The 49th season of Saturday Night Live started on October 14, 2023. Its start was delayed due to the Writers' Guild of America strike that shortened the previous season. James Austin Johnson and Sarah Sherman have now been promoted to the repertory cast, while Chloe Troast joins the cast as a featured player following her collaborations with Please Don't Destroy, who is now credited in the opening titles.
For the main index, see here.
As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.
- Pete Davidson/Ice Spice:
- One sketch centres around an episode of Fox NFL Sunday with Curt Menefee (Kenan Thompson) attempting to discuss football and having to deal with the other panellists and their sideline reporter (Pete Davidson) being more interested in discussing the new relationship between Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.Curt: Let's go to our newest NFL sideline reporter Kenny DiTullio who's at Metlife Stadium. Kenny, what's the mood down there?
Kenny: (dressed in Taylor Swift apparel) Devasted, Curt. Taylor is nowhere to be seen!
Curt: Aw, come on you too?! Why would you think Taylor Swift would be at a Jets-Eagles game?
Kenny: What do you mean why?! Because there was a rumor online that she was coming to cheer on Travis Kelce's brother Jason who plays for the Eagles, duh! So far, no sign of Blondie. I don't even know why I'm here.
Curt: ...Because that's your job!- The sketch ends with a fed up Curt announcing that when the show comes back from the commercial break, he'll be interviewing the one person who actually wants to discuss football and not the relationship: Travis Kelce himself.
- One pre-recorded sketch has Pete parody "I'm Just Ken" from Barbie (2023). At one point when he mentions that some people still call him "Skete", he flashes a picture of Kanye West to mock their one-sided rivalry online.
- The sketch also acknowledges the physical resemblance between Pete and Devon Walker by having Walker play "Black Pete", much to his annoyance.
- There's also his... less than inspiring lyrics.Pete: I'm just Pete and I like jugs! I'm mentally ill and I'm on drugs! But hey, I'm still in Super Bowl commercials!
- One sketch centres around an episode of Fox NFL Sunday with Curt Menefee (Kenan Thompson) attempting to discuss football and having to deal with the other panellists and their sideline reporter (Pete Davidson) being more interested in discussing the new relationship between Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.
- Bad Bunny:
- In the Rap Battle sketch, Walter White Boy (Day) and El Fuego (Bad Bunny) parody 8 Mile perform a rap battle in a bar. Day decides to defeat him by making self-deprecating bars about himself, how he kissed his cousin, and how he has four testicles.
- In the pre-recorded Please Don't Destroy sketch, Bad Bunny talks to the trio while dressed as Shrek and hands them a script for his own Shrek movie titled Shrek: Infinity. Just the sight of him and the boys dressed as the characters from the films is enough for some laughs.
- Weekend Update features this joke from Michael Che at the audience's expense:Michael Che: This week, the WNBA Finals were won by the New York Liberty! (audience cheers and applauds) Ah, I'm kidding. Vegas beat 'em in four, ya phonies. You didn't see that game. Shame on you!
- "Protective Mom 2" sees Luis Flores (Marcello Hernandez) bring his newest girlfriend (Chloe Troast) home to meet his family. He's first greeted by his Tia (Bad Bunny), who's visiting the family. Pedro Pascal reprises his role as Ms. Flores.
- The girlfriend gives Ms. Flores a tin of Danish Butter Cookies. She promptly throws them away and fills the tin with sewing supplies.
- Writer's strike or no, whoever came up with this line deserves a raise.Chloe: Oh, this? It's a septum piercing.
Pedro: Oh, I have one too... sept-I'm putting it in my ear where it belongs! - The way this girl wins the mother and aunt over? Telling Luis that he doesn't eat enough.
- The "Telenovela" sketch has Bad Bunny and Hernandez playing brothers in a telenovela. Confusion and chaos ensue as Punkie Johnson gets a minor role due to a misunderstanding in the casting call.
- "La Era del Descubrimento (The Age of Discovery)" is an all-Spanish sketch that has explorers Mikey Day and Fred Armisen gifting some of their finds in the New World to the Spanish King (Bad Bunny) and Prince (Hernandez), only for the King and Prince to be largely unimpressed at first.
