SNL's Halloween episode: Tom Hanks returns as David S. Pumpkins before a Trump sketch

The cold open

The Halloween episode opened in a spooky amusement-park ride, where a couple played by Grace Reiter and Jeremy Culhane met a guide played by Kenan Thompson. Tom Hanks returned as David S. Pumpkins, the cheerful character in a black and orange suit he first played on 22 October 2016, and the Washington Post counted this as his fifth time in the role. Mikey Day and Bobby Moynihan joined him as dancing skeletons. The scene shifted when James Austin Johnson walked in as Donald Trump and cut Hanks off with a pitch about the midterm elections. Johnson's Trump then complimented Hanks's backside and joked about his own recent fixation on men's bodies.

Press secretary gag and the signature line

The sketch next turned to speculation that Trump would hire Nicki Minaj as his next press secretary. Saidah Belo-Osagie, a new cast member, played Minaj as a Trump ally who had joined the president at a rally in Michigan. Her character joked about her own standing, and the line drew laughs from the studio audience.

“Trump's out here killing it, and by it, I mean my career.”

Katie Zacharia, the former press secretary whose time in the job was brief, was played by Veronika Slowikowska. Given the chance to deliver the show's famous sign-off, she fumbled the line, and Hanks ended up delivering it instead.

Weekend Update and the host debut

Later in the episode, Colin Jost used Weekend Update to mock Trump's fixation on his colleagues' bodies and to say his party was about to lose the midterms. Bobby Moynihan returned as Drunk Uncle, celebrating the Brewers' World Series win and mixing up the anchors. Inde Navarrette, the star of the horror film Obsession, hosted SNL for the first time, with Gracie Abrams as the musical guest. In her monologue she made a dig at the controversy around Shane Gillis's monologue, which aired on 10 October. She followed it with a crude joke about her gym routine for her upcoming Marvel role as Rogue in X-Men, and the studio audience responded with a loud round of applause.

Sketches and critical reaction

Navarrette appeared in a range of sketches, from a blonde ghost child from the 1930s to a telenovela star who barrels off furniture. Vulture's reviewer said her physical comedy stood out, and praised a Dan Bulla pretape in which she played a somber widow. The reviewer said she held court for the rest of the episode and took a backseat in the ensemble Plates sketch, which felt well deserved. The Guardian called it the best episode of the season so far, while noting the odd stumble in the cold open. Both reviews singled out Navarrette as the reason the night worked.