‘Should’ve called it at 50, right?’: Bad Bunny kicks off ‘SNL’ Season 51

SNL kicked off Season 51 this weekend … and it felt like a normal season premiere?

Last season was a weird season. The show was pulled in a multitude of directions. It had to simultaneously be a normal season of SNL while also celebrating the show’s milestone 50th season while also incorporating a presidential election in the United States. (Dana Carvey refused to go home for a lengthy chunk of the season.)

But this weekend’s Bad Bunny episode? It feels like we’re back to what SNL should be. We had a host who seems to thrive on the SNL stage. We got to see veteran SNL cast members mix it up with a handful of new additions. And we got just the right amount of celebrity cameos in a way that didn’t steal the spotlight.

This episode was Bad Bunny’s second time hosting SNL. Even more impressively, he became the first person to either host or be the musical guest in back-to-back episodes of the show after closing out Season 50 as the musical guest during Scarlett Johansson’s episode.

Bad Bunny has quickly established himself as an SNL host who we should all expect to see return again and again.

Production note

Deep SNL Thoughts for next week’s episode hosted by Amy Poehler will be delayed.

COLD OPEN

Pete Hegseth Cold Open

SNL jumped into Season 51 with a cold open centered around Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s gathering of the nation’s generals at Quantico this past week. While Andrew Dismukes had previously played Hegseth, Colin Jost made the jump from Weekend Update to take over the portrayal toward the end of last season.

The biggest news from the cold open, though, was that SNL is sticking with the bit where James Austin Johnson’s Donald Trump interrupted the cold open by freezing the segment and breaking the fourth wall. This bit was fine the first few times SNL used it, but the show needs to find another way to cover Trump.

• “Our military is gay as hell!” Always weird to see Jost outside of Update. Even weirder when it happens during the first sketch in a season premiere.
• “Remember, Daddy’s watching”: Honestly didn’t feel like SNL did anything different in light of CBS canceling Stephen Colbert’s show and ABC pulling Jimmy Kimmel for a few episodes.
• New kid: Rookie Jeremy Culhane became the first freshman cast member to appear in the season.

THE MONOLOGUE

The highlight of Bad Bunny’s monologue was a quick cameo from Jon Hamm — sorry, Juan Jamón. Hamm finally returned to host SNL last season, but the man loves a cameo.