- "The Right Track" (Also called "Subway Platform") harkens back to the previous season's "Waffle House" sketch with a serious conversation in the foreground and chaos in the background. This time, Devon Walker plays a down-on-his-luck man pleading with James Austin Johnson to hire him. All the while on the subway train behind them, someone pops a large bunch of balloons, a flasher horrifies other passengers, and a rat causes a scene.
- Nate Bargatze/Foo Fighters:
- "Washington's Dream": Bargatze plays George Washington, who starts giving an inspiring speech about his dreams for the future of America and then, inexplicably, segues into describing his plans for the byzantine and arbitrary system of measurements that all US citizens will use.
- Made even funnier by Kenan's character, who keeps asking about that whole "all men are created equal" thing.
Kenan: And the slaves, sir? What of them?
Washington: You asked about the temperature.
Kenan: I did not. - "Chef Show" centers around a cooking competition where two chefs (Bargatze and Ego Nwodim) compete to cook the best soul food dish. The judges (Kenan Thompson and Punkie Johnson) are shocked when it turns out they dish they chose was Bargatze's, who Apologizes a Lot because he's aware how awkward it is that the white chef won.Rev. Jeremiah Fields: What did you do to this catfish, girl?!
Kelly: It's actually "Impossible" Catfish, it's made from soy protein. (Dr. Fields gives her a Death Glare as he flips the plate off the table in disgust)- When the sous chefs come out, the judges initially assume Dougie's success must've been because of his assistant. Nope! His sous chef was white too. As for Kelly's assistant...Maddie Johnson: And what about you?
Sous Chef: I made the deconstructed black-eyed peas.
Rev. Jeremiah Fields: You need to kill yourself.
- When the sous chefs come out, the judges initially assume Dougie's success must've been because of his assistant. Nope! His sous chef was white too. As for Kelly's assistant...
- "Hallmark Horror" is a trailer for a fake Hallmark Channel Halloween movie that follows the same beats as their Christmas movies with a girl (Chloe Fineman) reconnecting with a guy (Bargatze) in her hometown. Except the guy is also the town's serial killer.
- The pre-recorded "Lake Beach" sketch has three guys (Bargatze, Andrew Dismukes, James Austin Johnson) sing about their favorite weather activity: Hanging by a dirty lake with a bunch of rednecks, complete with Dave Grohl joining in as one of the guys' crazy uncle.
- "Washington's Dream": Bargatze plays George Washington, who starts giving an inspiring speech about his dreams for the future of America and then, inexplicably, segues into describing his plans for the byzantine and arbitrary system of measurements that all US citizens will use.
- Timothée Chalamet/Boygenius:
- James Austin Johnson's Trump is back for a cold open where he roasts all the other Republican 2024 candidates. It's exactly as weird and rambling as you'd hope.
- "The Museum of Hip Hop Panel" has Chalamet bring back his SmokeCheddaDaAssGetta character from the "XXL Roundtable" sketch, complete with his hilariously bad rap about "capilism". What makes it more hilarious this time around is that Dr. Cornel West (Kenan Thompson) initially humors SmokeChedda, only to start spanking him once he actually hears him perform the "capilism" rap.
- "What Is It About Me?" centers around an orphan named Cassidy (Chloe Troast), who is distraught about not getting adopted and sings about it to the moon (Chalamet). The moon is initially sympathetic, but as the song goes on he starts to realize there are several legitimate reasons why no one has adopted her, including the fact she's actually 26 years-old, she's a flat-earther, she ate the bat in Wuhan that started COVID, and that she's planning to do some shady things with 51 year-old boyfriend (Day).
- Jason Momoa/Tate McRae:
- The monologue jokes tend to fly past pretty quick, but this one may stick in some heads for the wrong reasons:"My mom is here... if you see her, be careful, she's still recovering from giving birth to me."
- "Old-Timey Movies" shows footage of L. Frank Baum (Longfellow) writing in New York, but the footage is constantly interrupted by random people, mainly two businessmen (Day, Momoa) doing strange things like playing with a woman's hat and parasol.
- The "Ancient Rome Song,"
an admittedly Ripped from the Headlines sketch based on the meme that men are thinking about Roman history all the time.Ego: You need to be thinking about things that matter to-day!
