Dakota Johnson/Turnstile (10.03.2026)

RNC Midterm Ads

• Huh, so I guess they're NOT doing a spoof of the big congressional hearing everybody else was riffing all week. Meh, that news story was enough of a joke to begin with. What else could they say about it? Besides, this episode ended up having enough stunt cameos already.

• Instead they're doing an RNC midterm PSA thing? Hmm...this could work. I mean, it couldn't be worse than the sketch that's just like this we got back in season 28 with Darrell Hammond as Guiliani, right? (which...if you're on a certain Discord server or Twitch stream, I frequent, you should prepare yourself to see very soon).

• I like the idea of them using Marcellos' Marco Rubio to deliver this secret "OMG Trump TRICKED us" message entirely in Spanish. That might have been the shows' best use of his Marco Rubio yet. Hell, it might have just been their best use of Marcello in general in a while.

• Ditto for this Mitch McConnell impression Mikey is doing. I'm surprised they didn't just do this in last week's episode since it would've easily crushed anything he did then. I especially liked the meta LFNY moment there.

• I also liked the way they used Jeremy's JD Vance, too...but just when you think this is gonna be a trimmed and concise cold open they were just gonna move right on from, we get Josts' Hegseth again.

• I think they may be overusing this impression but I actually did like some of Josts' lines about testosterone, praying soldiers as well as the slam poetry.

• ...and here comes JAJ as Trump, something they had plenty of alternatives to for this cold open but they chose to go with anyway.

• I didn't mind JAJs appearance here, but it did kinda kill whatever momentum was left in this cold open at the same time. B-

Monologue

• Wow...somehow Dakota was even more icy, distant and unenthused than I expected her to be. Boy, she's really all over the place here.

• ...and now she's talking about publicly dating and subsequently breaking up with musicians. Wheeeeeeeeee. Fun.

• I think it goes without saying how much Leon Pendarvis' brief cameo in this holding a rose was the best part of it.

• Speaking of musicians and dating...there's only one person in the world who would garner that level of out of nowhere screaming applause in the middle of this tense, muted ass monologue.

• Yeah, this probably would've been a bigger get a few years back, but somehow now...not so much. With how here newest songs have been received, this kind of feels like Taylor and the show being mutually in the wrong place at the wrong time. Surprisingly, this cameo didn't do much for me. D+

Press Your Luck

• Game show sketch. Post monologue. Yaaaaaaay.

• ...and Dakota is bringing the exact same monologue energy to...her Elizabeth Banks impression? I mean, I don't exactly hate it...but her part could've been played just as easily by nearly any other female host and still not have affected this sketch at all.

• I don't exactly hate Kenan or Marcellos opening lines either. Hell, I even liked Marcellos' later call back to his.

• Ok. Thank Christ for Ashley Padilla.

• God, this works WAY better than you would expect something to that's basically two and a half steps above that God awful Jeopardy sketch with Bad Bunny from last season's premiere.

• I mean, this obviously has way more competent writing and performing than that one ever could've hoped for, but still... B-

Mean Scary Girlfriend

• Hey, I just saw Saidah, Jane and Grace in another pretape. Boy, am I glad I didn't blink just then.

• Ok, finally something that actually harnesses Dakotas icy and overwhelmingly aloof energy in an appropriate role and setting. I especially liked her TPUSA/lazy eye jokes.

• This makes great use of Grace's whole deal as well as Ben and Tommys' just...general haplessness, too.

• Weirdly, Marcello is probably the last male member of the cast who SHOULD be in this sketch when you have so many other guys who can pull off put upon losers with no confidence and very little going for them better than him. Hell, I would've easily put Jeremy in Marcellos role. B-

Eric From Legal

• So, Ashley and Sarah are sitting around a hospital cafeteria table...and Dakota has now joined them...and she's doing a Fran Drescher-esque NYC accent?

• Thankfully, Jeremys' character revealing sad, pathetic "gossip" about himself in the third person turned out to be the main focus of this.

• Ok, does this sketch really NEED a sassy, inexplicably queer-coded Kenan character in a ridiculously loud outfit? They've been going to that well with him A LOT in recent years and this sketch may be the most egregious example of it needlessly taking away from an otherwise solid sketch. C-

Guns For Women

• Well, a vagina shaped prop finally made it to air. Granted, it still had to be pixelated but somewhere, Michael O'Donoghue is still looking up and smiling.

