3 episodes, 3 storylines for ‘SNL’ Season 51
Ashley Padilla steps up, the revamped cast takes shape — but Lorne Michaels has work to do.
Your weekly rundown of everything from Popculturology, Deep SNL Thoughts and Snackology.
Hello! Welcome to the Oct. 25, 2025, edition of the Saturday Wrap. Here’s everything you might of missed from The Omnicosm.

If I were CEO of Disney, and Adam Driver came to me with a pitch for a Ben Solo movie and already had Steven Soderbergh on board to direct and Scott Z. Burns on board to write the script, I’d green light that movie in a heartbeat.
Unfortunately, I’m not the CEO of Disney.
Driver, who played Kylo Ren/Ben Solo in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, revealed in a new interview with the Associated Press that his attempt to continue the story of that character was shot down by Disney.


Over the past few years, it felt like the universe was willing into existence this moment when Sabrina Carpenter hosted SNL. She was the musical guest when Jake Gyllenhaal closed out Season 49. She opened SNL50 alongside Paul Simon in February before mixing it up with Pedro Pascal and Marcello Hernandez in a Domingo sketch later in that milestone special. She even popped up during Quinta Brunson’s monologue toward the end of last season.
This episode was fated to happen. Did it live up to the moment?

The folks over at Hot Takes were kind enough to invite me back, this time to talk about the first trailer for The Mandalorian and Grogu. I chatted with Eric Geller and Haley Byrd Wilt about what our hopes were for the first Star Wars movie since 2019 and what its release could mean for the franchise.

If you were a kid back in the 1980s and 1990s, the McDonald’s Happy Meal at Halloween was unrivaled. Sure, Happy Meal toys back then were fantastic, but when trick-or-treat time rolled around, you could get a Halloween bucket.
I’m envious of the people who had the ghost bucket. We had a bunch of pumpkin buckets and a witch bucket at our house, but we never got the ghost one. It glowed in the dark! How could I not have been envious of the kids who had that one.
At some point during the 2010s, McDonald’s stopped offering the Halloween pails. I’m not sure the reasoning behind that decision, but like many great Happy Meal perks — the iconic Hot Wheels/Barbie summer duo, those lemon-y McDonaldland cookies — it appeared that the Halloween buckets had been locked away in the terrifying Officer Big Mac prison somewhere deep in the confines of McDonaldland.
But then something magical happened a few years ago. McDonald’s brought the Halloween pails back, dubbing them “Boo Buckets” and making them available once again in the classic trio of the orange pumpkin, green witch and white ghost.


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