Jason: Like what?
Ego: Like— (starts rapping)
Astrology! Astrology! The art of reading stars!
And how their position determines who are are!
Chloe: 'Cause he a Scorpio, I know he gonna cheat all day
Punkie: And if you a triple Gemini, stay the hell away! - "UNTOLD: Battle of the Sexes" shows the story of Charna Lee Diamond (Sherman), who challenges Ronnie Dunster (Momoa) to a tennis duel. Unfortunately, due to Dunster's extremely bigger size and strength, he ends up blasting the tennis ball through her stomach and then the ball blows her head off.
- "Thanksgiving Week Airport Parade" has two TSA agents (Bowen Yang and Ego Nwodim) hosting a parade at Newark International Airport highlighting the various people in the airport during Thanksgiving Week. Among them are the flirtatious pilot at the Chili's bar (Momoa), the TSA Agent Who Yells the Same Thing 12 Different Ways (Kenan Thompson), and James Austin Johnson as the Gentle Parent with the Uncontrollable, Evil Child. Eventually Ego goes to hunt down Momoa at the bar, and they've somehow hooked up before the end of the sketch.Bowen: People use that room for breastfeeding!
Ego: So did he!
- The monologue jokes tend to fly past pretty quick, but this one may stick in some heads for the wrong reasons:
- Emma Stone/Noah Kahan:
- The pre-recorded "New Skincare Product" is an Olay ad that promotes, of all things, Diet Coke as a skincare product, with one user (Gardner) saying she drinks six to fourty-five Diet Cokes on an average day.
- "Fully Naked in New York" is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, a song about the joys about doing random things in New York whilst completely nude.
- This week's Please Don't Destroy sketch centers around Stone and Martin Herlihy revealing to the others that they've fallen in love and have begun a relationship. However, the sketch is continually disrupted by disclaimers explaining that the sketch had several file corruption and post-production issues, resulting in bits such as Punkie Johnson acting as Stone's AI stand-in when she was unavailable for reshoots or John Higgins attempting to take advantage of the situation by enhancing his appearance through CGI.
- One sketch looks to be headlined by Chloe Troast as Mama Cass when she recorded "Make Your Own Kind Of Music" in 1969, but the real joke is the producer (Emma in reverse-drag) predicting the trend of all these old songs being used in famously violent movies (like say, Zombieland). They even get the band to do the music in a downbeat style to create the Moody Trailer Cover Song."Sing this one like a haunted child this time!"
- Adam Driver/Olivia Rodrigo:
- Driver's monologue has him give his wishes to Santa. This includes a giant metal Tesla truck that would go well with his "teeny tiny micro-penis", for people to stop telling him that he "killed Han Solo" when really "wokeness killed him", and to kill "those TikTok couples that pranks on each other".
- "Airplane Baby" has a fretful mother (Sarah Sherman) taking her baby (Driver's head on a baby puppet's body) on his first flight. The passengers across the aisle are very creeped out about this baby with an adult head and verbal articulation.
- One pre-recorded sketch has some elderly people make a PSA against getting pranked on TikTok. Such pranks include getting a blanket unexpectedly thrown over them, getting dunked on at Walmart, and someone lying about being gay for a reaction.
- A sketch cut for time, Actor's Journey, has a breakthrough actor giving a talkback and offhandedly mentioning that he used to live in a terrible apartment... only for his former property manager to be sitting in the audience and taking offense, leading to an Escalating Punchline as the actor tries to mention different people who all happen to be there to see his work.Frankie: Why are all of you here?!
- Kate McKinnon/Billie Eilish:
- A pre-recorded sketch advertises Pongo, a pet that stares, barely blinks, and can teleport without making a sound, which creeps out the mother (Sherman) to the point she tries to bury him (at which point the grandmother, played by McKinnon, pulls a shotgun on her).Daughter: This house wasn't a home until Pongo showed up!Mother: What are you guys talking about?! WE GOT HIM THIRTY-SIX HOURS AGO!
- After a year and a half, Weekend Update has Jost and Che's joke swap returns. For extra hilarity, Michael brings in a black activist name Dr. Hattie Davis* to sit next to Colin while he tells the racial jokes he was given.
