american road trip snl

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SNL Captures the Joy and Pain of a Road Trip with Friends

We've all had some brutal road trips, and saturday night live did its best job of capturing those tough moments..

We all love a good road trip – it’s the American way, after all. Manifest destiny and all that. B ut sometimes,   road trips go wrong . Even if you’re with your best pals, hours in a car can take a toll on anyone’s relationship.

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That’s clearly where the folks over at Saturday Night Live ’s “Please Don’t Destroy” got their idea for this week’s sketch. ( As a quick side note, if you haven’t watched this crew yet, you really should. They’re the best thing to come out of SNL in years.)

Anyway, it starts out with the three members of “Please Don’t Destroy” and last week’s SNL host, Jenna Ortega, in a car that I think is an early 2000s Subaru Forester. That doesn’t really matter, I guess. They’re singing and having a grand old time – as you do at the beginning of a road trip — but things quickly go awry.

You see, the guy who looks like Steve DaSilva forgot to tell the guy who looks like me about the upcoming exit . It happens. We’ve all been there. Being in charge of the music and the navigation is not an enviable task, but it’s what you get for sitting shotgun. The vibes get weird, but they soon recover. Then, disaster strikes again when Jenna sips on her big gulp just a little bit too loudly and annoys the guy who looks like Owen Bellwood . It’s a real mess!

Okay, I don’t want to spoil too much of the clip, as you should really watch it. But, it gets way more intense and ridiculous from there. It’s some real weird Gen-Z humor that you may not be a fan of, but I love it. I don’t know, maybe I’m weird.

Either way, Enjoy “Road Trip” because it’s one of the funnest things to come out of SNL in a really long time.

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SNL Transcripts Tonight

For Die Hard Saturday Night Live Fans

Please Don’t Destroy – Road Trip

Jenna:  I’ve just been doing a lot of press and these different jobs. Don’t get me wrong. I’m really really grateful. It’s just I’m starting to feel a little burnt out.

John:  Oh, that sucks. Martin, are you ready with the playlist?

Martin: Yeah.

Ben: Oh, and I got the Slurpee.

Martin:  Dude, nice.

Jenna:  I’m sorry. What do you guys doing?

Ben:  We’re going on a beautiful cross country American Road Trip.

John:  Just us and the open road. It’s gonna be awesome.

Jenna:  Wait, can I come?

All: [singing]  Hit the open road and catch your ride arms getting tan on the sunny side John:  I’m on the wheel

Martin:  I’m on map

Ben:  I’m on snacks

All:  And Jenna’s job is to just relax on a road trip a great American road trip

we’re going on a road trip we’re going on a road trip roll down the windows–

Martin:  We missed the exit.

Navigation:  Recalculating route.

John:  Okay, just look out for the next one. Need a little heads up?

Martin: Yeah. Okay. It’s just full hard doing music and that.

Ben:  Price of being shotgun.

John:  Yeah, no, no, it’s fine. Just let’s try to focus on Nav, alright?

Martin:  Okay. Yeah. Focus on the Nav.

John:  Yeah, thanks.

Martin:  [in small voice] You’re not in charge of me.

All:  Nod to convertibles when they pass moon a trucker, put your cheeks on the glass punch when you’re green, punch when you’re red see a sign that says we’re going to hell on a road trip a great American roadtrip-

Ben:  [to Jenna] Sorry, can we cool it with the Slurpee for a second? It’s just right in my ear.

Jenna:  Oh, yeah, sorry.

Ben: It’s okay. I’m happy to buy everyone a Slurpee, but you’re just sucking on the- [Jenna doesn’t stop slurping] There’s none left.

Jenna:  Okay! Can you scoot over? Your leg hair keeps pressing me.

Ben: Yeah, fine. I’ll move my leg.

Jenna:  [checking her phone] Did you just Venmo request me for the Slurpee?

Ben:  I don’t have any money, so.

All:  Going on a road trip we’re going on a road trip-

Navigation:  Recalculating route.

John:  We missed the god damn exit again, Martin?

Martin: I’m sorry, man. I’m getting like a ton of texts.

John:  Who could you be texting that isn’t in this car right now?

Martin:  It was my mom, man. My dad had a stroke.

Ben:  I’m so sorry.

