SNL Ends Jalen Brunson’s Winning Streak in a Listless Season 52 Premiere

And Your Host…

“I’m very excited, as you can tell from my voice and face.”

A lot is going to be written about Jalen Brunson‘s performance as host of SNL‘s Season 52 premiere. But let’s take a step back to promise that I’m not going to deploy any basketball metaphors to sum up the New York Knicks finals MVP’s work here. (And that that “step back” was inadvertent.) Was Brunson good on the show? No, not at all. Was he the worst athlete host the show’s ever booked? Also no. See: Lance Armstrong, Michael Phelps, Nancy Kerrigan, Jonny Moseley, I could go on.

The choice to put hoops superstar Brunson on as host of the Season 52 premiere is what’s on trial here. On one hand, I get it—sort of. New York is as baked into SNL‘s DNA as middling recurring sketches, and the fact that the city’s number one basketball franchise finally won a championship after decades of massive payrolls in the country’s biggest market is going to bring in some hometown goodwill. But, you know, the rest of us are out here as well, looking for a real jolt of renewed focus and energy for SNL‘s unprecedented 52nd season. And watching a game but hopelessly out-of-his-element sports guy stumble through some (admittedly not-great) sketches wasn’t that.

Honestly, the first three announced hosts for Season 52 are puzzling, if not outright concerning. Third-time host Dakota Johnson—while, you know, a professional actor—isn’t exactly a comedy dynamo. (And she won’t have 2/3 of Please Don’t Destroy in the house to kick around this time.) And Shane Gillis remains Lorne Michaels‘ avatar of “how dare you question me?” spite booking, even if the fired-for-hacky-bigotry almost cast member is technically a comedian.

Poor Brunson (who can at least console himself with being rich, handsome, and amazing at his chosen vocation) was tossed out first for some cheap heat that dissipated midway through his monologue. There have been precious few athletes who surprised us on SNL (and standouts like The Rock and John Cena were half-actors already), and the fact that Brunson’s not one of those isn’t really his fault.

The Best and the Rest

The Best: It is not a good sign that I contemplated leaving this slot blank on the first show, scanning my notes and my memory of some truly unremarkable sketches before deciding that that would be the coward’s way out. Unsurprisingly, pre-tapes better served a non-professional actor, but the High School Musical sketch suffered from some fatal defects that we’ll get to. So I’ll go with the girl group short based on some fine work from new featured player Grace Reiter and newly promoted Jane Wickline.

I’m not going to harp on utterly artificial robotically choreographed “girl group” KATSEYE or their reality show origins except to say that, yes, yes I am. On the list of prefabricated musical groups, they’re no The Monkees, is what I’m saying.

Anyway, at least the band allowed a little self-mockery as the short about the second season of the show that birthed them sees Wickline and Reiter parlaying their witnessing of producer Ashley Padilla‘s hit-and-run into a tryout for the next big AI-looking and sounding chart-toppers.

The joke really isn’t on Duff and Margle, the Dothraki-speaking weirdos turned recording stars, but on how their grubby imaginations (I would at least check out a band called Haircut for a Spider) are far more interesting to spend time with than the show’s pre-selected song-robots. Wickline has taken years of abuse for being just this sort of engagingly offbeat oddball on SNL, and now she’s in the main cast, with self-built sketch machine Reiter a seeming perfect running partner.

The Worst: While Brunson’s leaden helplessness out there dragged many a sketch to the deeps, it’s hard to get too worked up at the listless lot of them. So I’ll pick the other pre-tape for the true bottom, a well-produced High School Musical riff that actually roused itself to piss me off.

Jeremy Culhane is engaging as the school’s Zac Efron-esque hoops star, whose kindly act to let Brunson’s new kid try out for the team backfires in a series of physical beatdowns and a stolen girlfriend. Saturday Night Live often caters to a big, burly guest host with a sketch allowing them to live out their bullying dark sides in a reversal of the expected “underdog triumphs” template. It’s weird and not a little off-putting that the premise switcheroo rests on an essentially “Take that, nerds!” sensibility, as Brunson here easily swats Culhane’s mid-song shot attempts, dribbles the ball off his head, and offhandedly shoves him into the gym wall.

