Photos: NBC, Peacock ; Illustration: Dillen Phelps
Whatever Lorne Michaels decides to do this summer, we all knew this past season was going to feel a bit like a hangover after the emotional highs of SNL50.
Season 51 of Saturday Night Live saw the unexpected departures of cast members both old and new (Heidi Gardner and Ego Nwodim from the main cast, Michael Longfellow, Devon Walker and Emil Wakim from the featured player ranks), as well as the biggest influx of new members in several years (welcome to Tommy Brennan, Jeremy Culhane, Veronika Slowikowska, and Kam Patterson) with a special * for Ben Marshall, who received a promotion from writer to cast while the rest of his Please Don’t Destroy crew scattered behind the scenes or out of Studio 8H entirely.
Even for a transition season, however, SNL managed to score plenty of hits worth sharing on social media or talking about old-school at the watercooler.
This was Ashley Padilla’s breakout season, no doubt. Since Padilla hadn’t gotten much screen time as a rookie during SNL50, this may have surprised some. But Lorne saw something in the former Groundlings player, and tapped her as one of only two current SNL cast members to bolster Nate Bargatze’s Nashville Christmas special for CBS/Paramount+. So her rapid ascension didn’t spring from thin air. Perhaps more surprising: Padilla not already earning a promotion from Featured Player status!
Whether she was playing off a surprise fart or a bad haircut, trying to make My Ex jealous, or even breaking in a sketch meant to make her and Ryan Gosling break while Passing Notes (something about this felt a bit too contrived, even more than when John Mulaney would make Bill Hader break with new cue cards as Stefon; but I digress), she demonstrated throughout the season that she has star power that the cast has desperately needed since the departure of Kate McKinnon.
My favorite example of Padilla selling a sketch through precise execution was her out-of-the-loop office worker Kathy, symbolically and literally sat behind her co-workers, reduced to almost shouting for attention and inclusion in the real-life group chat. The way she paused, again and again, before asking: “We talking TV?” Just a joy to watch.
But the bit that broke in the widest possible way found Padilla playing a mom trying to explain to her children that only now has she begun to rethink her politics, encapsulating the moment for a nation of would-be centrists, trying to make sense of America in 2026.
Her ascendance has not only filled the gaps left behind by Gardner and Nwodim, but also surprisingly led to diminished on-air time for Chloe Fineman? They serve two different functions for the show (Padilla as a scene-heightener, Fineman as a celebrity impersonator), so perhaps this is leading SNL in a different direction. The other beneficiary of more airtime this season? Sarah Sherman. Despite her previous standing as the show’s resident oddball, she also has demonstrated quite the proficiency at leading sketches as a leading lady.
Anyhow. Here’s a recap of the rest of the best, in chronological order!
Boys Podcast
Not since SNL alum Nasim Pedrad’s ability to turn tween boys into sitcoms like Chad have we seen this show tap into this bankable comedy formula. Finding out that Sabrina Carpenter, Chloe Fineman, Jane Wickline, and Veronika Slowikowska were parodying an actual hit podcast by boys talking smack obout snacks?!? Priceless. MDFoodieBoyz loved it, too. “Some vegetables low-key be a fruit.” Adding James Austin Johnson’s President Trump as their special guest just hits too on-the-nose for where we are today.
When Marcello Hernandez showed up as Sebastian Maniscalco as the surprise guest at a bachelor party, he took what could’ve been a one-note impersonation and really dove into the physicality of his fellow stand-up’s own caricature and made it his own. That SNL hasn’t invited Maniscalco onto the show only makes the impersonation that much more biting!
Melissa McCarthy returning to host guaranteed us some brand new, all-out characters to gush over in shock and awe. This time around, her portrayal of a UPS driver who’s not quite cutting it proves once again the power of committing to the bit. In the SNL multiverse, there’s a version of this show where McCarthy was the star of SNL for a decade.
A lot of scuttlebutt last week saw fans and critics alike wondering who might get the big send-off in the season finale, with sketches or Weekend Update pieces or special good-nights to give them their flowers. We saw none of that in the Season 51 finale. Unless you count long-timer Mikey Day getting his penis surgically removed, winning the lead in Grease, and paying for car repairs with his ass. Was that his fond farewell, or Is It Cake?
In the meantime, Bowen Yang did bow out midseason before the holidays with a banger of a tribute sketch, with Ariana Grande on one side of him in the Delta Lounge, and Cher on the other, telling him how great he is and how much he’ll be missed. (That he might not’ve been that missed in the back half of this season might’ve proved him right for leaving precisely when he did.)
Andrew Dismukes and Ashley Padilla put on a masterclass of selling a sketch with vibes as the Two People Who Just Hooked Up, so we’re happy to see this recurring now.
Connor Storrie not only a breakout star thanks to Heated Rivalry, but we also learned about his pre-fame training in the Los Angeles clown scene trenches thanks to this bit he brought to 30 Rock as a stripper who won’t let any accident keep him from his appointed rounds.
Some of the kids love Jeremy Culhane’s Mr. On Blast character on Weekend Update. But of all of the characters we’ve seen this past season, the one that truly broke containment outside of SNL comedy nerds to the mainstream was Culhane’s Tucker Carlson impersonation, which I heard countless people repeating on the streets of New York City. “What are we doing? What’s going on?”
Seeing Colin Jost emerge from behind the Update desk as a regular sketch actor to play Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was surprising enough. Seeing him joined by Aziz Ansari as FBI Director Kash Patel, though? Even if Ansari is a perfect foil for Patel, who in 2026 was asking to see more of Ansari on their TV/computer screens?! Especially after his big-screen comeback with Good Fortune yielded anything but. That’s never stopped Lorne from doing Lorne things, and that’s one of the reasons why he’s still in charge of SNL.
And why anyone and everyone answers his call to cameo.
Granted. If any of the sketches on this list might yield more fans over time, it’s this one, mostly because it’s a technical marvel watching Sarah Sherman and Matt Damon portray a married couple whose marriage may be crumbling. The catch: They’re auctioneers who keep fast-talking even when they’re not holding court at an auction.
Honorable mention? As a comedy fan, I also got a big kick out of Pete Davidson returning to Update to deliver an update on the Staten Island ferry that he bought with Jost, and used the time to defend his performance at the Riyadh Comedy Festival as a necessary paycheck to cover the sunk ferry costs (as well as his new role as a father).
This appearance also gave Davidson the chance to sum it all up with these words…
“If Lorne Michaels has taught us anything, it’s that you never, ever give up. Even if everyone says the time has come, and Tina Fey is ready to take over.”
Wise words, indeed.
Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat. He also podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.
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