Martin:  So yeah, [yelling] sorry I’m not focusing on the Nav.

Martin:  I don’t know why I said that. He did not have a stroke.

John:  Liar.

Ben:  C’mon man.

John:  Everybody, we’re having quiet time. Read a book or something.

All:  Finally time to chill, I can do what I want Dive into the new Michelle Obama

Jenna:  I’m gonna puke.

John:  Do not puke in my car, dude.

Jenna:  I get carsick from reading.

Margin:  Exit coming up in 1.2 miles.

Jenna:  Pull over right now.

Ben:  Well, you shouldn’t have sucked down that Slurpee so fast.

Jenna:  Shut up, Ben.

Martin:  0.3 miles.

John:  Mart, that means nothing to me.

Martin:  You told me to focus on the Nav.

Jenna:  Oh my god, it’s happening.

Martin:  No, no, no, no.

John:  God, we’re going home.

Ben:  What just happened?

John: Nothing. Go back to sleep, everybody. Thanks.

Will you turn the AC on?

Martin:  Hot or cold?

John:  Both.

Jesus:  I saw what you did.

All:  On a road trip..

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Scream queen Jenna Ortega hosts a dark and twisted Saturday Night Live

The first-timer proves to be the perfect muse for snl 's writers.

Last year,   The Hollywood Reporter called Jenna Ortega the “next big thing, ” and now she is hosting Saturday Night Live . After this meteoric rise , she’s become the youngest first-timer of this season. Despite her age, she has been in the industry for over a decade and she proved it with versatility, commitment, and poise in hosting this legacy sketch show. Similar to last week, SNL benefited from embracing more provocative and twisted content. Ortega’s unique persona blending innocence and darkness enhanced this trend and made for a terrific episode.

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Best sketch of the night.

It was very hard to pick tonight. However, the simplicity and relatability of “Please Don’t Destroy – Road Trip” won out. A burnt-out Ortega joins the comic trio on a road trip. A great premise, the sketch juxtaposed the hopes and dreams of a road trip with its inevitable and harsh realities. Contrasting the cheerful musical interludes with bursts of passive aggression created a hilarious unease. It was Jean-Paul Satre’s No Exit (pun intended) set in a four-door metal box on the open road.

Worst sketch of the night

Tomorrow’s Academy Award red carpet served as tonight’s cold open. By no means horrible, the sketch simply lacked focus. At its best, it was a nice break from the typical reenactments of political press conferences and news reports while remaining topical. Mainly structured as a takedown of Hollywood culture and the inaneness of award shows, it felt like the writers threw as many ideas as possible at the wall just to see what might stick. From Ozempic to Michelle Williams’ Jewish acting coach, or maybe more accurately, acting Jewish coach, the sketch had the potential to dig into, but nothing scratched the surface. The entire exercise felt like a revolving door of impressions without any real direction.

Second best sketch of the night

Next to “Please Don’t Destroy – Road Trip,” “Waffle House” was the best sketch of the night due to its complexity. Inspired by last year’s viral video of a Waffle House employee catching a chair mid-air, the sketch involved the delicate balance between two different planes of action. Balancing a WB-inspired teen drama with the chaos of Waffle House at night (if you’ve been, you know), the disparate elements came together in perfect comedic harmony. Ortega and Marcello Hernandez’s dedication to playing it straight only amplifies the escalating violence in the background bacchanal. It was the perfect fusion of performance and staging. The sketch was an exercise in restraint by defying the urge to bring the camera into the background action. It was inevitable that the two planes of action collide with someone or something coming through the glass, the reveal of the father was the perfect unexpected twist.

Best character of the night

New cast member Molly Kearney had more to do than normal in tonight’s episode. Of many great moments, their portrayal of Tennessee Lt. Gov. Randy McNally was their best. As Tennessee and many other Republican-led state legislatures launch attacks on their queer citizens, McNally is a constant reminder of the marriage between politics and hypocrisy. While supporting an anti-LGBTQ+ agenda publicly, McNally has been enjoying queer thirst traps on social media in private (well not very private). From jabbing McNally’s technological ineptitude and lampooning his false sanctimony, the segment was the perfect illustration of blatant bigotry. Anchored by excellent wordplay from “randy” to “Tom, Dick, and hairless,” Kearney’s facial expressions, handwork, and decision to play McNally as a perverted baby was pitch perfect. Hopefully, Kearny celebrates the performance at Flaming Saddles tonight. An honorable mention goes to Ego Nwodim’s sleep-deprived, no-nonsense downstairs neighbor in “ Exorcism .”

