Saturday Night Live tips off its 52nd season this weekend with a host who has already given New York plenty to celebrate.
Knicks captain and reigning NBA Finals MVP Jalen Brunson is set to make his hosting debut just over three months after leading the Knicks to their first championship since 1973. He’ll be joined by global girl group KATSEYE, making their own debut as musical guest.
An SNL season premiere is always something of a temperature check: Who’s going to drive the ensemble? How quickly will the newcomers get thrown into the deep end? What has the show decided is worth talking about after four months away?
This year comes with an added wrinkle: Brunson joins a distinguished line of NBA stars entrusted with opening an SNL season. Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, and LeBron James have all hosted premieres, with Jordan’s 1991 episode still offering a useful blueprint for how the show can deploy an athlete host: let the cast drive the comedy, give the host something specific to play, and don’t be afraid to make him look ridiculous.
Here are five storylines we’ll be tracking Saturday night:
New York’s Night
The Knicks’ championship run turned Brunson into something more than another athlete host. SNL has the chance to tap into a celebration that consumed its hometown all summer—and there are plenty of ways to bring some of that New York energy into Studio 8H.
Knicks teammates Josh Hart and Karl-Anthony Towns are among the night’s most obvious cameo candidates. So is Mariska Hargitay, the famously devoted Knicks fan who recently shared the Emmys stage with Brunson and will welcome him onto Law & Order: SVU this fall. Could she return the favor Saturday night?
NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani is another intriguing possibility. He poured cold water on the idea earlier this week, though those comments would likely have preceded any potential invitation. Then there’s Alec Baldwin, who was spotted at this week’s read-through, adding yet another familiar New York face to the speculation.
None of those names needs to show up for the episode to work. But with Brunson in the house, it’s hard to imagine the show not giving him and the city it calls home some sort of victory lap.
Related story: Jalen Brunson Could Give SNL the New York Premiere It Needs
Captain Padilla
Brunson won’t be the only star player in the building Saturday night.
After her meteoric rise last season, Ashley Padilla enters Season 52 newly promoted to repertory player—and with a very different set of expectations. Viewers are no longer discovering that she can carry a sketch. Now they’re waiting to see what she does next.
A host like Brunson could make Padilla particularly valuable. Athlete-host episodes often work best when the cast supplies the comic engine and gives the host something simple and specific to play. Padilla’s ability to enter a scene at full intensity makes her an ideal partner: she can establish the absurdity, Brunson can react to it, and they can build from there.
The bigger question is whether last season’s breakout becomes a sustained run of dominance. The cast members who eventually enter the all-time-great conversation are the ones who keep finding new ways to surprise us after we already know how good they are.
One episode can’t establish that kind of legacy. But after spending much of Season 51 climbing the cast’s statistical leaderboard, Padilla enters Season 52 with nowhere left to sneak up from.
Pressing Matters
Three months away gives SNL plenty of political material to sort through, but the White House’s recent exclusion of CNN, MS NOW, and Politico offers perhaps the cleanest cold-open premise: a Donald Trump press conference where the president gets to decide who is allowed to ask the questions.
That setup feels particularly well suited to James Austin Johnson’s Trump. Put him behind a podium, surround him with reporters and administration figures, and let the ostensible subject gradually disappear beneath the impression’s trademark digressions.
The approaching midterms give the writers another lane, with Republicans confronting an increasingly competitive political environment heading into November. That could lend itself to another familiar SNL structure: Trump projecting total confidence while everyone around him is considerably less relaxed.
Whatever direction the show chooses, Saturday should offer our first indication of how SNL plans to approach Trump and the midterms this fall—and whether Season 52’s political sketches will look much different from last year’s.
Rookie Report
There are few pleasures in an SNL premiere quite like watching for the moment a new cast member gets the ball. This weekend, that means Grace Reiter and Saidah Belo-Osagie.
Last season offered several very different rookie introductions. Jeremy Culhane was literally the first cast member viewers saw on screen. Kam Patterson got an early opportunity to introduce himself behind the “Weekend Update” desk, while Veronika Slowikowska began finding her way into more substantial sketch roles.
A cast member’s first assignment doesn’t determine an SNL career, but it can provide an early clue about what the show saw in a performer when it hired them.
For Reiter and Belo-Osagie, the thing to watch isn’t necessarily how much screen time they get, but what they do with it. One distinctive character, unexpected delivery, or memorable exchange can tell us considerably more than three interchangeable supporting roles.
Who Inherits the Impression Desk?
Chloe Fineman’s departure after seven seasons leaves SNL without the cast member it routinely turned to whenever a famous woman suddenly became part of the week’s news.
Fineman’s bench included Melania Trump, Drew Barrymore, Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Coolidge, and Timothée Chalamet, among many others. Her exit creates a practical question whenever one of those celebrities becomes sketch-worthy again: who plays them now?
SNL doesn’t need to formally redistribute Fineman’s repertoire. Some impressions may simply disappear, others could pass to returning performers, and the newcomers may bring celebrity impressions we haven’t seen yet. But those casting decisions can change the feel of a season. A new interpretation might give a familiar target a second life, or a performer’s unexpected specialty could become the reason a sketch gets written at all.
While season-to-season trends like these tend to emerge over time, opening nights tend to offer clues; every season premiere over the last five years has featured a sketch with celebrity impressions.
This weekend’s Saturday Night Live airs Saturday, September 26 at 11:30 p.m. ET / 8:30 p.m. PT on NBC and Peacock.
Join us at LateNighter.com immediately after for the Saturday Night Network’s live after-show, where SNL experts and superfans share their hot takes on the night’s best and worst moments.
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