The season premiere of Saturday Night Live arrives just over a month before election day. Both campaigns are setting the stage for what should be an eventful, strange, and wild month of campaign stops and debates that should easily fuel SNL with enough material to make it must-see TV through the first few episodes of season 42.
This past summer saw SNL not renew the contracts of long-time cast members Taran Killam and Jay Pharoah along with Jon Rudnitsky, who was fired after his first season. Veteran writers Chris Kelly and Sara Schneider were promoted to co-head writers for the show, and writer Mikey Day with newcomers Alex Moffat and Melissa Villaseñor were added to the cast as featured players. Villaseñor will be the first Latina cast member in the show’s history.
While the election and its fallout will carry SNL through the first part of season 42, what else might happen along the way? Who might return to Studio 8H, be the breakout cast member, or finally say goodbye?
Thankfully, I sent away for the specs to a time machine, put it together, used it to watch all 21 episodes of SNL’s season 42, and then destroyed it because I didn’t want it to fall into the wrong hands. I probably should have killed Hitler, or convinced Buddy Holly to stay off that plane before setting it on fire. Damn.
Anyway. Here are a few highlights from season 42 with some major spoilers ahead:
Kate McKinnon Leaves After Hillary Clinton Loses Election
Shortly after Donald Trump’s shocking victory to become the 45th President of the United States, Kate McKinnon announced her decision to leave SNL at the end of 2016. With her star never brighter after a scene-stealing turn in Ghostbusters over the summer, an Emmy win for her work on SNL, and her genius Hillary impression during a bleak campaign, McKinnon may have picked the perfect time to walk away from SNL.
Welcome Back, Tom Hanks and Jon Hamm
Ten and six. That’s how many years, respectively, it has been since either Tom Hanks or Jon Hamm has hosted SNL before this season. Both have appeared numerous times over the past few seasons as guests, but it was great seeing both get an entire episode again. Hamm’s episode may have been slightly funnier, but the return of Hanks and Jon Lovitz as updates of their 80s “Girl Watchers” sketch was a classic SNL moment.
Metallica Was This Season’s Best Musical Guest
In a season that saw SNL favorites Beck, Arcade Fire, and U2 all take the stage, it was the return of metal giants Metallica that proved to be the best performance of the season. In support of their 10th album, Hardwired… to Self-Destruct, Metallica tore through “Moth Into Flame” and the band’s tribute to the late Lemmy Kilmister, “Murder One.” A close second to Metallica was Thirty Seconds to Mars, who were the best part of the Jared Leto-hosted episode in April. Yes, Thirty Seconds to Mars.
Which New White Guy Will Be Fired This Summer?
Over the past four seasons, SNL has hired nine white guys with more than half (five) only making it through that first season. Before the start of this season, SNL hired two more white guys (Mikey Day and Alex Moffat) to seemingly replace two other white guys (Killam and Rudnitsky). So which one will not be around next season? Day had the advantage of working at SNL for the past three seasons before joining the cast, but Moffat really held his own this season, so here’s hoping these white guys break the one season trend.
Ghostbusters Reunion
With Kristen Wiig hosting McKinnon’s last episode in December, fans were hoping for at least some mentions of their cult film, Ghostbusters. (Can movies only a year old have cult status?) Thankfully, they were able to convince Melissa McCarthy to join Wiig, McKinnon, and Leslie Jones in a digital short where they busted the ghosts (Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Mike Myers, and Lovitz) of Studio 8H.
Melissa Villaseñor Is A Star
It was only a matter of time before someone from Broadway Video’s Latino endeavor, Mas Mejor, jumped over to SNL and thankfully, it took less than a year for it happen. Villaseñor, who had a bumpy start to her SNL career after she was caught deleting questionable tweets from her past in September, first reached a national audience on America’s Got Talent for her variety of impressions, and while we may have seen her Owen Wilson and Sarah Silverman impressions a few times too many, her sketch work and Weekend Update appearances may have Villaseñor lined up to be the next Bill Hader.
Alec Baldwin > Larry David?
One of last season’s highlights was Larry David’s Bernie Sanders impression. For some fans and critics it was the only highlight, and this season SNL tried to strike guest star impression gold again by handing the reins for President Trump over to Alec Baldwin. I’m not sure Baldwin was seeing this as a long-time gig, but here’s hoping he’ll want to stick around SNL for at least the next four years because he was amazing as Trump, and after eight years of doing a less-than-stellar job with Barack Obama, the writers have a lot of material to work with now that Trump is president.
Hopefully I didn’t ruin too much of season 42 for you, but as you can see it’s going to be an eventful season, and I didn’t even mention the Joe Biden episode, Bobby Moynihan moving on from SNL after nine seasons, or “The Weekend Update Kiss.” The season premiere of Saturday Night Live is Oct. 1 with host Margot Robbie and musical guest The Weeknd.