And then there’s Kam Patterson. As the team’s one Black player, he’s liberated by the brutish Brunson’s presence, blurting, “I didn’t know basketball could be, like, not gay!,” in a super-fun echo of the Kill Tony alum’s own homophobic remarks about SNL last season. Putting that line in Patterson’s mouth is an endorsement. It sucks. Look for Patterson and Gillis to double team some more such “edgy” jokes in a few weeks.

The Rest: I have to give it up to venerable pro Mikey Day. Clearly assigned as Brunson’s minder this week, Day actually managed to wring a few laughs out of simply screaming into (or slapping) the host’s face.

In the airport sketch, Day and Brunson are a couple of gay-coded passengers who get way too into the complimentary terminal massage chairs, with Day gyrating and moaning so energetically close to Brunson’s kisser that Brunson’s glimmer of breaking got the host’s only real laughs. Not much more to the piece than Day’s heroic hamming, but it brought some energy.

And the post-monologue sketch saw Day also applying some defibrillators to a jock-hobbled sketch, as his outwardly bland boss finally hauls off and smacks Brunson’s wastepaper basketball obsessed employee in the face, again and again. It’s an off-course escalation into absurdity, but at least it’s something.

The gag that Brunson’s poor-shooting coworker is actually not the mild-mannered Darius Barcelona but actually an undercover Brunson fizzles amidst the host’s halting delivery. (Man, there are more dead spots in this show than the old Boston Garden floor.) And while the medium-risk punchline of a post-revelation Brunson actually making a shot on live TV is a kick, the overall anxious vibe that an amateur host brings never lifted.

“Parent-Teacher Conference” gave Ashley Padilla her only real star turn tonight as a mom who brings her “sensual support system” to the meeting in the form of Kenan Thompson (yay!) and Brunson (uh…). It’s a showpiece for Kenan, too, as he gets to channel another of his leering oddballs as Padilla happily informs teacher Ben Marshall (doing traditional Mikey Day duty by sputtering out baffled straight lines) how Maurice and Lulu keep her happy.

Not to pile on Brunson more than necessary, but from the moment he enters by swallowing his character’s name, the sketch is battling uphill. Kenan and Padilla do what they can—Kenan assures Marshall that their “lurve” triangle “is isosceles,” snapping off the words with maniac precision—but with Brunson overtasked at playing an actual outsized character, the sketch founders.

As ever, I look forward to seeing how a new cast coheres around its strongest voices, and Kenan and Padilla are right at the center of the solution for Season 52. Their chemistry here is promising as ever, but even two brilliant comics can do only so much.

The support group for men whose wives were pulled onstage at a Chris Brown-Usher concert—stop me if you’ve heard this—suffered from Brunson’s central presence.

The premise itself was topical enough (even if it rode past the whole “Chris Brown and women” elephant in the room), with Kenan unsurprisingly turning his aggrieved husband’s complaint into an amusing display of odd pronunciation (“Damn you, Ursher!”) and squirrely inner weirdness. His complaint about Usher’s choice of fruit to drop in his wife’s mouth (“Cherries are out of season!”) gave me my one out-loud chuckle of the evening. And fellow attendee Kam Patterson complaining, “If God is real why would he create talented light skins?” also came out of happy nowhere.

In this first review of Season 52, I want to throw some additional props to James Austin Johnson. Being saddled with Trump duty means the absurdly talented character man often gets shorted on screen time aside from the cold open, but Johnson never brings anything less than his A-game, no matter the role. Here, in the midst of another so-so sketch not helped by the host’s lumbering delivery, Johnson pitched in a committed impression of Shark Tank buffoon and Trump-cuddling rich guy Kevin O’Leary. Guy’s a pro.

