Season 52 of Saturday Night Live premiered on Saturday with Jalen Brunson as the host and Katseye as the musical guest.
Brunson is only the fifth NBA player to host the show, and the first active player since 2007. However, with him captaining New York City’s first NBA championship team in 53 years, he felt like an obvious choice.
In one of the most notable moments of the night, New York Knicks teammates Karl-Anthony Towns, Mikal Bridges, OG Anunoby and Josh Hart were featured in Brunson’s opening monologue. The group posed as audience members asking Brunson humorous questions about their championship win and eventually joined their captain onstage to kick off the night.
There were a few casting changes prior to the season premiere, with Chloe Fineman being the only departure after seven seasons on the show. Added as featured players were Sadiah Belo-Osagie and Grace Reiter, a fan favorite best known for her participation in online sketch comedy group American High, and her recent YouTube hit “The Hunger Games (but better).” The most featured player from last season, Ashley Padilla, was promoted to repertory player along with Jane Wickline.
Musical guest Katseye performed their songs “Animal” and “Hootie Frutti,” and were also featured in the sketch, “Dream Academy,” a parody of the real-life competition show the girl group was formed on. Also heavily featured in the sketch was newcomer Reiter. Her hilarious team-up with Wickline as two graceless non-dancers trying to win a pop star competition made the digital short one of the most memorable sketches of the night.
Over at the Weekend Update desk, Jeremy Culhane reprised his popular role as conservative political commentator Tucker Carlson to give his takes on this summer’s box office hits. In his third appearance doing this uncanny impression, Culhane included his iconic high-pitched laugh, inane questions and catchphrase “That’s the rule. That’s the goal now.” Jane Wickline also visited the desk as Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to discuss AI’s threat to humanity. In a humorous Gollum-like fashion, Wickline’s Amodei spoke to himself in an effort to find anything remotely comforting to say.
The title for best sketch of the night has to go to “North High,” a “High School Musical” parody in which a singing, dancing basketball team led by their captain Jake (Culhane) welcomes a new student (Brunson), only to find out he is easily much better at basketball than they are. As with many athletes that host, Brunson was not relied on for much of the comedic heavy lifting throughout the episode. However, him effortlessly showing up the musical team in this sketch was incredibly entertaining, particularly the back-and-forth between him and Culhane.
This basketball-heavy episode was fun, fresh and a great way to start getting excited for the Knicks’ upcoming return at the start of the NBA season. If you missed it, the episode is now available to stream on Peacock.
Looking ahead at the rest of the season, I am most excited to see Reiter’s progression on the show. Headlining a sketch in your very first episode is no common feat, but she handled it incredibly and already has great chemistry with the rest of the cast. I look forward to seeing her do character work with Culhane specifically, as the two have similar comedy styles.
Fans can tune in for more on Saturday, Oct. 3, to see Dakota Johnson host, followed by Shane Gillis a week later and “Obsession” star Inde Navarette on Oct. 31 for this season’s Halloween episode.