We knew Shane Gillis would bomb on ‘SNL.’ We just didn’t expect he would f-bomb.

It’s good that SNL has a few weeks off, since the beginning of Season 52 is one of the worst opening runs I’ve ever seen for this show.

After two mediocre episodes, Lorne Michaels brought in Shane Gillis — a man who was fired from SNL before he ever appeared on the show and has repeatedly bombed when he’s been brought back to host — as his closer for the opening set of three episodes.

Gillis rewarded Michaels’s confidence — hubris? — by dropping an f-bomb during a live sketch. At least that got us talking about something else besides Gillis remarking during his monologue that “women just dress like whores now” at the gym.

Hopefully Inde Navarrette can pull us out of this tailspin on Halloween, but there are bigger issues than the hosts. Political cold opens gotta get shelved. There’s no good way to do these now in a world where the federal government is livestreaming executions for entertainment.

And, yes, the hosts are an issue. SNL can get away with bringing in Jalen Brunson and Dakota Johnson in a vacuum, but you can’t launch a season with them and Gillis.

When Gillis first hosted SNL back in February 2024, I titled that review “SNL should’ve fired Shane Gillis a second time.” That episode was such a failure — “I probably shouldn’t be up here,” Gillis said during his monologue — that it should’ve been the end of any second-guessing over whether or not Gillis belonged on SNL.

But then Michaels brought him back to host a second time in March 2025. “The question I have now is whether Michaels has gotten this out of his system after letting Gillis host in back-to-back seasons — or is he planning on driving this point into the ground until Gillis is a quick member of the Five Timers Club?” I wrote back then.

Welp. The answer is pretty clear now. Gillis returned to host SNL for his third time, accomplishing the feat across four seasons.

Gillis’s first time hosting SNL came in last among Season 49 hosts. Gillis’s second time hosting SNL came in last among Season 50 hosts. There’s still a lot of time left in Season 52 — will Michaels find a host worse than Gillis for The Cold Open’s next round of host rankings?

Michaels was trying to prove a point or rub our noses in his belief that he should have never been forced to fire Gillis by bringing him back to host again and again.

It blew up in his face this weekend.

If this episode had been anchored by a proven host, the lackluster first two episodes of Season 52 would’ve been forgotten/forgiven. “SNL is in a bad place,” The Hard Pass founder and former Not Ready for Primetime Podcast co-host Mike Ryan wrote after the episode.

COLD OPEN

Hegseth USS Lincoln Cold Open

“Someone needs to do an intervention at SNL,” Vulture’s Josef Adalian wrote as the cold open was unfolding. “The political cold opens are somehow getting worse.”

I gotta agree. SNL seems to be in a death spiral when it comes to the cold open. The show refuses to do nonpolitical ones, and even when SNL mercifully shifts from Donald Trump to Pete Hegseth, it means that we’re supposed to have a good time making light of the guy who just announced America is going to start livestreaming executions for fun. You see how this is an issue, right?

• Look out for “testicular dementia”: We finally got a break from Trump this week, with James Austin Johnson playing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Johnson becomes the first SNL cast member to play Kennedy. Alec Baldwin swooped in for that cameo when Charli XCX hosted last season.

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THE MONOLOGUE

Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but I have to ask if SNL stocked the studio audience for Gillis’s episodes with actual fans of his. The monologues for his first two episodes were met with near silence, as the comedian — a person who performs live comedy in front of audiences as a living — bombed. The applause in the studio seemed to be higher during this episode, which was odd since Gillis’s latest monologue was just as egregious as his past two.

In addition to a bunch of -phobias, the theme of Gillis’s monologue this weekend was that he just discovered that women exist in public.

I love that Variety’s Marlow Stern had a piece up on Gillis bombing again during his monologue at midnight, calling it a “meandering monologue about needing to lose weight and being miserable (and trying to be unthreatening to women) while hiking.”

SKETCH OF THE WEEK (FOR A DUMB REASON)

Green Eggs & Ham

Shane Gillis dropped an f-bomb live during SNL.

This is the sketch we’re all going to be talking about. Gillis said “fucking” in the second live sketch of the episode. I had to stop taking notes during “Green Eggs & Ham” when Gillis dropped the f-bomb.

That’s not supposed to happen. Especially not from the host.

A host should be professional enough, experienced enough to not say “fuck” on live network TV. Gillis stumbled into it almost immediately in this sketch.