SNL After Party 9/26/26 - S52 E1 “This Kind of Stuff Doesn’t Happen at a Noah Kahan Concert”

Host: Jalen Brunson

Musical Guest: Katseye

The show that every generation declares hasn’t been funny since they were in their 20’s is back for an astonishing 52nd year. Gone are Chloe Fineman and Bowen Yang. Ashley Padilla (in a no-brainer move) along with Jane Wickline (much more surprising) have been promoted to regular cast status, while Saidah Belo-Osagie and Grace Reiter join as new featured players.

And, our first guest host of the season is New York Nicks point guard Jalen Brunson. Does Captain Clutch beat the buzzer or does the King of New York fail to take the comedy throne?

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Let’s find out on the premiere edition of Season 52’s After Party!

Cold Open

New York Mayor Mamdani (played in cameo by Ramy Youssef) addresses New Yorkers via TikTok about the NorEaster that has battered the East coast.

As he does so, he is interrupting by a visitor - none other than Donald Trump (James Austin Johnson, natch).

Trump informs the mayor that “For some reason no one can figure out, I really really like you.” The President also compares their relationship to “like when a tiger gets together with a baby goat.”

Padilla enters as Trump aide (I guess) Natalie Harp, who ran all the way from Washington “_Weapons_ style” to inform Mamdani that if he hurts Trump, she will end him.

This is a perfectly serviceable cold open, propelled by JAJ’s bullseye Trump impersonation. The jokes fall a little flatter than clearly expected, but overall, it’s basically fine. Not the strongest start, but no one can get mad about it.

Monologue

Athlete hosts of SNL can be very much hit or miss. You can usually tell in the monologue if they are going to be able to go with the flow or if they will just be a stiff presence throughout the show. Fortunately, Jalen Brunson hits the ground running with some well-written and executed material. The Knicks player says that he’s going to host Saturday Night Live, much like he plays in a finals game. He states, "For the first three quarters, I’m going to be god-awful, but the last sketch is going to be amazing."

Kenan Thompson joins Brunson on stage as sports commentator Stephen Smith. The bit doesn’t really fire on all cylinders, but it’s funny enough.

Finally, Brunson resorts to the tried-and-true Q&A bit. This time, several of his teammates are in the audience, and they ask a series of amusing questions. The player remarks are actually quite funny, and everyone involved seems to be having a good time.

One player (yes, I know I should know who they are, but I don’t know the Knicks) asks if his arms are really long when Brunson says that they are. The player states, "And yet I’ll never fly." The monologue goes over quite well and provides hope that Brunson will be at the helm of the good show.

Office MVP

A group of office workers is finishing up their "Pizza Hut sandwiches" (odd product placement? Seems unlikely) as one of the group throws their wrapper away declaring they have slam dunked it. One coworker, Darius Barcelona (Brunson) tries to throw his wrapper away but misses. This leads him to attempt again, once again missing. As the sketch progresses, he misses more and more shots, coming up with more and more reasons to extend the game.

Ultimately, everyone gets frustrated with him for keeping their meeting from progressing. Mikey Day even slaps him repeatedly. Barcelona then admits that he is actually Jalen Brunson and that his dream has always been to impress people in an office, not just the NBA.

He declares that he wants to be an "office shooter." JAJ responds, "I just don't think that's a great thing to say." Finally, after revealing who he is, Jalen Brunson sinks a shot, leading the office and the audience to go wild, and then the sketch ends.

This was a mildly amusing sketch that really had nowhere to go. Brunson missing the shots and Day’s slaps are funny, but beyond that, this really doesn't - and indeed can't - go much of anywhere.

Dream Academy

This taped segment is a parody of reality shows. In this one, the program Dream Academy is aimed at putting together an all-girl group. Ashley Padilla plays the exec who is running the show. Musical guest Katseye serve as judges.

Jane Wickline is a triple threat - she does swimming, drawing and magic! She is joined by Margle (new cast member Grace Reiter), who only wears flip flops, as she keeps passing out when she ties her shoes, and Veronika Slowikowska as a more traditional contestant.

The group puts together a song about a Newton’s Cradle, and somehow win, allowing Katseye to make a ridiculous music video from their song.

This sketch was a tad drawn out, but was fine. There were some funny moments and the video had high production values.

Mainly, this was a good introduction to Reiter. She is clearly going to be placed in outrageous characters with no concern for personal dignity. She has a bit of a Will Ferrell vibe going, and could prove to be a fun add to the show.

We also got our first glimpse of Saidah Belo-Osagie, but she wasn’t given enough to do here to make any kind of intelligent observation about her performance (yes, yes, when have I ever made an intelligent observation about SNL. You got me there), but it’s definitely good to see SNL add a black female performer back to the mix. That lapse was frankly inexcusable.

Men’s Support Group

This is a support group for men whose wives/girlfriends were brought up on stage at a show during the Chris Brown/Usher tour.

The men describe how charged up their ladies got, and how they acted on stage.

There’s not much to this one, and there’s no real ending, which is probably why they just had Kenan Thompson scream “Damn you, Usher!” at the end.

This was underwhelming.

North High

In this High School Music parody, Brunson is the new kid at school, and he wants to play basketball. This leads Jeremy Culhane to start a musical number about playing on the time. Every time Culhane starts to make a shot, Brunson block it, slamming it back into Culhane’s face.