The sketch, with Jeremy Culhane and Ben Marshall’s self-proclaimed “femventors” pitching eyeglasses that sound an alarm when guys look at women’s chests, suffers from Brunson-ing, certainly—the pace is deadening. And while the concept of would-be antidotes to Meta’s “pervert glasses” goes predictably wrong, the chuckles are subsumed by the overall flop-silence. And yet, there’s JAJ plugging away, telling the abashed inventors bluntly, “I was born in 1601. I’m a vampire, but you two are monsters and you belong in hell” with Phil Hartman-style polish in the midst of the void.

‘Weekend Update’ Update

Across the sea, SNL UK‘s “Weekend Update” illustrates what’s long, long past its due date with the Jost-Che version.

Ania Magliano and Paddy Young get gasps and nervous titters for their topical jokes, too, but they’re not making themselves (yet, at least) the real point. Jost and Che, back for their record-breaking 13th season behind the desk, spent most of the premiere congratulating themselves for being so darn naughty, and it’s beyond tired.

I could (and no doubt will) get tiresome myself complaining how little these hosts do with their plum fake news showcase. (Honestly, after this summer’s worth of mounting Republican evil, the duo simply chuckled along on mid-season cruise control.)

But their constant post-zinger asides (“We’re back!,” “Why did I think that would end in a laugh?”) displayed a level of self-satisfaction enough for two Chevy Chases. Jost and Che’s complacent stranglehold on “Weekend Update” has choked out all the segment’s potential bite.

Jane Wickline got into some impressive costumery as Anthropic head Dario Amodei, signaling that her elevation to the main cast has seen her ready to broaden her range a bit.

The piece, about the AI guru’s complete inability to assuage anyone’s fears that (as one AI tech stated this week) the unfettered technology is on course to murder us all, gives Wickline some room to work. She’s not a natural character comedian, but the idea that the suddenly waffling CEO can’t stifle the demon-voice emerging intermittently to confirm our worst fears is a funny bit. (“AI is the devil and I its maker!”)

And if, as in the cold open, the whole joke rests on the “all tech nerds are on the spectrum” cliché, in this case the impression’s at least true to Amodei’s twitchy pitches for the technology currently hacking other systems on its own while dumbing humanity down further than even I thought possible.

Recurring Sketch Report

With an entire hiatus to work from, it’s never a great sign when there’s a returning bit right out of the gate. And while Jeremy Culhane does an uncanny, appropriately punchable Tucker Carlson, what’s so fresh and immediate in having the clownish right-wing podcaster reviewing the summer movies?

Culhane has Carlson’s singsong cadence and reliance on faux-exasperated leading questions down just fine, and the disgraced former Fox News contributor (long list there) certainly has made outraged targeting of Hollywood “wokeness” his bread and butter. But wheeling him out so soon suggests “Update”‘s strategy to camp out in the same old mushy middle, even if it’s tough to begrudge the talented Culhane a lucrative recurring character.

Political Comedy Report

Look, America (well, white America) voted in Donald Trump, so it’s fruitless to fret about Season 52 kicking off with a Donald Trump cold open.

I don’t quite get the casting of Ramy Youssef as New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, apart from the Queens native being within a few miles of the studio. He doesn’t look or sound like Mamdani and isn’t especially adept at impressions. Meanwhile, for all JAJ’s assiduously detailed mimicry and the efforts of the makeup department, James Austin Johnson’s Trump remains a loaded signifier in search of something to say. I admire the craft even if SNL refuses to settle on any satirical take but buffoonery.

The weird, baffling, beyond-unlikely kinship the real Trump obviously feels for the socialist mayor of Trump’s hometown is a fascinating topic for comedy (and psychological study), but the sketch doesn’t do much more than ask Youssef to stand by awkwardly while JAJ’s Trump rambles.

