day and Streeter Seidell, as she says:
It was not my pitch. That was Streeter [Seidell] and Mikey Day, um, came up with that.
McKinnon revealed that her own initial pitch for her last Saturday Night Live appearance was different as she wanted to play the character Sheila Sovage as she notes:
My pitch was that I did this character Sheila Sovage. Yes. Uh the barfly. Um, and my pitch was that I would tongue every single person in the cast um, in a line
In the end, she admitted that the alien-abduction concept felt more meaningful and was a better idea for her departure, so the show went with that pitch instead as she added laughing:
And you know, I thought ultimately that the alien thing was a little more meaningful and had a better tone. So, we went with that. Um, so everyone narrowly missed uh, sucking my face.
Speaking about that night, McKinnon described how emotional it was for her to say goodbye after appearing in more than 200 episodes. She said that Saturday Night Live meant everything to her and the people always hold a special place in her heart, noting:
But that was very emotional because uh it was every[thing] I mean…everything to me and those people are everything to me.