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During his fourth time as host Saturday Night LiveChris Rock brought a particularly magnetic and mischievous energy – one that showed he was a good-natured troll. In the series’ best moments, it followed suit: The episode was full of sketches that seemed to tease familiar premises before turning them on their heads, and many of Rock’s characters drew on his expressive stand-up persona and impulsive sense of humor humor back. References that seemed dated ended up feeling current; A skit about a car based on Herbie, the sentient ’60s Volkswagen Beetle who hasn’t appeared in a film for nearly two decades, ended up confronting the racism of older generations. The result was an evening that was, by its very nature, strangely refreshing. Even the show’s most unpolished moments, which really weren’t suitable for prime time, turned out to be hilarious.

In Rock’s first (and strongest) sketch, he played an elf greeting customers visiting Santa at the mall – only in his case, he offered them two Santas to choose from: one played by a white actor and one played by a black one. The question was obviously intended to make people – especially white people who didn’t want to seem racist – reel, but Rock delivered each line as if he were a salesman inviting his customer to take advantage of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “All you have to do is tell me which Santa Claus you want to go to,” he said, grinning. “Which Santa Claus would you like your daughter to take a photo with, a picture you will cherish?” relax of your life?”

The couple he was talking to, played by Heidi Gardner and Mikey Day, probably shouldn’t have responded. But Rock, an experienced comedian and SNL Veteran, specializes in characters who aren’t afraid to make others see their own hypocrisies. When Day’s character asked about the “normal” Santa Claus, Rock feigned ignorance: “‘Normal’? “Normal” instead of “extra crispy”? You have to be a little more precise.” His knowledge was reminiscent of one of his most popular SNL Appearances included appearing as a guest at a 2016 election night party where most attendees assumed Hillary Clinton would win. Rock’s character and a character played by the episode’s host, Dave Chappelle, were the only nonwhite guests — and therefore the only ones who weren’t shocked that so many Americans would vote for Donald Trump, a candidate to whom the other guests just thought “racists” would support. Undisturbed, Rock smiled broadly throughout the skit, while the partygoers around him grimaced. “Don’t worry,” he assured them sarcastically, “it will all be white.”

Read: The Rage of Chris Rock

Rock’s opening monologue last night was also playfully deceptive. Unlike some other comics that have hosted SNLdidn’t he present what looked like a collection of clips from an upcoming special. While he poked fun at headlines, he lured the crowd into expecting banal remarks that then led to a provocative punchline. He offered his condolences to the family of the slain UnitedHealthcare CEO, leaving the audience completely silent at his apparent seriousness. He then revealed that his sadness was fake: “You know, sometimes drug dealers get shot.”

Rock repeatedly played with the audience’s expectations. While he mocked some Americans’ outrage over Trump’s re-election, those in the room agreed with him about how unsurprising Trump’s victory was and pointed out that America has a long history of celebrating underachieving leaders. “People say, ‘He’ll be so unworthy.’ “It’s the presidency of the United States,” he said. “Come on, man – this isn’t the most dignified job in the world. You know that presidents have shown up to the inauguration with pregnant slave girls, okay?” He seemed ready to give a serious history lesson — and then he revealed a more contemporary target. “And I’m just talking about Bill Clinton!” he said in an apparent reference to the former president’s misconduct in office. When he declared that “no one knows how to get rid of people like a South African” – a joke about Elon Musk’s close ties to Trump and Trump’s plan to deport undocumented immigrants – the crowd laughed and groaned at the same time and was cheered by him swept away by Rock’s pure confidence and hard work.

Later, that rebellious energy flowed through a skit about a Secret Santa exchange. In it, Rock played a character who received what he considered “the best gift I’ve ever received in my life”: a cartoon portrait of him drawn as if he were a character in it The Simpsons. At first he seemed like the odd one out, the over-enthusiastic guy at the party who wouldn’t stop talking about his character’s episode The Simpsons would be like. But Rock brought such complete certainty of his importance to his role The Simpsons‘ Lore that everyone started playing along. Instead of being about a group of observers helplessly tolerating their strange friend, the sketch became an absurd illustration of the way groupthink manifests itself.

But one of the episode’s most memorable moments came from something that seemed completely unplanned. In “Gallbladder Surgery,” Adam Sandler guest-starred as a patient whose artery began spewing an absurd amount of blood at the surgeons around the operating table who were trying to fix a worried nurse’s mistakes. As in the Simpsons In the sketch, a character – in this case the nurse in question (Sarah Sherman) – was put in the position of taking on the role with crazy catchphrases. However, as the scene continued, Sandler’s patient took the spotlight as a technical glitch forced the actor to say the same line three times while waiting for the blood-guzzling mechanism to work. When Sandler finally delivered a series of fourth-wall-breaking lines: “I’m not sure what your role is in this skit, but I’m really glad you’re getting airtime,” he told the doctor, played by the new one Actor Emil Wakim – The sketch had started getting rid of all the actors. While they held it together, Sherman still managed to end the proceedings with a silly punchline.

SNL In other words, there was a night of controlled chaos. Rock may not have been the strongest host this season, but the comedian delivered a bold monologue that seemed to inspire a similarly light-hearted approach in the evening’s sketches. Like the greeter who introduced two mall Santas, Rock had no problem trolling the audience with unpredictable twists. They continued to puzzle. And then they started laughing.