‘SNL’ Recap: Jenna Ortega Brings Her ‘Wednesday’ Vibes To Saturday Night

As we head into college basketball’s annual March Madness, it’s perhaps apt to think of Season 48 for Saturday Night Live as though they’re a bubble team. Madly inconsistent play during the regular season, but somehow there’s still a chance for them to come through and deliver some big wins before all is said and done. Or, to borrow from an even older sporting tome, they’d have to flip it and reverse course, and leave March less like a lamb and more like a lion. Look: You give us a mixed bag, you leave us no choice but mixed metaphors.

What’s The Deal For The SNL Cold Open For Last Night (3/11/23)?

We’re at the Oscars Red Carpet show, with Marcello Hernandez as Mario Lopez and Heidi Gardner unsure if she’s supposed to be Kit Hoover or Maria Menounos. Either way, they’re going to throw a bone to fans of Ozempic jokes as it’s allegedly the trendy celeb diet plan in 2023 despite the medication being direly needed by diabetics. Also: We get to see Mike Tyson (Kenan Thompson) to lisp us with safety plans to avoid any slaps this year; Chloe Fineman as Oscar nominee Jamie Lee Curtis (“how great is this?!”) wearing Kirkland by Costco; and multiple references to Ariana DeBose’s BAFTAs rap.

After three consecutive episodes where we seemingly couldn’t see Andrew Dismukes or Molly Kearney anywhere, we get both of them in the cold open. Dismukes goes over gambling odds with Devon Walker, while Kearney walks the carpet portraying Brendan Gleeson alongside Mikey Day as Colin Farrell. But things only perk up when Sarah Sherman arrives as the “Jewish acting coach” for Michelle Williams on The Fabelmans. There’s a gambling payoff that doesn’t quite pay off when Bowen Yang reprises his George Santos impersonation. Meanwhile, is that supposed to be Michael Longfellow as the tree from Pinocchio??! When you throw everything at a sketch, some things will stick, while the rest will just look like a mess.

How Did The SNL Guest Host Jenna Ortega Do?

Jenna Ortega made her hosting debut, reminding us that at 20 years old, she’s the youngest host this season, but that she’s been acting since childhood (roll the toothpaste commercial footage as evidence, if you please!). As the star of Netflix hit series Wednesday, as well as co-starring in Scream VI, out in cinemas this weekend, this is her chance to shine. One of her Netflix co-stars just happens to be SNL alum Fred Armisen, so no surprise to see him in the studio audience jumping onstage and into the monologue (as well as in a sketch, but not “The Californians”). More notiecable: How Ortega continues a trend of first-time guest hosts sincerely expressing how getting to host SNL is their dream come true.

The first two bits post-monologue feel like a bit of a let down, actually?

Kenan hosts a game show, “School vs. School,” where the teams pair two students with their teacher: Michael and Marcello with teacher Punkie Johnson as Mrs. Cashman; Jenna and Molly as Zena and Knockout with teacher Mikey as Professor Zander, clearly based on The X-Men. And yet nobody blinks or flinches or shows any awareness of mutants, fictional comic-book kind or real, in this sketch comedy universe??? Instead we’re left to laugh at how Jenna’s Zena freaks out upon missing a question, while worrying everyone else thinks she’s a freak. And the one sight gag (Punkie’s bloodied, frozen face) is left kinda hanging.

Jenna also joins the “please don’t destroy” boys on a “Great American Road Trip,” which is a fun-time singalong until they miss their exit.

Jenna retains enough youthfulness to pull off a remake of The Parent Trap, but can Raymond from the crew (Armisen) sub in for her body double to play a suitable identical twin? What do you think? He’s going off script immediately and acting more like 51 than 11, because that’s what he knows. Feels like it could’ve gone harder or weirder, tho. Or more ridiculousness, perhaps? Speaking of which…

This play on MTV’s Ridiculousness stars Mikey Day as host Rob Dyrdek, with Kenan and Chloe as his panelists Steelo Brim and Chanel West Coast, and Jenna as 17-year-old starlet Lee Lee Two Times, whose real-life anecdotes are not only more ridiculous than any of the videos they screen, but also twenty times more horrifying!