• Another fine pretape that made good use of Dakotas insane energy, but...something about this just felt too "all over the place" on first viewing.

• Throughout this whole thing, I got a vibe that the writers couldn't decide if they wanted to make a series of thinly veiled clitoris jokes or a series of thinky veiled "pink tax" jokes about the ridiculous of products aimed at and sold to women or to just be absurd with phrased like "vagun" and "glunt" but Ashley and Veronika did a great job providing some much needed counterbalance to all of that while acting as very vocal voices of sane  reason throughout. B-

Throne Of The Dragonborne

• I like that they at least had the relevant cultural awareness to frame this as you, the viewer clicking open your HBO MAX app to watch this (just like they framed last week's High School Musical sketch as you, the viewer logging into Disney Plus on your computer/web browser to see it).

• I don't know if this sketch is worth the money they spent on that giant smoking dragon head. I'm getting mild season 20 Wizard Of Oz/Mad About You Aliens vibes.

• Ben was alright here...I guess. This wasn't his worst performance ever. Maybe they are figuring out better, more restrained ways to use Ben...but I wouldn't say he's on his way to becoming the next male lead of the show or anything.

• Was the "brother-style" stuff just a reference to...the incest not being such an "open secret" on the OG Game Of Thrones or House Of The Dragon and the gag here being that...is is?

• Ok, I did like the Tim Allen/Home Improvement grunt (heh, I almost typed "glunt" there) being thrown into the mix of fire dragon roars at the mere hints of Ben undressing.

• Speaking of unnecessary flamboyant Kenan characters appearing mid sketch...

• While I wasn't crazy about Kenan's eunuch character, I did think he was better deployed here than his character in the gossip sketch was (especially since he showed up as the sketch was getting to the point where you feel it's getting too long and are thus relieved to see a quick sudden ending) and I did get a kick out of his "you tell me" reveal of him not having a penis.

• I do wonder why the choice was made to give Kenan's character a not so subtly Lorne Michaels/Dr. Evil/Maya Angelou coded voice here? It wasn't a bad choice mind you, just an interesting one. D+

Weekend Update w/Jost & Che

• Josts' Best Jokes: Hegseth/Mike Meyers, CNN Press Pool Removal, Only Hispanic Could Survive Fall

• Ches' Best Jokes: White House Ballroom, Uphill Climb 

• I've never been more thankful for something to turn out to be another Jost roast (that seems awfully similar to an old Conan O'Brien/Max Weinberg bit) than when Che of all people uttered the phrase "Cornell University". 

• I mean, if HE of all people were going to even mention it, this was the best possible outcome.

• Speaking of, the sudden cutaways to a giggling Che were probably the best part of Mikey & Marcellos' long as hell,  pointless, white noise ass Link/GTA commentary.

• Ok, I guess I liked the "dress/tunic" stuff from Mikey. Just wish he wasn't completely given free reign to just try to provoke Marcello and Che to break because it seems like that's what all this was. God, I hope they don't just keep carving out spots for Mikey to keep doing this EVERY week.

• Hmm...Kam Patterson on a rumored Glee reboot? Let's see where this goes.

• Ok, I do have to chuckle at Kam doing jazz hands while shouting "HAMILTONNNNN!!!"

• I like the turn of this turning out to be a semi meta piece for Kam and Che to bond over their shared inability to be their authentic selves on a show heavily dominated by white writers being the ones giving them the majority of their material.

• What I actually like more was Che telling Kam how the staff and audience want to see Kam talk about his own life and be his "true self" only to set up the twist of Kam revealing his life stories and "true self" to be pretty much unairable on live network TV.

• The only drawback to this is how it can feel a little muddled to anyone who's not intimately familiar with Che & Kams non-SNL stand up routines to the point where if it weren't for Che's "strait of hormuz" line and the jab about hom having worked at the show for nearly 35 years I'd suspect he'd written most of this.

• Speaking of Che, I like the idea of Sarahs' new over the top character showing up to roast Che's dating life rather than Josts' whole deal (even invoking the name of J.K. Rowling to do so...her and Mrs. Potato Head were really the only names of potential matches for Che I liked).

