The first episode of 2026 is in the can. Stranger Things actor Finn Wolfhard was our host, with musical guest A$AP Rocky.
The episode mirrored this season: ups and downs; lazy writing interrupted by a few interesting ideas and standout performances now and again.
Cold Open: Trumpy again
James Austin Johnson kicked off Episode 10 if Season 51 at the presidential podium as Donald Trump. We got to see Marcello Hernandez, Jeremy Culhane, Ashley Padilla, and Colin Jost join JAJ in the White House in a sketch that ran down the news from this administration since late December.
The LFNY line was shared by Johnson and Jost after a ho-hum cold open.
Monologue: Wolfhard
In the first SNL episode since Kam Patterson announced that the show is “for white people,” possibly the whitest celebrity ever delivered the monologue: Finn Wolfhard. The Stranger Things actor also set an SNL record by becoming the first host to wear a ribbon as a tie.
Wolfhard was joined by Stranger co-hosts Gaten Matarazzo and Caleb McLaughlin as they discussed what it’s like to grow up on camera as former child actors.
Snack Homiez II
The anticipated return of Snack Homiez once again featured former host Sabrina Carpenter, Chloe Fineman, Veronika Slowikowska, and Jane Wickline on the panel with Wolfhard as a guest.
This a 95% character and performance-driven sketch, in the vein of Wayne’s World. I liked it the first time, and was pretty sure we’d see it again. It’s even stronger here, especially Slowikowska and Fineman as awkward teenage boys.
Music guest A$AP Rocky dropped in late, and he was actually funnier and more comfortable in the sketch than the stiff Wolfhard.
Pretape: Harry Potter the Homo
As has been the trend this season, the pretapes have been excellent, and this one was no exception. Ben Marshall appears as Ron Weasley opposite Wolfhard’s Harry Potter, in a romance between the two wizards.
The premise was a new HBO series with adult themes for the cast of the Potter franchise. Wolfhard and Marshall share explicit homosexual flirtations. The sketch featured a cameo by Jason Momoa as Hagrid, appearances by JAJ, Padilla, Kenan Thompson, and Tommy Brennan. As usual, Padilla’s performance was superb, even in brief on-screen time.
Pop Star Dad
Wolfhard is a teenager who pushes his parents to let him pursue his passion for his rock indie band. Padilla is the mom, and Johnson is the father, an eccentric pop star who wants his son to follow in his footsteps.
Hernandez, Culhane, and Andrew Dismukes appear as members of the father’s boy band, each of whom overtly hit on Padilla. Later, several cast members barged into the sketch to get some screen time.
This premise was good, but it seems like it would have been better with Culhane as the father. Johnson just didn’t land well in this role.
Pretape: Stranger Things Spinoffs
Here we see all the sequels, prequels, and spinoffs we’re destined to see in the Stranger Things universe. Once again we see Matarazzo and McLaughlin reprising their roles with Wolfhard in a pretape that goes on for close to three minutes.
We only need so much Stranger Things.
A$AP Rocky brings in the garbage
Symbolism over substance. That’s what we saw on the stage at Studio 8H for A$AP Rocky‘s first number. The artists “sang” into a bullhorn microphone with some sort of filter that made his vocals dreamlike and devoid of any emotion. The rest of the group on the stage looked like escapees from a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. The “dancers” tossed garbage on the stage when they weren’t pulling up their drawers, while Rocky barely emoted through the lyrics of a song that sounds like something a ninth grader wrote on his iPhone in 20 minutes while waiting for the bus.
Best part of this performance, the steroid-infused dancer who “punches” Rocky through the wall at the end of the song, while a dried-out shirtless crackhead drummer pretends to hit the kit.
Write a good song. Perform that song. It’s a simple formula. If you have to use props and act like a fool on stage, you’re compensating for not being talented.
Weekend Update
Michael Che’s joke about Diddy giving his Grammy’s to Trump in exchange for a pardon was a high point in the jokey-section of Update. Also worth mentioning is his joke about Trump being alive only because there was “a slight breeze” on the day he was nearly assassinated.
Kam Patterson made an appearance as Michael Irvin, a football player who retired 27 years ago, previewing Monday’s college football title game.
It’s interesting that Patterson agreed to do an impression that is basically a “he’s black like me’ bit on a sho0w he says is “for white people.”
Like Thompson’s portrayal of David Ortiz, this one seems way too niche to be relevant. Patterson isn’t an impressionist. The only thing he has in common with Michael Irvin: he’s black and can’t write jokes.
Wickline appeared as Tamara, a woman who made a New Year’s resolution. This was the first time we’ve seen Jane be a standalone character and not herself on WU (not counting duo appearances). The premise didn’t fully reveal itself (something about buttons), but it worked. Jane was likable, different, and I’d like to see more of this weird thing she’s doing. Give me the weird, all the weird you have, SNL. Just please fucking stop the Staten Island Ferry jokes.
Total run-time of Weekend Update was 13 minutes.
Dark Orbit
Finally, Wolfhard gave a solid performance, in this sci-fi sketch. It was our first look at Mikey Day in this episode, and he was persistently funny as a servant who basically did a Will Ferrell-type performance stuffing food in the host’s face.
The premise of relying on food in the face is a tired gimmick, but that’s about what we expect in Season 51.
Boys Day
Slowikowska is featured in a sketch where she invades a boys-only day party hosted by Hernandez. Wolfhard is her smitten boyfriend who doesn’t realize how obnoxious and immature Slowikowska is.
Marshall and Culhane are also in this sketch, which serves as a sandbox for Slowikowska’s wide range. It works in the same way Ed Grimley did.
Music from A$AP Rocky
See the previous critique of this musical guest from above. More of the same.
10-to-1 Sketch
I am usually all on-board for the quirkiness of an oddball 10-to-1 sketch. And this was no exception. We got several cast members plus Wolfhard appearing in front of blue screens for a Netflix special on mountain climbing.
Episode Grade: D+
Two definitely funny live sketches, though both would be average sketches on a good episode. One of the pretapes, the first, was superb. But the musical performances were probably among the 10 worst the show has ever aired. And Wolfhard, while certainly a likable person, was too stiff and seemed nervouls for much of the show.
