Sabrina Carpenter for Shorties, OnlyFans for Seniors

The night felt like a lot of great sketch pitches with incredible ideas and tons of potential that just didn’t come together as successfully as we’re sure everyone hoped. The hook was there, the laugh setup was there, and then things just kind of fizzled somewhere along the way.

We did get the return of Mikey Day’s car-yelling sketch, which he and Quinta launched as a recurring bit during her first appearance. The return was slightly diminished, but fun nevertheless. The best sketch of the night came almost at the tail end, showing what a back-loaded evening it was. Persistence paid off, which is also a hint as to who we picked as our Player of the Week.

Quinta celebrated her diminutive stature with a cute song in her opening monologue where she was joined by fellow tiny star Sabrina Carpenter and … Dwyane Wade, for some reason. Musical guest Benson Boone made his way into “Weekend Update” and Colin Jost stepped away from the desk to actually show up in a sketch with a hilarious cameo.

While many of the sketches were somewhat half-baked — a Bill & Ted pastiche with huge potential — the portions that worked were sharp and funny. What the night lacked in solid front-to-back skits it definitely makes up for in brilliant moments throughout. All in all, it was an entertaining and worthy outing — just one that could have been so much more!

As usual, we’re ranking all the sketches from worst to first, including the Monologue, Cold Open, “Weekend Update” and any sketches that were cut for time but made their way online. We’ll skip the musical guests, because they’re not usually funny — unless Ashlee Simpson shows up. We wrap up with a look at the cast-member who had the strongest week.

Well, that happened. Unfortunately, that’s about all it did. From the awkward execution from the gorilla’s POV to the lack of anything really happening it all, James Austin Johnson being clearly visible standing and waiting for his cute to come in all concerned about these two women in the enclosure might have been the skit’s funniest moment. Ego Nwodim gave everything she had, and Quinta Brunson was almost up to her level, but the sketch just fell completely flat with no sense of coherence and worse, no laughs.

Quinta Brunson kicked off her second time hosting with a musical number about being short. The 4’11” star was joined live by Sabrina Carpenter, who at 5’0″ practically towers over her, before short king Marcell Hernandez (5’6″) and Dwyane Wade (6’4″) started stretching the definition. The song itself was cute, as was the short backup dancers and the whole celebration of seeing the world from a different perspective. It was a charming welcome back to one of the funniest women working today.

There were a few fun moments in this otherwise lackluster Cold Open with James Austin Johnson’s Trump joined by Mikey Day’s Stephen Miller to unleash a slew of new executive orders. While there were a few funny moments, it just started to get repetitive. Even the Bill Belichick order to allow people in their 70s to date people in their 20s (i.e., Jordon Hudson) fell flat. Johnson’s Trump did get in a sick burn on Millennials whose entire identity is still defined by Harry Potter, and definitely got a big laugh with his decision to outlaw ghosts because three of them keep showing up every Christmas Eve to bother him. It was just inconsistent throughout and lacked the usual nonsensical flow and outrageous asides we’ve come to enjoy from this impression.

This seminar sketch should never have strayed from the “compliment sandwich,” because nothing came of their attempts to redirect, other than a funny one-liner from James Austin Johnson about ways to motivate employees. There was a lot more funny material to be mined from Quinta Brunson just bashing Sarah Sherman’s character with the “sandwich” technique, and even Kenan Thompson’s literal sandwich talk. All in all, there was a great premise inside of this somewhat messy sketch. We got some good moments, but it could have been a lot tighter — like a wrap.

A great skit concept overall, but we’re not quite sure subpar impressions from Marcello Hernandez and Andrew Dismukes as “Bill & Ted”-style doofuses were the best avenue to try and argue with Frederick Douglass (Kenan Thompson) and Harriet Tubman (Quinta Brunson) about why they should leave the 1980s to go back to the time of slavery. Even someone as George Carlin’s Rufus might have helped a bit. All in all, it just didn’t really work on the screen as well as it did in concept.

They should have jumped to third press conference behavior in the second one to show us a better progression for Quinta Brunson’s diminutive legacy boxer. The trash talking in the first round was funny, as was the inevitable result, but we needed a quicker escalation to what “he” started spouting by the end of this sketch because that’s where the funny was. James Austin Johnson played a great narrator, juxtaposing Quinta’s outrageous nonsense with cold reality in a solid sketch that could have been great.

You can’t stay young forever, but you can stay Forever 31 with this “stylish but tired” line of oversized suits and non-flattering fashion that comes in “every color of the bummer rainbow.” Both peppy and sad, this fake ad perfectly captures that between era when you realize you’re probably too old for that “Coachella whore” look your parents hated, but what comes next? Turns out it’s about as sad and depressing as just giving up altogether and pairing leggings with an oversized shirt — but not in a cute way.