MVP of the night: Jenna Ortega

Nearly everyone in the cast found a moment to shine tonight, but the standout, of course, was Jenna Ortega. Each sketch felt tailor-made for and propelled by Ortega’s unique star power. An enchanting blend of past season hosts like deadpan Aubrey Plaza and showoman Keke Palmer, Ortega’s youth, intelligence, and her particularly quizzical blend of innocence and darkness was the episode’s foundation. She started with a solid monologue, but it was her character work in each sketch that was astounding. Her commitment to each character and her craft was admirable and elevated each sketch. The best proof came from “ Jingle Pitch ,” which seemed the least suited to Ortega, she still made it work. There was a terrific moment where she nearly breaks in response to Bowen Yang’s frenzied performance, but she manages to hold it all together. Ortega’s performance was a testament that comedy should be taken seriously and rooted in the reality of each character.

Stray observations:

• Considering two of the night’s best sketches were pretaped and edited, it will be interesting to see what happens with the upcoming strike . The significance and popularity of pretapped segments on SNL have been rising for years, and 2023 marks a pivotal year in which the editorial crew will be striking. Choosing April Fools Day to start the strike might be a littel misguided, hopefully it can be resolved. The SNL post - production team clearly works extremely hard turning around top-notch content each week. It is clear their contributions have been wildly undervalued for years.
• It was great to see so much of the cast get airtime. Especially, the new cast members.
• I did have to see if Ridiculousness was a real program. I am almost certain that “Varsity Valley” is not.
• I would watch a sketch built around Lt. Gov. Randy McNally. It’s almost a shame that Austin Butler already hosted. He could have played the Instagram twink.
• That Pinocchio costume felt like an awful lot of work for such a brief appearance.
• They should develop an Ozempic skit.
• Happy Birthday Ego!

Last week,  The Hollywood Reporter announced  that Jenna Ortega is in talks for a starring role in a forthcoming sequel to  Beetlejuice . Between this potential part, her extremely popular portrayal of Wednesday Addams  on Netflix, and becoming a central figure in the  Scream  franchise, Ortega appears to be running for President of Goths Who Grew Up in the ’90s. Or perhaps not.

“A lot of people assume that I’m dark and twisted in real life because of the roles I play, but I’m not like that at all,” Ortega demurs during  a charming  Saturday Night Live  monologue . “I think there’s just something about my face where people see it, and they’re like, ‘Hey, let’s throw blood on that.’”

Whether it was the young star’s idea or that of the  SNL  writers, though, “dark and twisted” is exactly the energy pumping all through this week’s episode. It may have been light on blood-splattered faces, but it was heavy on horror-tinged sketches. Ortega alternately plays a possessed woman getting a bargain-bin exorcism , a youthful mutant having a violent breakdown  mid-game show , and a guest on MTV’s  Ridiculousness  whose macabre anecdotes make Debbie Downer  look like Jojo Siwa. Not every sketch is a barrel of monkeys, but together they form a more cohesive unit than usual, and there isn’t a dud in the bunch.

Ortega is a natural host, and her visible nerves during the monologue only make her more relatable. It probably helps that, as she mentions, she’s fantasized about hosting  SNL  since taking an NBC tour as a child — which is kind of cute until you realize that Ortega was born   only after Will Ferrell finished his  SNL  run. At that point, people of a certain age (the age of being a goth who grew up in the ’90s) can only feel like walking into the ocean. But that’s probably just the darkness talking.