Culhane then goes on to destroy the entire team by making shot after shot. When asked why he has decided to play, Brunson says “I didn’t know basketball could be like not gay.”

He then proceeds to steal Culhane’s girlfriend (Slowikowska).

This is a funny, slapstick sketch that skewers the ridiculousness of High School Musical and its ilk. the physical comedy works well here.

Airport Massage Chairs

Padilla and Dismukes are passengers for “Ai Chihuahua Airlines” awaiting their flight as Padilla tries to talk to someone on the phone about a fall her father suffered.

Meanwhile Brunson and Day are enjoying - and I mean really enjoying - some massage chairs.

Day particularly goes way over the top with his verbal sounds of relaxation as the chair works on him in “Prison Beating” setting.

The whole sketch really is just Day’s screaming (and Brunson’s failed efforts not to laugh).

It’s not a funny sketch on paper, but man does Day sell it.

Weekend Update

Perhaps to the surprise of many (myself included) Michael Che and Colin Jost return to the Update Desk for their 13th (!) season. They take on Chinese leader Xi’s visit to Washington (“Trump drove to meet him at the airport like a boyfriend with no job), Trump starting “Trump TV” to counter a press boycott (“If that’s Trump TV, what the hell is Paramount Plus?”) and Kamala Harris agreeing to campaign for Democrats in the midterms (“Because there’s still time to blow this.”)

Visiting at the desk, we start with Wickline as Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who recently made comments about how AI may kill us all. “AI is the devil, and I am its maker!” Wickline says. The bit is funny even if it suffers from the now tired trope of the Sméagol/Gollum debate motifs.

The next guest is Culhane reprising his Tucker Carlson. In this segment, Carlson blasts summer movies. The material is not as funny as the presentation, but Culhane’s Carlson is so funny in and of itself that the actual jokes don’t have to make much sense or be particularly funny on their own. Culhane’s intonations of “What are we doing?” and his maniacal cackle are worth the price of admission.

Parent-Teacher Conference

A mother (Padilla) meets with her son’s teacher (Ben Marshall). She brings in the other adults in her house , Maurice and Lulu Jones (Thompson and Brunson) who are odd characters and share way too much about their personal lives. It turns out they met on an app - Task Rabbit. The goofy characters are typical of Kenan’s strangeness, and Padilla and Marshall more or less react to them. Ultimately, two more adults enter, Cletus and Montrel (JAJ and Dismukes). The sketch ends with a joke that feels like the sketch was reverse engineered to get to the line. It has to do with trains, and I’ll leave it at that.

This one was more odd than funny. A little bit of the weird character thing goes a long way, but it didn’t feel like it served much purpose here and the whole thing just didn’t gel, despite some funny lines.

Shark Tank

Culhan and Marshall appear on Shark Tank as feminist inventors who have created “Respectacles”, eyeglasses that sound an alarm when the wearer looks at a woman’s breasts.

I don’t have to tell you where this one goes.

I’m out.

Old Friend

Brunson is playing himself after a game. He’s tired and wants to go home, but an old coach (Thompson) shows up to reminisce and ask for a handout. Thompson is, of course, funny as he asks inane questions such as “Be honest, what’s the biggest steak you ever ate?” He then presents Brunson with an old picture of the two of them, which turns out to be a crayon stick figure drawing.

He also presents him with a two page screenplay for a porno featuring Spider-Man. He brings in Tonya (Reiter), who will co-star in the movie with Spider-Man.

Another old man wanders in (Kam Patterson), claiming to be Brunson’s father. Brunson, who knows his father, shoos them all out and the sketch ends.

Kinda meh. And certainly didn’t live up to Brunson’s monologue promise about how great the final sketch would be.

The Goodbye Wave

Best Sketch: North High. The physical comedy here was on point, and the parody was well executed.

Worst Sketch: Shark Tank. It’s one joke. It’s an obvious one. And it really isn’t funny. Mr. Wonderful wouldn’t even take this with a generous royalty plan.

Random Notes:

- I am surprised at Wickline’s promotion, and even more surprised that we didn’t lose any of the other featured players (I really thought Kam and Tommy were on the chopping block). That said, Wickline really did show promise this week, particularly in the Dream Academy sketch.

- Oddly, however, it felt like Padilla had less to do than usual following her promotion. Obviously, we are only one show into the new season, so we’ll see how all this shakes out. I do look forward to seeing what Belo-Osagie and Reiter bring to the table.

- Musical guest Katseye was not for me, but I can accept that their music is catchy, and their production values are high. Their first number reminded me a of hyper-processed Britney Spears song. That sounds like an insult, but its not.

- A sketch was cut for time in with Brunson is a music star who is being counseled to fire his entourage. This was one of those sketches just full of silly characters. It was a bit long, an I understand why it was cut, but it was better than a few of the sketches that made air. It’s below.

Jalen Brunson showed a natural ability for sketch comedy. Apart from his breaking in the massage chair sketch (which was understandable), he showed a level of competence and professionalism that doesn’t always manifest with athletes on the show. His laid back almost emotionless personality worked well in the show. He may have not pulled off a championship episode, but it was far from a disaster.

Grade: C

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