Inde Navarrette Makes SNL Halloween Debut as Tom Hanks Returns

NEW YORK – Inde Navarrette made her Saturday Night Live hosting debut on Halloween, bringing her Obsession breakthrough to Studio 8H alongside musical guest Gracie Abrams. The October 31 episode also brought back Tom Hanks as David S. Pumpkins, giving the first-time host a returning Halloween character for company.

Navarrette’s opening monologue included a response to Shane Gillis’s earlier joke about women’s gym clothes, The Hollywood Reporter reported. She turned the subject back on herself while discussing the workouts required for her upcoming role as Rogue in X-Men.

Her horror-film persona supplied another setup. Navarrette told the audience she was unlike Nikki, her character in Obsession, before a scripted cutaway showed her boyfriend covered in duct tape in the audience. The gag made the distinction between performer and character part of the joke rather than a straightforward introduction to her credits.

She also invited cast members to display their Halloween costumes. Jeremy Culhane appeared as Wolverine and used the moment to pitch himself for the X-Men film. In the cold open, Hanks’s David S. Pumpkins interrupted a spooky ride. His return supplied a familiar seasonal reference before Navarrette’s own introduction.

The broadcast was the fourth episode of Season 52 and followed a two-week pause in new episodes. NBC’s October 31 episode guide listed Navarrette as a first-time host and Abrams as a returning musical guest. Those are separate jobs: Navarrette led the monologue and participated in the comedy, while Abrams filled the musical-guest slot.

NBC had announced the Halloween pairing on September 9 as part of its first four Season 52 bookings. That opening group also included Jalen Brunson, Dakota Johnson and Gillis. Navarrette’s appearance completed the group after the early-season break. The announcement had highlighted her Obsession performance, making the horror connection part of the booking’s public introduction weeks before Halloween. By the broadcast, that screen character had become material for the monologue itself, while the return of David S. Pumpkins supplied a separate connection to SNL’s past.

The Halloween booking followed a substantial change in Navarrette’s screen profile. In Curry Barker’s Obsession, released in May, she plays Nikki Freeman, whose co-worker Bear makes a wish that she love him more than anything else. The wish comes true with frightening consequences. NBC’s career profile described the film as a worldwide hit that had earned more than $500 million, and noted that Navarrette’s facial expressions as Nikki had spread through internet memes.

The actress had television and film credits before that breakout. NBC lists her role as Sarah Cushing across 43 episodes of Superman & Lois and her performance as Estela de la Cruz in the fourth season of 13 Reasons Why. Her earlier film work includes the 2020 drama Wander Darkly and the 2025 thriller Trap House. The profile also lists forthcoming work in Invertigo and X-Men, placing the SNL appearance between an established television career and a larger film slate.

That background gave the monologue two different kinds of recognition to work with: viewers who knew the horror-film character and viewers meeting the actress herself. The duct-tape cutaway deliberately blurred those identities for a joke. The X-Men exchange then moved the introduction from the role audiences had already seen to a film still ahead of her.

For Abrams, Halloween was a return rather than an introduction. NBC’s musical-guest profile identifies her first SNL appearance as December 14, 2024, when Chris Rock hosted during Season 50. She performed “That’s So True” and “I Love You, I’m Sorry” on that earlier episode. Her return came almost two years later, after another album release and before a new tour. The contrast in experience gave the October 31 programme a debuting host and a musician already familiar with its stage.

Abrams returned after releasing her third studio album, Daughter from Hell, on July 17. The network’s profile places it after Good Riddance, her 2023 debut, and The Secret of Us, released in 2024. It also lists the Look at My Life Tour, scheduled to begin in Denver on December 2 and finish with two Barcelona shows on May 27 and 28, 2027. Her SNL booking therefore fell between the album’s release and the start of that concert run.

NBC paired the Obsession star with the holiday beyond the hosting announcement. Its episode guide noted that Nikki had also become a character at Universal Studios Hollywood’s 2026 Halloween Horror Nights. That connection explained why a horror-film breakout was a natural fit for an episode airing on October 31 itself, rather than merely near the holiday.

The episode aired live on NBC on Saturday at 11:30 p.m. Eastern. The network’s viewing guide lists next-day streaming on Peacock, making Sunday the catch-up date for viewers who missed the Halloween broadcast.