• I think I'd like it a bit more if she hadn't come in at a point when Update in general was already just way too damn long and self indulgent.

• ...and at least it was nice to see Jost & Che had much more fun giggling amongst themselves at certain crowd reactions than we did watching all 19 damn minutes of this Update. C-

Colorado Vicky

• Ooh, a live sketch that puts Jane and Veronika together...inbetween Sarah, but still...let's hope this goes somewhere good.

• Hey, Saidah finally shows up in a live thing! Grace is there, too!

• Well, I'm not crazy that they just used Grace and Saidahs' background as TikTokers as just a jumping off point for...a sketch where Dakota plays a TikToker? 

• After giving this a chance, I do like how intensely dark and disturbing she and JAJ (who, in case you couldn't tell by the way I've been writing this review so far, really captures my current mental state pretty well) ended up making this.

• The only thing I didn't like about this sketch was how the back and forth between JAJs' grim interjections and Dakotas deranged TikToks just kinda spun it's wheels and needlessly stalled on the way to revealing that they're now a couple...but this ended up being my favorite live sketch of the night by far, so I don't really give a shit.

• Hell, this might have been my favorite ever SNL sketch that references my home state repeatedly in an indirectly disparraging manner! (Sorry, Mikey). B+

Amazing Tales Of Truth

• I like that this made use of Veronikas' great singing chops in a near blackout length sketch (by today's standards). What I didn't like was later hearing online that this was part of a multi part runner that they must've initially cut from dress and then suddenly decided to air just this one part of simply because the show was running long and it was the only thing left they had time for.

• I wanted to like the idea of Andrew hosting a bad anthology show that somehow isn't able to focus on the extraordinary real occurrences it WANTS to show you, but...I didn't quite know what to make of it. Something just felt...off. C+

Ranking Season 52 From Best To Worst

1. Dakota Johnson/Turnstile (10.03.2026)
2. Jalen Brunson/KATSEYE (09.26.2026)

Overall Thoughts

• Yup, this episode is right up there with the last one. Still, this one did have one thing going for it that last week's didn't; a returning host with just enough previous experience doing this show that the staff has figured out the ideal ways to work her and her entire public persona into sketches.

• No, not all of the material in tonight's show was well suited for Dakota but what was suited for her does show you, the viewer, how and why she has a good enough relationship with the show to have hosted three times and cameoed twice in just over a decade.

• It's just too bad she also happens to be one of those hosts who can't seem to make their enthusiasm for doing the show translate on screen or in sketches at all...and even if she could, it's not like the current writing staff would be able to do her or any other cast member for that matter any favors.

• Yeah, what didn't function as a showcase for certain cast members who only joined the show after Dakotas' last time hosting (or just Dakota herself in a couple of very specific niche cases) still had the same listless, DOA energy as most of the previous week's season premiere.

• Of course, that last bullet point was mostly to say that Veronika, Jeremy & Ashley (well, most of the women really) really scored tonight (Grace took a small hit, Saidah made an even smaller gain as did Tommy). Andrew, Marcello, Kam, JAJ and Ben (who they still seem to he figuring out how to use the most effectively) did solid support work. 

• Kenan seemed to only have been used in the most obnoxious Kenan trope this show's had in recent years and Mikey has just enough seniority to just be given Carte Blanche to be as ear-splittingly self indulgent as possible in his own substantial chunk in the middle of the show. Neither of those things should be happening.

Closing Thoughts

• Next week, another two time host, Shane Gillis returns to host. Ugh. Thank Christ there's also gonna be a new SNL UK and MST3K coming out that same weekend.

• Seriously though, while I'm not a fan of Shane's standup and find his comedy in general to be a little crass and "bro-y" for my personal taste (and his fanbase certainly doesn't do him any favors there), he has shown that he has better sketch instincts and sketch experience than both Dakota Johnson and Jalen Brunson (which...isn't saying much and could also be said about just about anyone, but still...)

• I think the best we can hope for with this episode is just an average show with a real iffy monologue. I don't know how they would produce something that much better than the past two shows, but somehow...they could pull it off in a few spots. See you soon!