Here are the highlights from the episode:

Oscars Red Carpet Cold Open

By the time Jerrod Carmichael hosted  SNL  last April, six days after the Oscars, the Slap had been so exhaustively debated and deconstructed, it seemed impossible to address any further. The show still managed to wring  a macro-view monologue  and a sharp sketch  out of it, though, because there was pretty much no other choice. Now that the Oscars are upon us again, the strangest thing that ever happened during an awards show, eclipsing even the  Moonlight  mishap, has been mercifully reduced to an excuse for Kenan Thompson’s Mike Tyson impression. Thompson and Tyson have a bit of history together, having gotten into a heated exchange  on Tyson’s podcast last year, so perhaps that helped inspire this seemingly random debut. In any case, Thompson’s delightful take on Tyson is just one of the many gems in a must-see cold open. Others include Sarah Sherman as Michelle Williams’s “Jewish acting coach” for  The Fabelmans , a joke about “awkward pan-downs to feet” in red-carpet coverage, and Bowen Yang as George Santos as Tom Cruise. It’s unclear when Chloe Fineman as Jamie Lee Curtis calls  Tár  “hands down the funniest movie of the year,” whether it’s a dig at Curtis’s awards-circuit ebullience or a playful but much-needed skewering of people who can’t wait to tell you how funny they found  Tár . Either way, it lands.

School vs. School

There are high-concept  SNL  sketches, and there are those that scorch the stratosphere. “School vs. School” firmly belongs in the latter category, pitting what is clearly supposed to be the School for Gifted Youngsters from the X-Men comics against just a regular old high school in a  Jeopardy! -like student game show. Mikey Day turns up the intensity as Professor X/Zander — the follicle-challenged, wheelchair-bound telepath — while Ortega brings real gravitas to her mutant grappling with the fundamental X-Men pitfall of being considered a freak by society, only in this case, the source of it is being terrible at game-show trivia.

The Parent Trap

Ortega’s  Wednesday  co-star, Fred Armisen, who also  pops up in the monologue , appears alongside her in this sketch about the latest remake of  The Parent Trap . (If it isn’t actually in the works yet, you can bet it will be soon.) With the young star’s body double absent, Armisen’s crew member steps in to play her displaced twin and does some very adult improvisation with the role. Armisen steals the show here, reminding us why he could do sketch comedy on TV for 16 continuous years between his runs on  SNL  and  Portlandia . Armisen’s lust for Lisa Rinna wouldn’t land nearly as well, however, if it didn’t have as a foil Ortega’s note-perfect Disney child-star acting, which she came by honestly  and can now wield as a comedy weapon.

James Austin Johnson’s Random Celebrity Impressions

Each of James Austin Johnson’s two-second impressions on “Update” this week is flawless, but his take on Batman reading  Where’s Waldo?  (“WHERE IS HE!”) is even funnier if you’re a nerd who knows that it’s modeled after this particular Christian Bale line read . Also, Johnson’s anecdote about not being served at the afterparty unless he does Trump might just be an excuse to do Trump ordering a negroni in this segment, but it feels rooted in truth.

Jingle Pitch

A weird sketch can go anywhere in the batting order at  SNL  — Lord knows, this episode’s chock full of ’em — but some weird sketches can only go at the very end of the night, where shit gets real loosey-goosey. Much like  Lisa from Temecula  a few episodes back, the jingle-pitch sketch is a true ten-to-one. It features Andrew Dismukes and Johnson in matching mauve suits — rocking a ponytail and blonde Katt Williams hair, respectively — as a pop-funk duo named Soul Booth, trying to come up with a catchy jingle for a law firm. Each jingle effort is funnier (and catchier!) than the last, but this sketch mines even bigger laughs out of its other duo: Ortega and Yang. The pair play the lawyers who commissioned this jingle in the first place after hearing Soul Booth jam out at an Italian restaurant. Their expert delivery turns the name of that restaurant — Lucciano’s — into an entire vibe, so that by the end of the sketch, the audience knows exactly how “a looched-up track” would hit and is probably laughing about it.

Stray Observations

• Obviously, Ortega’s long-ago toothpaste ad glimpsed in the monologue is real, and  here it is  in its entirety.

• “That must suck to go on TV and put on a smile and make friends with some psychotic bigot just because it’s ‘good for the show,’” Michael Che says, ostensibly about Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump, proving once again that the faux-tension between Che and Colin Jost is an evergreen source for   jokes on “Weekend Update .”

• Molly Kearney stops by “Update ” as the Tennessee lieutenant governor who recently left his official digital footprint  all over a young man’s thirst traps, despite Tennessee’s new bills aggressively targeting the LGBTQ community. Arriving with printed-out MapQuest directions is the character’s way of presenting as technologically illiterate — the sort of easily befuddled grandpa who might double-tap by mistake — but all of Kearney’s coquettish facial expressions and gestures undercut this defense beautifully.

