3 episodes, 3 storylines for ‘SNL’ Season 51

SNL is off this week, taking its first break of the season. With three episodes already in the books, though, this is the perfect time to take a look at how Season 51 of the show is shaping up — and what it means for SNL going forward.

The rise of Ashley Padilla

If you were watching SNL last season, you got glimpses of what Ashley Padilla could bring to the show. In her freshman season, Padilla already felt like a seasoned vet. She might’ve caught your attention in “Trauma Support Group,” but it was during “Joann on JOANN Fabric and Crafts’ Bankruptcy” when Padilla let it rip.

Despite only having a season under her belt, many SNL fans thought Padilla would’ve been promoted from featured status this season, but Lorne Michaels hasn’t given her the bump to repertory status just yet.

That hasn’t stopped Padilla from absolutely dominating Season 51. While she didn’t snag any airtime until the end of Bad Bunny’s season premiere with “Parent Teacher Conference,” Padilla was in a bunch of sketches during Amy Poehler’s episode, before scoring her biggest moment yet in “Surprise” when Sabrina Carpenter hosted last week.

It’s been awhile since SNL has had a cast member who feels as fully formed right off the bad as Padilla. There’s a very real chance she’s going to be the show’s next star.

The cast takes shape

Despite Michaels’ promises that SNL would see a big shakeup this season, the offseason only saw Heidi Gardner, Ego Nwodim, Michael Longfellow, Devon Walker and Emil Wakim leave while Ben Marshall shifted over from Please Don’t Destroy and Tommy Brennan, Jeremy Culhane, Kam Patterson and Veronika Slowikowska joined the cast.

The season premiere didn’t give me much confidence in the changes Michaels made. Padilla didn’t show up until the end of the show, the new cast members didn’t have a chance to show what they could do, and we bizarrely got back-to-back sketches set in a restaurant with Sarah Sherman and Chloe Fineman sitting in the exact same spots.

It was clear that without Gardner and Nwodim, the show had lost its two female leads. (The season premiere also showed that Fineman is a great supporting cast member but not one who can take turn in a tour de force like in Gardner in “Mile High Burger Challenge” or Nwodim in “Lisa from Temecula.”)

But then things started to turn around in the second episode. The whole cast got in the mix over the next two episodes, with their roles going forward starting to make more sense.

Andrew Dismukes is the show’s male lead, effortlessly building off his body of work last year (“but in Jumanji, Jumanji comes out!”), turning in sketches like “Non-Alcoholic Beer.” He’s a menace, and I love him.

Slowikowska has stepped up, getting a ton of screen time, including “Appliance Store” alongside Carpenter last week. (The folks over at Saturday Night Network crunched the numbers, and it turns out Slowikowska had the third most screentime by an SNL rookie since Season 43.)

And with Gardner and Nwodim gone, the show’s old guard seems to have ceded into the background. Kenan Thompson and Mikey Day seem to be picking their spots in terms of when they pop up. Thompson still lands a line like no one else — just watch how he steals the spotlight in “Girlboss Seminar” last weekend.

It helps that SNL’s fiftieth season and the presidential election are in the past now, as both events fed Michaels’ tendency to sacrifice the health of the show’s actual cast for stunt cameos. It’s a miracle Padilla survived Season 50 while Jane Wickline is still trying to find her place on the show and Wakim is gone after a single season.

The glaring issues

Things are looking up for the show’s cast, but Michaels still has some major issues to address. I’m not sure how it thought it made sense to go into the season with 12 male cast members and only six female cast members — a move that looked even more boneheaded after Nwodim abruptly left after the new cast members were announced.

If only Michaels hadn’t let people like Chloe Troast go after a single season. I loved “Little Orphan Cassidy.”

History is also repeating itself when it comes to its diversity. With Nwodim gone, the show once again is without a Black woman on the SNL cast.

Michaels is hopefully at work trying to fix these issues. The show’s male/female imbalance is especially noticeable, with a sketch like “Domingo Cold Open” last weekend using every female cast member except Wickline to fill out the revamped Kel’s Squad.