We had a feeling Quinta Brunson would want to bring back this Mikey Day sketch with two people arguing through their windows over some parking outrage. This time it was on a ferry — setting up a hilarious last-minute surprise — as the two used awkward pantomime to argue about parking courtesy, and Chloe Fineman continued to make everyone uncomfortable with her own sexual pantomimes. Quinta’s gestures weren’t quite as strong this time around, and they didn’t go nearly as outrageous, but the whole bit was still entertaining.

This was a strong statement about how corporate greed has to monetize everything, while insurance companies look for reasons not to provide coverage to maximize their profits, with a hilariously sad twist that has just a tinge of reality enough to make it satire and social commentary. Turns out there is a life insurance company willing to cover seniors despite any medical history they may have … you just have to install some cameras and then “do stuff.” Yeah, that “Only–” is leading right where you thought it might, while the faux ad leads to some hilariously awkward explanations from Kenan Thompson and Quinta Brunson to their adult children, Ego Nwodim and Devon Walker, about how they are supplementing their income to protect their children in the future. It would be funnier if it didn’t also have a hint of truth to it.

After a few weeks off, the boys came back fired up and ready to lay into Trump’s Pope image, Musk pulling out (a little too late) from DOGE, and even Homeland Security saying it’s developing a way to analyze tattoos for gang affiliation and possible deportation. Che’s commentary to that was they’re going to “check to see if the tattoo is on brown skin.” Seems legit. Elsewhere, Colin Jost lost his s–t over Trump’s comment that some people are going to have to settle for two dolls at Christmas instead of 30!

Michael Longfellow has one of the most distinctive comedic voices and styles, and yet, as he put it here, “I’m just not in that much stuff this season.” It’s a shame, too, because it feels like SNL has neutered some of its weirder comedic approaches. Sarah Sherman has been all over this season, but we’ve not gotten nearly as much of her Sarah Squirm side. Michael has that same quirky charm, a little unsettling and weird, but utterly compelling. His smarm worked perfectly in this rejection of the RealID, but mostly it made us miss seeing him more often doing his quirk.

A short non-political section still managed to pack in the laughs, and get some strong audience reactions to jokes like Jost’s lamentation about a multi-million dollar fighter jet falling off an aircraft carrier into the ocean, or Che’s that superheroes Superman and Batman are landing on U.S. Currency ($50 coins) before real-life superhero Harriet Tub-Man.

Sarah Sherman slid alongside Che for a change, and also alongside Bowen Yang for one of our new favorite pairings. Their energy just works together as they both embodied a redneck couple of Applebee’s bar regulars lamenting the decline and fall of mid-tier restaurant chains in America. So much of this was in their personalities, accents, and commitment to the roles, the script wasn’t even as essential when it came to delivering laughs. Throw in a little fourth-wall breaking and Benson Boone as their server, and this was a winner to wrap a strong “Update.”

This is how you take a simple premise, hang it on the back of a pro, and just let it ride. Kenan Thompson steals the sketch as a cocaine addict who’s clearly attending this meeting to find out where to score his fix in a new town. His not-at-all-subtle attempts to get details about where to get it, who to get it from, and his reactions to everyone else’s stories was hilariously focused and driven. To the last beat, this was Kenan’s show and he had us laughing out of the palm of his hand.

This week, it almost felt like Quinta handpicked the cast members she most enjoyed playing off, leading to an incredibly lopsided night, with only four of them appearing more than three times. Mikey Day and James Austin Johnson were sprinkled a bit more than that, while the most dominant faces working alongside the Abbott Elementary star were Marcello Hernandez and Kenan Thompson.

But even there, the difference was stark as Quinta brought out that leading man in Kenan we’ve not see much of these past few seasons. It’s as if the veteran is happy to let the newer cast members (i.e., all of them) get their time to shine, but has to come out of his cage from time to time and show them how it’s done.

Not only was he dominant tonight, but his unique cadence and delivery carried — and saved — several sketches. From the moment he dropped a “nope” as Frederick Douglass refusing to return to the era of slavery, you could see that he was feeling it tonight. And the hits just kept coming.

We all cringed as he and Quinta shared their OnlySeniors details, giggled along with his sandwich obsession, and enjoyed his scene-stealing cameo moments in the ferry sketch and as Quinta’s manager in “The Greats.” But it was his cokehead trying to make connections in the AA meeting that cemented his status.

That casual obsession that Kenan does so well, with moments of explosive energy, was on full display tonight, as was the legendary cast member, proving why he’s 22 seasons in and still killing it!

Saturday Night Live returns next week with host Walton Goggins and musical guest Arcade Fire.