• The exorcism sketch  only underlines my long-held contention that it sure seems like pretty much anybody could perform an exorcism.

• It’s a real chicken-and-the-egg situation, trying to determine whether Mikey Day is consciously modeled after rapper Riff Raff  in the Waffle House sketch , or whether Riff Raff just has the essence of the prototypical white dude who gets into a fight at the Waffle House. A mystery for our times.

• Although this week’s road trip-themed   Please Don’t Destroy video  is also fun, it’s a little distracting to watch pre-taped sketches just hours after Bernie Sanders tweeted in support  of the show’s post-production editors, who have threatened to strike during the April 1 episode if they don’t get  a contract for better wages and benefits .

• Having said that, this week’s Please Don’t Destroy did indeed capture the underrated difficulty of doing both music and nav during a road trip.

• I searched around to see if the cat ball from the  Ridiculousness  sketch  is scientifically possible, and at least  one source  says it is “unlikely” that a cat could give birth to six kittens fused together. However, this search was less than thorough due to the fact that if I accidentally caught a glimpse of a real-life cat-ball, I would simply never sleep again.

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Saturday Night Live  recap: An earnest Jenna Ortega tries her hand at live comedy

SNL alum Fred Armisen hammed it up in an attempt to support his Wednesday costar in her hosting debut.

Hey there! Welcome to this week's SNL in Review commentary. Tonight's host is Jenna Ortega , a modern scream queen with starring roles in horror films like Scream and X . But fans probably know her best from the popular Netflix series Wednesday , in which she plays the stoic Wednesday Addams. Saturday Night Live buffs will recall that another Wednesday Addams actress — Christina Ricci — hosted the show and made two appearances promoting Addams Family movies back in the '90s.

I am joined tonight by former SNL cast member Gary Kroeger, who says he was more of a Munsters guy growing up: "I came to appreciate the cast of The Addams Family later in life as I watched reruns. I recognized the tongue-in-cheek swagger of [John] Astin, the effortless grace of Carolyn Jones, and the cunning of the rest." Indeed, as the success of Wednesday demonstrates, "Over time, The Addams Family has proved to be more enduring."

This week, the SNL PR machine placed this spiffy story in GQ , spotlighting the show's next generation. I asked Kroeger how that contrasts with his experience on the show. "This new cast is as versatile as any. Ever," he says. "When I was on the show, the world and media was very different. There was not a lot of media coverage, there was no YouTube, no weekly review like yours, no behind-the-scenes blogs, and certainly no website. In 1982 when I started, Brad Hall, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and I hired a publicist and we got a few local market TV listing magazine covers. NBC took a few publicity pictures. Brad and I did a fashion shoot for Esquire . And I remember being approached by 16 Magazine , we turned them down. But there wasn't an industry of SNL promotion and we more or less had to fend for ourselves. That's just the way it was."

Meanwhile, Ortega's latest movie, Scream VI , has had a big opening weekend, so this is a well-timed hosting gig. Let's jump in!

It's the Oscars red carpet pre-show! Mario Lopez (Marcello Hernandez) and Kit Hoover/Maria Menounos ( Heidi Gardner ) preview this weekend's Academy Awards, complete with a stopover from Kenan Thompson as Mike Tyson, who is heading up security for this year's ceremony. (Tyson has previously been impersonated on the show .)

Nominee Jamie Lee Curtis (Chloe Fineman) stops by as well — Fineman nails this impression. Back in the day, Curtis herself hosted SNL .

I like Devon Walker and Andrew Dismukes as DraftKings commentators giving odds on what may or may not happen at the Oscars — it's not looking likely that Chris Rock will pop up! Molly Kearney and Mikey Day appear as Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell, who appeared on the show earlier this season .

And Bowen Yang returns as George Santos, I mean Tom Cruise.

This is cute. It's almost one of those formless sketches where the entire cast gets shoehorned in, but I like it. Check it out!

Ortega talks about her origins — she started out in a Colgate commercial when she was 9. (Originally, she was discovered when her mom posted a video of her on Facebook. That leads to a joke about the app being to racism what TikTok is to dancing.)

