Will Ferrell closes 'SNL' season with Paul McCartney and doppelganger Chad Smith

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Will Ferrell has done the Will Ferrell thing for so long — playing embarrassingly self-absorbed doofuses, both fictional and based on real people — that it’s easy to forget that when it counts, he can still serve as the glue on “Saturday Night Live.”For his sixth time hosting the show since leaving the cast in 2002, Ferrell had plenty of those doofuses to portray, including a “Nudeman” dad whose underwear are exposed in the rear when he meets his daughter’s boyfriend.But in sketch after sketch on the show, he showed his usual 100% commitment to every character, even when he was playing himself in the monologue doing a bit about an identity mix-up with Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith.

(Smith stuck around for the whole show, sitting in with the “SNL” band and playing drums for Paul McCartney.)The ability to stay in character no matter how absurd the premise served Ferrell well yet again whether he was playing a doctor who accidentally chopped off a man’s penis (Mikey Day, trying hard not to laugh), a halfling in a “Lord of the Rings”-style fantasy clip who betrays his fellowship, a gibberish-speaking mechanic, and a cruel high school drama teacher (along with another former cast member, Molly Shannon) withholding a cast list for “Grease.” He also made a surprising appearance in the cold open as the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein.Ferrell was an ideal closer for Season 51, which has largely been about developing relatively new talent in the cast, including rising stars Ashley Padilla, Jeremy Culhane and Marcello Hernández.Ferrell gelled with each of them and everybody else, doing the Will Ferrell thing, which still works tremendously well after all these years.Musical guest Paul McCartney appeared in Ferrell’s monologue and in the mechanic sketch, and performed a new song, “Days We Left Behind,” as well as “Band on the Run” and “Coming U...