One week from tonight, we’ll all be sitting on our couches, waiting for the local news to end so that Jalen Brunson can host the first episode of SNL’s fifty-second season. Well, maybe I’ll be on my couch working on the newsletter as the clock creeps toward 1 a.m. while loyal The Cold Open readers will get the scoop on the season premiere the following morning.
No matter your preferred mode of watching SNL, the show returns next Saturday. Between the end of Season 51 and the beginning of Season 52, Lorne Michaels made a few slight cast adjustments, but nothing like we saw after the show’s milestone fiftieth season.
As always, I’m excited to jump into a new season of SNL. (If I wasn’t excited, I wouldn’t be writing The Cold Open.) I want to see how the new cast members fit in. I want to see how last year’s rookies jump into their second season. I want to see how Ashley Padilla follows up her phenomenal sophomore season.
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Who left?
Not counting Bowen Yang, who left during Season 51, Chloe Fineman was SNL’s only off-season departure. Fineman spent seven seasons on the show, but it’s hard to argue that her heart was in it if you watched last season. She missed an episode while in Europe and would often laugh her way through sketches. In the wake ofHeidi Gardner and Ego Nwodim leaving SNL after Season 50, Fineman could’ve established herself as the show’s go-to female cast member. She seemed to be more focused on snagging brand deals on Instagram.
Who joined?
Saidah Belo-Osagie and Grace Reiterare our Season 52 rookies. Michaels added four new cast members last season in addition to promoting Please Don’t Destroy’s Ben Marshall to the show’s roster.
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I’m not familiar with either Belo-Osagie or Reiter, but I do recognize Reiter from her time on Tim Robinson’s The Chair Company. My wife also instantly offered her praise for Reiter after seeing that she had joined the cast thanks to Reiter’s social media work.
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After resisting the groundswell push to have Padilla promoted to SNL’s main cast during Season 51, Michaels bumped both her and Jane Wickline up from featured status going into Season 52.
Padilla is a no-brainer. Wickline has really grown on me over the last season. I love her Weekend Update songs, and her deadpan delivery in live sections has become a signature move of hers.
Who’s hosting?
NBC has announced the first four hosts for Season 52, with Jalen Brunson (Sept. 26), Dakota Johnson (Oct. 3), Shane Gillis (Oct. 10) and Inde Navarrette (Oct. 31) kicking things off.
With an NBA Finals MVP to his name, Brunson makes total sense for the premiere considering the New York Knicks are the reigning champions. Who might show up with Brunson? Mariska Hargitay? Timothée Chalamet? Ben Stiller? Mayor Zohran Mamdani?
The best explanation I have for why and how Gillis is hosting SNL for his third time is that Michaels is still livid that the universe forced him to fire Gillis before he could even appear in an episode. No one tells Lorne Michaels what to do. So we’re gonna have to eventually watch Gillis awkwardly join the Five-Timers Club just so the SNL creator can prove a point.
How does Ashley Padilla follow up last season?
Where does Ashley Padilla go from Season 51?
During her sophomore season, Padilla turned in a run unlike anything we’ve seen on SNL. She became the show’s main character.
“Having a breakout sketch or even a run of successful episodes isn’t unheard of for an SNL cast member,” I wrote in May. “But keeping that momentum going for an entire season is something we haven’t seen in the modern era of SNL. With a large cast fighting for screentime, Padilla’s ability to repeatedly turn episodes into her own personal highlight reels is impressive. Even more impressive? Padilla had her breakout season as a featured cast member.”
Now Padilla is a fully promoted cast member. (I assume she gets new business cards.) The bar is extremely high. Will she finally snag a recurring character? Will she reunite for another surprise sketch with Ryan Gosling when he inevitably hosts the season finale to promote Star Wars: Starfighter?
Will SNL unleash Jeremy Culhane as JD Vance?
James Austin Johnson is in a tough spot when it comes to his stellar portrayal of Donald Trump. It’s the best version of Trump we’ve ever seen on SNL. I’d say it ranks behind only Anthony Atamanuik’s take on Trump.
But we’re all so very tired of Trump.
There’s no good way to poke fun at gas hitting $6 a gallon when that’s happening in real life. For 90 minutes as Saturday night turns into Sunday morning, we need a break from Trump.
So SNL needs to pivot to Jeremy Culhane’s JD Vance.
For reasons I’ve never understood, SNL has never turned the vice president into a full-blown character. “Most absurd of all, SNL all but passed on spoofing JD Vance despite his awkward trips to donut shops, cat lady comments and, um, the couch thing,” I wrote in POLITICO Magazine in 2024.
Yang appeared as Vance a few times, but the bare minimum of effort was put into those sketches. SNL once allowed Jason Sudeikis to turn then-Vice President Joe Biden into a fully formed character. Culhane won me over with his impersonation of Tucker Carlson. It’s time for him to do the same with Vance during Season 52.
And when Vance runs for president in a year or two, we can all groan when Michaels takes Vance away from Culhane and gives the character to whichever celebrity can show up at Studio 8H once a week for a few months.
The Cold Open is a publication of The Omnicosm. Issue No. 82
The Cold Open is written and produced by Bill Kuchman. Copyediting by Tim Kuchman.
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The Omnicosm founder. Snackology, Popculturology and The Cold Open writer. A Rochester, N.Y., native now living in the Washington, D.C., area. Won’t pass up a Genny Cream Ale.