She reveals she is 20 years old — the youngest SNL host this season — and notes that one of the reasons she wanted to host SNL was to face one of her biggest fears: "Happy, extroverted people who are always trying to perform."

Her Wednesday costar and former SNL cast member Fred Armisen is in the audience — he comes on stage to pick up the slack. He tries to be winning, but she shoos him away. Meh.

Kroeger notes that Ortega "has an intelligence and projects confidence in a way that is engaging, without being arrogant or aggressive."

Regarding the now-iconic Wednesday dance scene that went viral, he adds: "The Wednesday dance found rarified air. It was a perfect collision of style, choreographed by Ortega, photography by Burton, and Goo Goo Muck's music. Anyone, including Ortega, can say that it's overplayed, overanalyzed, and even overrated, but it captured a wide range of emotions, conflict, character, storytelling, and just plain cool. It became what it is because once you saw it, you had to see it again. And again, the Wednesday dance is time-capsule worthy."

"School vs. School"

Jay McCormick (Kenan Thompson) is hosting a PBS game show. where teachers team up with students to win big prizes!

Today's contestants: West Grove High School takes on Professor Zander's Academy for Extraordinary Children. It's essentially Professor X and some of his mutant pupils. The X-Men crew is full of angst: Zena (Ortega) cannot control her powers or her emotions. "You are not ready, child!" hollers Mikey Day's Zander. Molly Kearney is also funny as Knockout.

Kenan has a non-sequitur about a COVID-related lawsuit, which is more confusing than redemptive.

"Please Don't Destroy: Road Trip"

Ortega is feeling a little burnt out. Luckily, our PDD heroes are going on a beautiful cross-country American road trip! We are treated to a charming song — "Hit the open road and catch a ride, arms getting tan on the sunny side" — until the boys miss an exit on the highway. Tensions rise, as the bubbly song periodically kicks back in.

Dark turn at the end! Watch.

"The Parent Trap"

A crew guy (played by Armisen) is playing off Ortega's Hallie in a remake of The Parent Trap . They are supposed to be frickin' twins!

Armisen is hamming it up a lot — giving a lot, that's for sure. Is he trying to compensate for Ortega's inexperience? I like that, in this remake, Ed Helms and Leslie Mann are supposedly the parents.

"Ridiculousness"

Mikey Day has a savage impression of Ridiculousness host Rob Dyrdek, who is almost 50. This is especially funny given Day started out on MTV's Wild 'n Out . Dyrdek struggles to get the show's inane, pointless vibe going despite Ortega's character focusing on "weird, sad" stories about her disturbing "cat ball" kitten and her dead kitten. "Reset the vibe!" he demands.

Fineman is also really good here. The sketch gets a little limp once the premise kicks in, but taking the piss out of Ridiculousness is so deserved. What happened to MTV?

"Waffle House"

A melodramatic scene between two teen protagonists (Hernandez and Ortega) in a Waffle House parking lot is undercut by a silly fight in the background. Free bird redneck Mikey Day is tased and shot as the young couple breaks up, oblivious.

Good staging! And a solid payoff at the end.

The 1975 perform "I'm in Love With You"

"I'm in Love With You" is the third single from their latest album. The band previously performed this pop diddy on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon last fall.

Kroeger shares: "The 1975 has been around for a while, but they always have the appearance of being new on the scene. They are performance artists, satirists, and pop musicians. I like Being Funny in a Foreign Language very much. I find it very sincere, while also iconoclastic. And their visual presentations are funny while also being theatrical."

"Weekend Update"

Jokes about champagne and Rihanna! Tucker Carlson is also taken to task over his texts and coverage of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Michael Che has a great Colin Jost joke here.

Tennessee Lt. Gov. Randy McNally (Molly Kearney) comes on to discuss the uproar over his interactions with provocative posts on social media, insisting that his intentions have been misconstrued. Provocative Instagram posts were liked by McNally from his official account, including one where a young man doesn't appear to be wearing clothes. This goes after his hypocrisy. And this might be Kearney's finest moment on the show to date.

James Austin Johnson comes on to fill time with random impressions like Batman reading Where's Waldo and Jay-Z downstairs. He has a stockpile of useless two-second impressions. Donald Trump ordering a Negroni is amazing. I like this new trend of cast members coming on as themselves to riff.