- One joke cracked Michael up even as he was delivering it.Michael: And my review of the acting [in a musical based on Michael Jackson's life] is the same as my opinion on MJ's trial: Michael is amazing, but the kids are not believable at all!
- One joke cracked Michael up even as he was delivering it.
- A pre-recorded sketch advertises Pongo, a pet that stares, barely blinks, and can teleport without making a sound, which creeps out the mother (Sherman) to the point she tries to bury him (at which point the grandmother, played by McKinnon, pulls a shotgun on her).
- Jacob Elordi/Reneé Rapp:
- In the "Bowling" skit, a couple (Gardner, Elordi) plays a game of bowling. Whilst they play, the bowling animations shown go from being cutesy and lighthearted, to showing bowling pins engaging in divorce, worker strikes, and infertility. Whilst Gardner is blissfully oblivious, Elordi is horrified.
- The "Women's AA Meeting" skit has Elordi stumble into a women's AA meeting where he talks about whilst sober, he acts outs sexually with other women. The women are unashamedly attracted to him, with the highlight being one of the woman (Johnson) pull down her shirt to show her bra and deciding to bounce slightly causes the woman next to her (Fineman) to begin Corpsing.
- Dakota Johnson/Justin Timberlake:
- The "Waiters" sketch has a family try to order food at a restaurant, but the two waitresses (Sherman, Dakota Johnson) mess up their order from mispronouncing the family's name as "the Manson family" to calling chicken fingers "fongers".
- "Home Videos" has a family (Johnson, Dismukes, Day) watch some home videos together. One of those videos end up being an episode of a Maury-like talk show where the parents and another guy named Spooky (Hernandez) find who the father is, much to Dismukes' confusion. At the end, its revealed that Spooky is the new nurse to Dismukes' grandma (Sherman) and whispers to him that he switched the test results.
- The "Lost Bag" Sketch has a lady (Johnson) ask for her lost duffel bag, but due to lacking a receipt, the attendant (Devon Walker) refuses to give it to her until he has some evidence. Said evidence includes a diary that worries about how a guy she met might be poor and medication for extreme diarrhea, and even then the attendant and his manager/father (Thompson) are still unconvinced.
- Please Don't Destroy takes a minimalist approach this week, as their sketch consists entirely of the guys and Dakota in a Volleying Insults battle. Then it gets outright self-aware as two of the guys, John Higgins and Martin Herlihy, pause for a moment to declare a "Nepo Truce" with Dakota.note "A foot in the door, and so much more."
- With Weekend Update getting more bloodthirsty as of late, some folks might have appreciated this Ascended Meme:Che: Godzilla Minus One became the first Japanese movie to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Visual Effects. Also nominated for the Oscars is the Godzilla prequel Oppenheimer.
- Ayo Edebiri/Jennifer Lopez:
- The "Why'd You Like It" sketch returns in the form of "Why'd You Say That", where three contestants (Fineman, Dismukes, Edebiri) say why they posted certain comments on Instagram. Edebiri because of her nihilism, Dismukes for wanting to have sex with a politician and compulsively lying, and Fineman because her song doesn't have many views on YouTube.
- At first one of the contestants is actually a character played by Mikey Day. However, once he hears the rules of the game, he decides to just leave the show, which results in Fineman's character taking his place.
- "Bad Couples" has a news reporter (Yang) asks couples on the street how they met. The couples include a couple made from two people cheating, A Teacher/Student Romance, a Brother–Sister Incest couple, a cult-appointed Arranged Marriage and two couples with the same woman (Edebiri) being unfaithful, with Yang eventually saying that love is dead, until finally hitting it off with another man (Hernandez)... who just so happens to be the husband of one of the co-anchors (Kearney).
- Weekend Update has Sarah Sherman trying out something new in her quest to mess with Colin - dressing up exactly like him and claiming to be his illegitimate son.
- The People's Court sketch has a woman (Edebiri) sue her hairdresser (Nwodim). It turns out the hairdresser a part of the woman's scalp, revealing her brain. Things get more insane when another of the hairdresser's clients (Johnson) also has her brain exposed as well as a receding hairline. The judge (Thompson) is disgusted and hopes that both parties involved go to Hell.
