The best of Kate McKinnon’s first five years on Saturday Night Live

Paul Brittain all but did the world a favor by cutting off his Saturday Night Live cast tenure halfway through his sophomore season. Within three months, the show plugged the void by enlisting Kate McKinnon on March 29, 2012. She went onscreen for the first time nine days later, five years ago this weekend.

McKinnon wasted little time capitalizing on a hand-in-hand influx of necessity and opportunity. She had only been with the troupe for seven weeks and five episodes when then-incumbent female torchbearer Kristen Wiig moved on. Over the next year, the talent hemorrhage continued in the forms of Andy Samberg, Abby Elliott, Bill Hader, Fred Armisen and Jason Sudeikis.

As she prepares to round out her fifth full season, McKinnon is suddenly the fourth-longest tenured current cast member. Based on the branches her performances have spawned — Ghostbusters not being the least of them — she has been the most accomplished of the 16.

Within SNL’s boundaries alone, she has kept ample interest afloat. She was finally rewarded for that with a 2016 Primetime Emmy as the best supporting actress in a comedy series after two prior nominations in the same category. A cornucopia of other prizes have flooded in with the help of her output in Studio 8H.

It is a safe bet she will be up for a slew of repeats in 2017. How soon she will graduate from her launching pad is anyone’s guess, but she has already ingrained the following five items, among others, into every SNL devotee’s scrapbook.

Best U.S. political impression: Hillary Clinton
Did Vanessa Bayer’s one-off attempt at this coveted role even happen?

Well, yes, that did happen prior to Mother’s Day 2014, and there is archived video to prove it. But a year later, once Clinton’s candidacy for the 2016 presidential race was official, McKinnon was swift to justify the recast.

In deference to Bayer’s nothing-terribly-wrong performance, McKinnon perfected her replication of Clinton’s voice and mannerisms. And when the time came to stretch the satire, particularly on the e-mails issue, she never held back.

Keep that in mind for the next time someone within earshot snorts that SNL never lampoons liberals. Any montage of the McKinnon-as-Clinton act will douse that argument faster than a snowball extinguishes a candle.

Best international impression: Angela Markel
Portraying a head of state from another major country is virtually on the same plane as portraying a major U.S. political candidate. That notion is squared, if not cubed, when that head of state is generally considered the most influential leader outside of America.

With that in mind, McKinnon certified her ceiling no later than her second year at SNL when she assumed the role of the German Chancellor. She frequently embellishes stress-induced emotion, thus capturing the weight of the hat Merkel wears in European and world affairs. In other scenarios, McKinnon deadpans the exaggerated one-liners that are just barely more preposterous than what the real Chancellor confronts.

The way McKinnon nailed this part doubtlessly paved her role to the coveted Clinton impression and a subsequent slew of other public figures (e.g. Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Elizabeth Warren, Kellyanne Conway). It was also one of her first regular displays of accent rage, which in tandem with the displays of distress has come through in her best fictional figure (more on that later).

Best pop-culture impression: Justin Bieber
While crossing gender lines does not work every time in comedy, this is an impeccable example of when it does.

As McKinnon herself explained in a 2014 interview with Conan O’Brien, the expressions are essential in this act. And while the lines do not lose a dewdrop of importance, the excessive attempts to appear cool and appealing to “Girl” animate the amusement.

For as long as McKinnon has been at SNL, Bieber has had a way of tripping himself up through poorly executed attempts to be the good kind of “bad boy.” Each time he makes headlines raring for ridicule, McKinnon is poised to pick up the comedy capital.

Best straight foil: Jane Lynch
While McKinnon-as-Lynch may have a hard time accepting what she oversees as “a real game,” this routine is a genuine gem beyond dispute.

The only reason Hollywood Game Night will never match the legacy of Celebrity Jeopardy! among SNL game-show parodies is because the latter set a nearly unreachable bar. With that said, McKinnon certifies her versatility as the show’s frustrated host the same way Will Ferrell did as Alex Trebek.

A true comedic team MVP knows how to occasionally cede the laugh magnets to everyone else while still packing a few reactionary zingers. McKinnon and Ferrell alike have done that when their characters deal with a smattering of A-listers who cannot get out of their own way in a trivia game. Their delivery never disappoints, even when their contestants do.

Best fictional character: Olya Povlatsky
Borat dashed any realistic hopes of what might have been the next SNL sketch-turned-film. If not for Sacha Baron Cohen’s 2006 mockumentary movie, McKinnon could easily have taken her own villager from a former Soviet Republic to the big screen.

At this point, there is no chance of attempting that without coming across as a pathetic copycat. But why dwell on what one cannot have when Olya’s frequent spots on Weekend Update exist? The wide-eyed laments of desperation and the visuals they leave to the audience’s imagination are more than satisfying on their own.