Jost recently crossed the nine-year mark as an "Update" anchor. Gary Kroeger recalls: "Colin has done everything almost perfectly. Maybe not even 'almost' but 'perfectly.' He knows where he fits, he knows how to do it, his delivery is polished, his humor and, I believe, humility comes through. He and Michael have been a perfect combination; different deliveries but compatible foils."

"Exorcism"

Mrs. Shaw ( Ego Nwodim ) is upset when she thinks there's a party happening downstairs on a Tuesday night — actually, it's an exorcism. Her neighbors are waiting for Father Murphy to help their possessed daughter. "Y'all don't have to wait for him," says Mrs. Shaw. "I'll do it. You don't scare me sweetie!" After all, she needs to get her eight hours of sleep, and will solve this situation posthaste. When another priest warns that she may be in over her head, Mrs. Shaw says sh'es got this. She's been a crossing guard at a six-lane street for years, so she's uniquely qualified for this job.

Ortega (channeling Linda Blair) levitates off the bed until Shaw takes control, summoning her husband. I like this!

The 1975 perform "Oh Caroline"

Another catchy pop song that was released last year.

"Jingle Pitch"

Two Donalds & Dominguez colleagues (played by Ortega and Bowen Yang) need a catchy jingle to make their workplace's phone number — 1-672-555-0136 — memorable. Their law firm lives and dies on business driven by their TV commercial. Luckily, Ortega and Yang were at Luciano's the other night, where they were introduced to the musical duo Soul Booth (Dismukes and Johnson). Soul Booth drops by the office and presents them with a few ditties — Yang just wants to feel "looched up."

Final thoughts

—Thank you to Gary Kroeger for his thoughts tonight!

—What did you think? Vote here or chime in below.

—Huge RIP to Erin Maroney Fraser, who helped in the development and launch of Conan O'Brien's Late Night and went on to produce many films for Broadway Video, including Tommy Boy, Superstar, Black Sheep , and Wayne's World 2 . Erin also worked as a staff writer for SNL before more recently producing films like Rushed . She will be missed.

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Saturday Night Live: Jenna Ortega leads a mostly mediocre episode

The Wednesday and Scream VI star brings her brand of dark humor to a miss-heavy week covering everything from the Oscars to Randy McNally

S aturday Night Live opens with Access Hollywood coverage of this weekend’s Oscars red carpet preshow. Between awkward shots of women’s feet, Mario Lopez (Marcello Hernandez) and either Maria Menounos or Kit Hoover (Heidi Gardner) interview the ceremony’s new head of security, “notoriously calm and sane person” Mike Tyson (Kenan Thompson); “refreshingly down to earth” nominee Jamie Lee Curtis (Chloe Fineman); incomprehensible Banshees of Inisherin costars Colin Farrell (Mikey Day) and Brendan Gleeson (Molly Kearny); Michelle Williams’ Jewish acting coach (Sarah Sherman); and finally, Tom Cruise – or, rather, George Santos (Bowen Yang) pretending to be Tom Cruise.

Given how fresh last year’s hilarious Oscar debacle still is in everyone’s mind – thanks in large part to Chris Rock’s brand-new Netflix special reigniting his feud with Will and Jada Pinkett Smith – SNL would have done better to center the entire cold open around it. Instead, they went with the standard scattershot rundown usually reserved for their political material, which doesn’t give any joke enough breathing room to truly land.

Actor and current it-girl Jenna Ortega makes her debut as host. The Scream VI star sprints through a monologue about her days as a child actor, her love of horror movies, and her dark and moody on-screen persona, before bringing on her Wednesday co-star and former SNL cast member Fred Armisen. Armisen starts to reminisce about his time on the show before she boots him offstage. While no fault of Ortega’s, this monologue is as rote as they come, lousy with the tired tropes we’ve seen so many times over the last several years: a clip of the host’s early gig, a story about how they once went on a backstage tour of Studio 8H, a shoutout to their family sitting in the audience. Not every monologue need be some grand production, but neither should so many of them feel so indistinguishable from one another.

On the PBS gameshow School vs School, a team of high school honor students find themselves squaring off against none other than the X-Men. Ortega’s moody, psychic-powered mutant and Day’s Professor X hardly even bother with the game, choosing instead to fight each other. Day gets some laughs by repeatedly yelling, “You’re not ready, child!” at his pupil, but it doesn’t build to anything. A decent high concept with no actual point or punchline.