The sketch wants to get its reliable both-sides licks in, portraying the mayor as a social media-obsessed self-promoter who’s scheduled to “give ketamine to underprivileged bisexuals” as part of his duties. Trump, for his part, mainly swoons over “Mamdreamy” and fends off the attentions of his rain-soaked personal assistant and rumored side-squeeze Natalie Harp (Ashley Padilla), whom he describes as “like the girl from Obsession but blonde.”

Padilla announced her presence as SNL‘s returning star player with a funny, “If you hurt him I will end you,” growl into Mamdani’s ear, but for the first show back after a summer of truly noteworthy Trump misdeeds, this is the same old toothless stuff.

Not Ready for Prime Time Power Rankings

Top spot goes to Mikey Day, who apparently was tasked with shepherding Brunson through the show. In the office and airport sketches, Day got loud and physical trying to goose some energy out of the Knicks point guard, and almost managed it both times.

Of the two new kids, Grace Reiter seems poised to take on the broad, boisterous weirdo role with some confidence, while Saidah Belo-Osagie got just a brief first-show chance to do her thing. As ever, it’s a long season in one of the toughest jobs in show biz, but it was genuinely adorable to watch these two new hires leaping in tandem excitement during the goodnights for getting over that first hurdle. Best of luck.

Not much happening for Marcello Hernandez or Sarah Sherman tonight. Big cast, long season—they’ll be fine.

10-to-Oneland Report

Squeezing in one more Jalen Brunson-led sketch before the goodnights, at least the locker room piece put the Knicks star on his home turf, as himself.

It didn’t help his timing any, but there were a few laughs courtesy, unsurprisingly, of Kenan Thompson. As the exhausted post-game Brunson’s former grade school coach (for three games anyway), Kenan does admirably familiar character work, presenting an aged grifter whose sentimental patter about young Jalen unspools to reveal a tangle of loopy, grasping strangeness within.

After refreshing Brunson’s memory with tales of his drinking problem and the time he showed the lad his gun, Kenan’s coach beams his way through a series of ineptly energetic bids for cash, culminating with his screenplay for a Spider-Man porno starring Grace Reiter’s obliging immigrant.

The way Kenan immediately reverses gears from “Now, I’m not gonna tell you a sob story” to “And to tell you maybe a little sob story” is what Kenan can do like nobody else, and if Brunson’s no more comfortable playing himself on live TV than he is playing characters, it’s nice to know Kenan will be around for another season to pick up the inevitable slack.

Stray Observations

• KATSEYE only showed up with four of their six members due to the band having a more active injury list than the Knicks.
• I get that I’m hardly the audience for a reality-show-spawned girl group who may or may not have sung a single live note, but KATSEYE’s fruit song was basically a 30 Rock bit, right?
• In his monologue, Brunson teased last year’s playoff performance, saying of his episode, “the first three quarters of the show gonna be god awful the last sketch gonna be amazing.” Yeah, about that…
• Fellow Knicks Karl-Anthony Towns, Josh Hart, Mikal Bridges and OG Anunoby asked their MVP audience questions. That at least three of them were more engaged than Brunson was a bad sign right off the bat.
• Kenan has developed a decent—if not Jay Pharoah-level—Stephen A. Smith.
• JAJ’s reading of, “I just don’t think that’s a great thing to say,” after Brunson calls himself an “office shooter” is outstanding underplaying.
• “Ay Chihuahua airlines is not janky!”
• Che: “A video was posted of Senator Mitch McConnell returning to his Washington DC home and giving reporters the peace symbol. To show what he refuses to rest in.”
• Special thanks to my niece, a Grace Reiter superfan, for keeping me hip and predicting great things for the YouTube celebrity.
• And we’re back! Thanks to all of you LateNighter readers who’ve joined me for another full season of Saturday Night Live reviews. Let’s do this thing.

Episode Grade: C-Minus.

Next week: Dakota Johnson and musical guest Turnstile.

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