- The "Why'd You Like It" sketch returns in the form of "Why'd You Say That", where three contestants (Fineman, Dismukes, Edebiri) say why they posted certain comments on Instagram. Edebiri because of her nihilism, Dismukes for wanting to have sex with a politician and compulsively lying, and Fineman because her song doesn't have many views on YouTube.
- Shane Gillis/21 Savage:
- The pre-recorded "Rock Bottom Kings" sketch promotes an app similar to Draft Kings that lets you take prop bets on how badly your gambling-addicted friend will lose all his money and hit rock bottom.
- One sketch is a fake movie trailer for a film produced by Newsmax where a man (Gillis) is given a pair of Donald Trump's "Never Surrender" basketball sneakers. When the man puts them on, he suddenly gains Trump's ability to gaslight people into either giving him what he wants or believing his claims even if the person witnessed any evidence to the contrary. By the end, he has taken on Trump's appearances and mannerisms, setting the stage for James Austin Johnson to appear as Trump himself so he and Gillis can play their impressions off each other.
- The "Fugliana" sketch advertises an average looking sex doll (Sherman) for below average looking men (Gillis). While advertising the doll's features, Sherman uses the stiff doll's movement to bump into Gillis, causing him to crack up.
- Sydney Sweeney/Kacey Musgraves:
- The NYPD has hired two college interns (Sweeney, Fineman) for the detective office. As the captain goes over the files of cold cases the department needs to investigate, the two interns continually solve the cases just by searching for the suspects' social media activity on their smartphones.
- The pre-recorded Please Don't Destroy sketch has the boys moment over a dead friend. When asks what happened, they say that the friend fell into the Grand Canyon by a donkey kicking him in the balls while on roller skates and hitting a fat guy and exploding. Sweeney doesn't believe this, nor does she believe that the friend was Chef Boyardee's son until they show a YouTube video of the whole thing happening.
- The pre-recorded "Airbnb Design Commercial" promotes two designers named Chanel and Chanel (Sweeney, Troast) whose rooms are incredibly bland and one house has a picture and closet that suggests the owners did something horrible. They also promote themselves as the ones who assisted in the Willy's Chocolate Experience event in Glasgow.
- In the wake of Mitch McConnell announcing his stepping down from his leadership role in the Senate, Michael and Colin take turns using up all the built-up "Seen here smiling at <insert blatantly evil thing>" jokes they had. Among them are...
- Catching up on news from the Middle East.
- Walking out of a theater after watching 12 Years a Slave
- After rearranging a blind woman's furniture.
- Watching a single mother sell her blood for diaper money.
- Josh Brolin/Ariana Grande:
- "Wine and Cheese Night" has a couple's (Sherman, Dismukes) take a liking to another guy (Brolin) because of his energy during a wine and cheese party and he starts getting obsessive over it. When the cat moves over to another man's lap (Walker) the man throws a tantrum before flipping a table. The cat soon goes back to the man's lap and bites him in the arm, causing him the bleed. When he refuses to go the hospital, both the man and the husband draw knives at each other as the sketch ends.
- The pre-recorded "Shrimp Tower" sketch has a man create an extravagant shrimp cocktail tower for a lavish party. When a dutchess (Sherman) gets too close to the tower, the man pushes her out of the window out of paranoia that she might break it. She manages to survive the fall and become attracted to the man for the way he protects his shrimp tower. When the man takes a shrimp from it, he then accidentally knocks over the tower and breaks almost all of the glasses. Although he says he's fine, whilst the other partygoers toast to him, the man commits suicide in the background.
- "Shonda" has a woman (Gardner) go on the titular talk show to see if her boyfriend is cheating on her. While the audience encourages her to dump him, they become horrified when it's revealed that the boyfriend (Brolin) is actually a paralyzed old man whose neck was broken by the woman. As the audience leaves one by one, it's revealed that the man didn't cheat on her and it's heavily implied that it's the other way around.
- Ramy Youssef/Travis Scott
- The sequel to the previous season's "Couples Goals" sketch has a couple (Nwodim, Youssef) has the husband reveal his fear of the wife getting killed in a accident and the cops believing he did it because of some text messages he sent.
