It has been a momentous year for “Saturday Night Live.” The 2024 – 2025 season marked the show’s 50th anniversary and brought us some wonderful moments within and outside of the show’s special 50th anniversary broadcast. This year brought us another excellent John Mulaney episode, the return of Jack Black after a long absence as a host, and Oscar winner Mikey Madison amongst others. There are only three shows left to round out the year but it looks like it’s shaping up to finish extremely strong with two returning hosts and Walton Goggins making his “SNL” hosting debut!
After a hiatus for this upcoming weekend, “Saturday Night Live” returns on May 3rd with Quinta Brunson returning as host. Brunson has made a name for herself lately thanks to the success of her show “Abbott Elementary.” She previously hosted in season 48, making this her second hosting appearance. Benson Boone will be the musical guest for the episode, making his first appearance in support of his upcoming album, dropping in June.
The May 10th program is set to be an interesting one though as it will bring Walton Goggins to the studio for his first time hosting. Goggins is ferociously talented and has a resume that people could only dream of having. From “The Shield,” to “Justified,” “Fallout,” and most recently, “The White Lotus.” Let’s not forget “The Righteous Gemstones” either. Good God, this man has been in everything and just now he’s getting to host? It’s a long time coming. He’ll be hosting Arcade Fire as a musical guest, which is like, their 7th time on the show.
Goggins appearance also comes after the show courted a little bit of controversy for it’s parody of “The White Lotus,” “The White Potus.” One of the stars of the show’s ensemble cast, Aimee Lou Wood, called out “SNL”for its cheap, mean-spirited, riff on her having bad teeth while the rest of the parody was about ridiculing the political elite. The show has since apologized but we’ll see what Goggins will do and if they’ll revisit “The White Lotus” again.
Finishing up the year is very frequent host, Scarlett Johansson who will be paired with another returning musical act and former host, Bad Bunny. Johansson has popped up even when not hosting, whether to do a guest spot in a sketch, or react visibly shocked to horrifying jokes that Michael Che writes for his “Weekend Update” co-anchor, Colin Jost. Jost happens to be married to Johansson which has resulted in a number of jokes at her expense, coming directly from Jost’s mouth.
That’ll wrap up the 50th season of “Saturday Night Live.” It’s amazing to think the show has survived this long with so many incredible moments and phenomenal talents. Where does season 51 go from here? At least they’ll have the summer to plan for it, meanwhile we’ll enjoy the last three weeks and see what Goggins brings to the table with his episode airs on May 10th.
