Saturday Night Live
Finn Wolfhard & A$AP Rocky
January 17, 2025
Finn Wolfhard has spent the last ten years of his life as one of the stars of Netflix’s biggest series, Stranger Things, and he (along with the rest of the cast) is VERY READY to move on with their adult careers now, please and thank you. To that end, he hosted the first Saturday Night Live of 2026 where Wolfhard … talked about Stranger Things, starred in a Stranger Things sketch, played Harry Potter, portrayed a 16-year-old podcaster, and was cast as a teen who rejects his boy band family legacy. To be fair to SNL, 23-year-old Finn Wolfhard is young-looking (just check out those 12 hairs on his chin), so I get casting him over and over again as a teenager. But to not be fair to SNL, they could have tried to write better teen sketches for him to lead.
As a host, Wolfhard seemed a little nervous at first, but by the end of the night, he had relaxed into the role and seemed to genuinely be having fun with it. As for the episode itself, I’m going to assume that it appealed to Wolfhard’s natural audience who are my kids’ ages — if not younger. It just wasn’t particularly appealing to me. /oldpersonrant
Since we were last at 30 Rock, a lot of shit has gone down in this country: an invasion of a foreign country and the kidnapping of its leader; the invasion of an American city and the murder of one of its citizens; more threats against Greenland and NATO; more threats to use the Insurrection Act; more threats to cancel the midterm elections; the President taking another person’s Nobel Peace Prize; the leader of the free world wandering around aimlessly in a meeting with oil and gas companies; and no other Epstein files have been released. It’s been a lot! And so I don’t blame SNL for doing a political cold open, but this week it feels particularly not up to the task of capturing how completely batshit insane EVERYTHING is right now.
Grade: B
Finn Wolfhard’s monologue is mostly about the awkwardness of having grown up on camera during the decade+ they filmed Stranger Things. He brings out co-stars Gaten Matarazzo and Caleb McLaughlin to emphasize the point. It’s mostly for the Stranger Things fans out there, and that’s fine. That’s the whole reason he’s hosting, after all.
Grade: B
The Snack Homiez are back (including Sabrina Carpenter), along with one of their older cousins, played by Wolfhard, who is big into looksmaxxing. A$AP Rocky also swings by the podcast to promote his Rap Snacks (which actually do sound delicious). It’s a LOT of Gen Alpha/Z slang.
Grade: B-
Harry Potter + Heated Rivalry is the entire concept of this sketch, and I’d complain that the humor was puerile, but that’s entirely the point. It goes exactly where you’d expect it to (except the relationship is between Harry and Ron, and not Harry and Draco, mostly because Ben Marshall and his red hair are right there), and that’s fine. Oh, and Jason Momoa makes a cameo as hot Hagrid.
Grade: B
A college-age kid wants to use his college fun to join his indie band and go on tour, much to the dismay of his boy band father who wants him to follow in his footsteps. There might have been potential there, but it completely falls flat, aside from one Pixies joke. Disappointing all around.
Grade: D
They had to do a Stranger Things sketch, obviously, so here they imagine the inevitable sequels and spinoffs, including one where Steve is a Dangerous Minds-style teacher in inner-city Los Angeles, Nancy is a journalist reporting on O.J. Simpson, Mike is in a Sex and the City-esque comedy with his other Stranger Things friends, and Will is still coming out. Still. Again, there are no surprises here, but I’m not angry at it, either.
Grade: B+
“Weekend Update” is pretty good, with some vicious jokes, including one about protein, and Jost makes fun of his own relationship with Scarlett Johansson. The political jokes could have had more oomph, but I also understand that we’re all a little exhausted and shell-shocked.
Grade: A-
Apparently, former NFL player Michael Irvin is a big fan of the University of Miami? And he’s been going to the games? Look, I’m not a sports girl, so I don’t know if this is a good impersonation, or why this is supposed to be funny, but sure.
Grade: B-
And I am thinking the way I felt about the sketch above, is probably how most people felt about Jane Wickline’s appearance at the Weekend Update Desk as Tamara and her buttons. Because I am neck-deep in TikTok, I understood that this was a reference to some weirdo named Tamara who posted in the comments of a video that she was going to use buttons to keep track of time this year, and then became weirdly hostile and defensive when people asked her what she meant. I like Wickline’s quirky humor, but this is just not going to be accessible unless you are familiar with the original material.
Grade: B-
A preening “space emperor” has an audience with an unhappy citizen, and demonstrates his power through the people he has serving him, including a “Snack Man” played by Mikey Day, whose sole job is to hand-feed him snacks. While the emperor tries to be menacing, his Snack Man shoves items into his mouth at what appear to be unexpected moments, the entire point seeming to be to try to make Wolfhard break (or vomit). It’s the best sketch of the night, even if it is entirely a stunt.
Grade: A-
A group of guy friends have a “Boys Day” only for Wolfhard’s character to have brought his girlfriend along — except, TWIST! — she’s a “guy’s girl” who makes boobs jokes, shotguns beers, and is more obnoxious and toxic than any of the men there. I hated every second of this.
Grade: F
Finally, satirizing this week’s live Netflix special, Skyscraper Live, in which free solo climber Alex Honnold will attempt to scale one of the world’s tallest skyscrapers with no ropes or safety equipment because he’s a lunatic, Mikey Day is similarly a free solo climber, contemplating his next stunt, as is Kenan Thompson’s Reggie, who has never climbed anything in his life. That’s it, that’s the entire joke, that Reggie is going to do this incredibly dangerous thing with no training or preparation.
Grade: C
Final Grade: C+. I really didn’t like it, y’all.
Saturday Night Live airs at 10:30/11:30 p.m. Saturdays on NBC and streams on Peacock.