Last but certainly not least, we get to see Jenna lean into a classic teen scream horror trope as a girl possessed by the devil, in need of an exorcism. JAJ is there as a priest to offer prayers, while Andrew and Chloe as the parents don’t know what to do. Thankfully, their neighbor, Mrs. Shaw (Ego Nwodim), just wants her sleep and won’t put up with any of this satanic foolishness. Especially since she hears better insults from the fifth-graders she protects each day as a crossing guard.

How Relevant Was The Musical Guest The 1975?

Is Matty Healy eating raw meat and/or kissing fans onstage relevant to The Addams Family or horror movie franchises? Debatable! The 1975 made their second appearance as musical guests, and currently on a world tour for their new-ish album, “Being Funny in a Foreign Language.” Both songs tonight come from the album. First up: “I’m In Love With You.”

For their second song? “Oh Caroline.”

Which Sketch Will We Be Sharing: “Waffle House”

If regular Waffle House fights can go viral, then what about a fake Waffle House fight that’s threatening to upstage this scene from Varsity Valley? High-schoolers (Jenna and Marcello) play their dating drama completely straight in the parking lot, while inside, Molly’s upset with her order, gets into a fight with the waitress (Heidi), and things snowball from there. Mikey’s shirtless in dreads, no worries about getting tased by the cop (Andrew). Ego will join her dog on the counter, thank you very much. Punkie rolls in on a wheelchair, only to roll out. Kenan bursts out of the kitchen with a flaming torch. But don’t worry. All’s well that ends well. “Free bird’s gonna fly, son.”

Who Stopped By Weekend Update?

Two guests this time; one topical in character, the other as themselves doing impersonations without hair or makeup.

Tennessee Lt. Gov. Randy McNally (Molly) has been pushing anti-drag legislation, but somehow got caught in the thirst traps of gay Instagrammers? Molly as McNally pushes back against claims of hypocrisy, but vows to stop commenting on IG, but only because he forgot his password!

I don’t know if you caught James Austin Johnson on Fallon the other month, but he’s got a boatload of impersonations that should be on the show but somehow haven’t made it on just yet. At least this week, Update allowed JAJ to demonstrate some additional vocal weapons from his “stockpile,” and not just his Trump that gets him attention at the afterparties. Hear him do Adam Driver as Kylo Ren on Girls, or Batman reading Where’s Waldo? Not sure his Jay-Z but downstairs will ever make it on as a sketch, but his Bob Dylan as a vibrating cell phone isn’t completely useless!

What Sketch Filled The “10-to-1” Slot?

Been a while since SNL landed a weird sketch to close the show. At 12:52 a.m. Eastern, lawyers with the firm of Donalds & Dominguez are worried that they cannot match the catchy jingle phone number of their main competitors, but two of the lawyers (Jenna and Bowen) think they’ve found their answer from the band playing the other night at Lucciano’s: Soul Booth! Bring out Andrew and JAJ and let them bring da funk. Only to get egged on even more by Bowen, who wants to hear “that Lucciano’s sound” that helped him get “Daiqq’d down” in the bathroom after he got tanked on daiquiris. How can anyone ever forget 16 trillion, 725 million, 550,136 after hearing this, tho?!?

SNL also flashed a very blink-and-you-might-miss-it tribute card for Erin Maroney Fraser, who died earlier this month. Fraser served as an assistant to Lorne Michaels in the early 1990s and joined the writing staff for Season 21 (1995-96), the year Steve Higgins joined the show. She was only 53.

Who Was The Episode’s MVP?

Despite the star cameo presence of alum Fred Armisen, this episode really became a showcase for Molly Kearney, dressing them up in all sorts of get-ups throughout the night (three big costume changes) as well as letting them start the brawl at the Waffle House. It’s good to see more of Molly.

Next week’s a repeat with Michael B. Jordan and Lil Baby. SNL returns with a new episode on April 1, with or without the post-production crew (strike deadline!), with Quinta Brunson and Lil Yachty.

Quinta and Lil Yachty! pic.twitter.com/QYLO0UqYzG

— Saturday Night Live – SNL (@nbcsnl) March 12, 2023

Sean L. McCarthy works the comedy beat for his own digital newspaper, The Comic’s Comic; before that, for actual newspapers. Based in NYC but will travel anywhere for the scoop: Ice cream or news. He also tweets @thecomicscomic and podcasts half-hour episodes with comedians revealing origin stories: The Comic’s Comic Presents Last Things First.