- "Immigrant Dad Talk Show" centers around a talk show hosted by two immigrant fathers (Hernandez, Youssef) where they discuss several parenting topics with their Jamaican immigrant sidekick (Thompson), which leads to some serious Culture Clash when their white liberal neighbor (Day) appears with his son (Dismukes).
- "Team Captain" has said captain (Youssef) try to give an inspirational speech, but also reveals the coach's (Thompson) fetish for acting like a cat and revealed pictures of him acting like that on a group chat. It gets ore insane where one of the team members (Walker) is the coach's son.
- Kristen Wiig/Raye:
- "Jumanji" has a game night go wrong with one partygoer (Wiig) reveals her fear of board games because she afraid of getting "Jumanjied". The others have to remind her that it's a fictional board game while another partygoer (Fineman) reveals that she's only seen the sequel. The game itself isn't even jungle related, it's about classic railroads... until the host (Dismukes) opens the box, causing smoke to billow out and the house to rumble with train bell sounds and the appearance of an old-timey train engineer (surprise guest Will Forte!)
- One Weekend Update joke has a story about a mouse embryo who has an extra leg where it's genitals are. To which Michael shouts "Same!" and tries to high five Colin, to which he questions if his penis is the size of a mouse's leg. Michael tries to take it back, but Colin says it's already locked in.
- The earthquake that hit New York City (Marcello Hernandez) talks about the chaos he brought to the city, only for the total solar eclipse (Kenan Thompson) to interrupt and boast about plunging the nation into darkness. They then start trash-talking each other like pro wrestlers.
- Ego Nwodim is doing something similar to Kenan as Reese de'What, presenting clips of classic tv, which in this case is the 70s French variety show "La Maison du Bang", which looks for all the world like a French Solid Gold or Soul Train. Highlights include Chloe Troast as a bootleg Edith Piaf who "contracted emphysema live on the show", and Kristen as Tipi Tornade, who's basically all of Kristen's dance moves at once, and a Spotlight-Stealing Squad on the original show to this very day.
- "Pilates", a Real Trailer, Fake Movie that manages to make pliates into a horror movie premise, where the women are somehow assimilated and turned into Stepford Smilers with the same horrific dress sense as well as Abnormal Limb Rotation Range, including a woman who's been pregnant for 11 months. Your best chance of escape? Wear the wrong socks, and you get shoved out like in Carrie (1976) - stay for too long, and simple 1-pound dumbells will kill you. Worth noting is that they can make a Moody Trailer Cover Song with Megan Thee Stallion.
- Ryan Gosling/Chris Stapleton:
- The monologue has Gosling say that he and Ken broke up, and tries to express via "All Too Well" only for his The Fall Guy (2024) co-star Emily Blunt to tell him to move on and hitting him with multiple objects, saying that Ken's dead. He then asks her about Oppenheimer, to which she sings about her character.
- "The Engagement" has a couple (Gosling, Fineman) reveal to their friends (Dismukes, Nwodim) about their engagement. However, when the girls are away, Gosling whispers to Dismukes about regretting the decision and plans to get facial reconstruction surgery and move to Istanbul. Even when Dismukes tells Fineman, the couple seems to make up, only for Gosling to whisper that he didn't really mean it.
- "Beavis and Butt-Head'' has a NewsNation livestream about AI get hijacked by two audience members (Gosling, Day) who look like the titular cartoon characters. The sight of this causes the interviewer (Gardner) to begin Corpsing. Even better, the two audience members reveal that they don't know who Beavis & Butthead are.
- Gosling's "Papyrus"-obsessed Steven returns. Seemingly at ease upon discovering that the title font for Avatar: The Way of Water was changed from the original's Papyrus font ("Not a huge improvement, but it's not Papyrus!"), he quickly falls down another mental rabbit hole when he realizes that the only difference is that The Way of Water's font is boldface Papyrus.
- During Weekend Update, Che cracks a joke about WNBA star Caitlin Clark... only for Clark herself to roll out onto the stage to confront him for all the jokes he's been making about women's basketball. When Che claims that he hasn't, Colin reveals that he made a supercut of all the times he's made a joke about the WNBA in the past season.
