The Halloween cold open built to its signature weirdness the way fans remember it: Grace Reiter and Jeremy Culhane as a couple on a low-end amusement park mausoleum ride, Kenan Thompson in a Grim Reaper costume as their guide, and then Tom Hanks bounding back into the pumpkin suit he first wore in 2016's 'Haunted Elevator' sketch.

Mikey Day and former cast member Bobby Moynihan rejoined as the full-body skeleton dancers in white face paint, and today.com reports Pumpkins got his own closing flourish, bellowing 'I'm David Pumpkins, maaaaan!' to studio cheers.

According to today.com, the character last appeared on the show four years ago, so a 2026 revival on Halloween night qualifies as a genuine event for sketch devotees — the random weirdo nobody can explain, back exactly when a Halloween guy should be.

The clip that will circulate all week is the cold open itself, in which James Austin Johnson's Trump freezes the entire scene mid-ride to hold forth on the Nov. 3 midterms.

Per Variety, Johnson's Trump delivered the line of the night — 'We both appeared in 2016. We're both very loud, very orange and, frankly, very annoying' — before the sketch pivoted into jokes about the president's fixation on the backsides of candidates he endorses.

Johnson as Trump also raised a giant bruised hand, saying polls show Texas 'turning purple, just like my hand,' and called GOP Senate candidate Ken Paxton 'an ugly son of a bitch' while conceding Democrat James Talarico is 'much better looking. What a dynamic ass.'

Thompson's Reaper brushed past with 'Yeah, you wish, bitch' after Trump thanked him for a donation.

Saidah Belo-Osagie's Nicki Minaj was the cold open's sharpest piece of political satire, spoofing the rapper's vocal MAGA support.

The Independent, via Newswav, reports the bit framed Minaj as Trump's next pick for press secretary following Katie Zacharia's 'spectacularly quick flame-out' in the job earlier this month.

Belo-Osagie's Minaj delivered the self-aware kicker: 'Trump's out here killing it — and by it, I mean my career.' Johnson's Trump then joked about her famously curvy figure, 'Perhaps if it was on a man, I could admire it.'

Variety notes the sketch closed with Veronika Slowikowska's Zacharia flubbing the 'Live from New York' line — so badly that Hanks' Pumpkins had to deliver it himself, a nice circular payoff for the returning character.

What makes this sketch a comedy story rather than routine Trump impersonation is how much topical material it compressed into one ride.

Variety reports the jokes drew on Trump's real campaign-rally comments praising other men's physiques, with Johnson's Trump admitting, 'Not that there's anything wrong with that. Just that I might be gay.'

Newswav relays The Independent's note that Colin Jost kept the theme alive on 'Weekend Update,' telling viewers, 'Your party is about to lose the midterms. Stop playing smash or pass with each other.'

The Independent also flagged host Inde Navarrette's monologue dig at Shane Gillis's controversial gym-wear commentary from the Oct. 10 episode, which drew applause from the studio audience — evidence the whole episode doubled as internal score-settling.

The timing gave the sketch its bite: Variety reports the episode aired the night before the Nov. 3 midterm election, with Johnson's Trump openly lamenting that 'the polls say we're doing very badly' and Republicans poised for a thumping.

Whether Pumpkins earns another rotation in the pumpkin suit, and whether the Minaj-as-press-secretary bit ages into one of the season's defining sketches, depends on what Tuesday's results hand the writers next.