Category: saturday night live: season 52

Inde Navarette hosts the best ‘Saturday Night Live’ of the season so far. Any questions?

by Therese Odell, posted in saturday night live: season 52

Saturday Night Live
Inde Navarrette & Gracie Abrams
October 31, 2026

Despite Inde Navarrette not being a household name (yet), she was the perfect choice to host the Halloween episode of Saturday Night Live this year. Navarrette plays the tragic Nikki in the horror sensation, Obsession, and has apparently been recruited to join the Marvel universe as Rogue in an upcoming X-Men movie. She is very pretty, and like most talented horror vixens, has surprising range. But that doesn’t necessarily translate into success navigating a live comedy program. We needn’t have worried, it turns out, because not only was Navarrette clearly very comfortable doing comedy and allowing herself to be goofy, she almost seemed more comfortable, more charged up in the live bits than in the safe pre-taped sketches. In fact, her portrayal as a horny dude might have been the highlight of the episode for me, an episode that also included a surprise appearance from both David S. Pumpkins and Drunk Uncle. I predict Inde Navarette will go on to be a big star, and that we’ll be seeing more of her on SNL in the future. (At least I hope so!)

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In which I arrive late to the Shane Gillis hate party at ‘Saturday Night Live’

by Therese Odell, posted in saturday night live: season 52

Saturday Night Live
Shane Gillis & Rosalía
October 10, 2026

What more can I say about Shane Gillis being invited back a third time to host this show after bombing the previous two times, and then using that third, undeserved opportunity to spew some misogynistic and homophobic bullshit in his monologue, other than …

I mean, really, though: what are we doing here, Lorne?

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Not even Taylor Swift can save Dakota Johnson’s ‘Saturday Night Live’

by Therese Odell, posted in saturday night live: season 52

Saturday Night Live
Dakota Johnson & Turnstile
October 3, 2026

Look. Dakota Johnson is not for everyone. She has a very laconic, even terse delivery, and she’s not exactly known as a comic actor. She’s not wacky. And despite that, to their credit, Saturday Night Live managed to find a couple of places where her very wry personality worked well in this episode.

But for the most part, the episode was a disappointment for a couple of reasons. First, as noted, Dakota Johnson can be funny when the writing is in her wheelhouse (see this great “Please Don’t Destroy” bit from the last time she hosted): namely, when Johnson is being mean and dismissive. When they ask her to do an impersonation or play a character (I’m thinking specifically about the Game of Thrones spoof in this episode), she’s just not up to the task; she lacks goofiness.

But the disappointment in the episode doesn’t land entirely at Johnson’s feet — the writing just wasn’t there this week. The episode felt like a hodgepodge of sketches that any host could have been plugged into, bits that they didn’t have to worry a serious actor would mess up. But the sketches were also just weak, especially in the back half of the episode. Listen, it wasn’t as bad as last week, and Turnstile was a great musical act, but it is an episode no one is going to remember two months from now.

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Jalen Brunson fumbles (?) strikes out (?) as host of ‘Saturday Night Live’

by Therese Odell, posted in saturday night live: season 52

Saturday Night Live
Jalen Brunson & Katseye
September 26, 2026

The thing is, it’s not Jalen Brunson’s fault. The man is a star; a great NBA player who gave his city a championship three decades in the making. And so I’m not in the least bit surprised that the cast and crew of Saturday Night Live wanted to meet him work with him — so much so that they pushed up the season premiere to accommodate his schedule.

But the bottom line is, Jalen Brunson is a professional athlete. And if you’re a professional athlete, unless your last name is “Manning,” you’re not going to be great at reading lines, doing comedy, or acting. That’s not part of your job description, and no one expects it to be! And yet, every couple of years, Saturday Night Live has a bout of amnesia and thinks, “Yeah, but what if [Famous Athlete] could act and/or be funny?” And here we are again.

You gave it a shot, Jalen. But maybe stick to the court.

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