On a new Please Don’t Destroy, a burnt-out Ortega tags along with Martin, Ben and John for “a beautiful cross-country road trip”. Their sunny musical disposition quickly turns sour, as small annoyances – missed exits, noisy Slurpee-drinking, obtrusive leg hair – leads to vehicular manslaughter. Another solid outing from the PDD boys, who seem to have found their groove again.

Behind the scenes of a new remake of The Parent Trap, Ortega runs lines with a member from the crew (Armisen), who proceeds to go inappropriately off-book. Another sketch that lacks any sort of narrative build.

Things improve slightly in the next sketch, as Ortega’s TikTok star kills the silly vibe of a viral video clip show by telling a couple of deeply upsetting stories, such as her cousin’s accidental decapitation by boat and her pet cat birthing a horrific “cat-ball” creature. Ortega is an ace at dark humor, and the material rises to meet her here, although the sketch, like each one before it, peters out at the end.

In the front parking lot of the local Waffle House, Ortega and Hernandez’s small town high school sweethearts go through a devastating but cathartic breakup, oblivious to the violent chaos unfurling inside the restaurant, where employees and cops battle several trashy, crazed customers. Fitting that SNL should follow up a sketch about viral videos by aping one. As is almost always the case, the show finds itself several weeks behind the social media curve, but at least this sketch has a solid conclusion.

On Weekend Update, Colin Jost brings on Tennessee’s Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally (Kearny), who was recently caught leaving lusty comments on sexually provocative thirst trap posts from a young gay man. The married McNally, a “proud conservative” who has helped push the state’s anti-trans bills, tries to play innocent, claiming that he just likes giving positive encouragement his constituents and “talking to voters … or people who could vote in the future”.

The way that Kearny plays the character – so smirkingly cute and knowingly fey – highlights a massive issue with SNL’s political content. Anyone who watched the actual interview McNally gave earlier this week saw him as the dead-eyed, flop sweat-soaked, bumbling grotesque that he is. Not only does SNL’s version pale in comparison comedy-wise, but it also has the effect of sanitizing the sleazeball legislator’s public image. See also: the show’s recurring versions of Ted Cruz, Jim Jordan, George Santos and, of course, Donald Trump.

At least when it comes to that last sleazeball, James Austin Johnson is doing an actual impersonation. The very talented Johnson pops in at the desk to fill the last two minutes of Update with a “stockpile of useless impressions I have nothing to do with”, including Adam Driver as Kylo Ren from Star Wars on the show Girls, Batman reading Where’s Waldo, Jay-Z and he’s downstairs, Trump waiting for a negroni, and finally, Bob Dylan’s cellphone on vibrate.

Ortega makes use of her scream queen bona fides in the next sketch, a parody of The Exorcist. Her demonically possessed teenager kicks up a blasphemous racket that awakens her family’s upstairs neighbor, the no-nonsense traffic guard Mrs Shaw (Ego Nwodim). Satan proves no match for the mean grade-schoolers she puts up with daily.

Then, in the final sketch of the night, struggling law firm Donalds & Dominguez seeks to drum up business by turning their hard-to-remember phone number into a catchy jingle with the help of white pop-funk duo Soul Booth (Johnson and Andrew Dismukes). The hard-to-follow musical demos don’t inspire many laughs, but Bowen Yang’s asides about getting absolutely “tanked at Luciano’s” make up for it.

There were more misses than hits on this episode, although things did pick up a little in the second half. Ortega didn’t particularly shine as host, but neither did she flail. The problems with the episode stem from the writing; while it’s unfair, given the show’s extremely tight schedule, to expect every sketch to be fully rounded, the lack of narrative propulsion and cohesion has become one of the most glaring issues with it these days. The same can be said for its defanged caricatures of real-life political figures.

Hopefully, Saturday Night Live can use the short hiatus it’s about to take to fix these issues before it returns on 1 April, if it returns, that is. With negotiations between its editorial team and NBCUniversal stalled, the prospect of a potential strike throws said return date into question.

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

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• Saturday Night Live

• Jenna Ortega

Sydney Sweeney Savvily Shows Off Her Scream Queen Chops in ‘Immaculate’

Neve campbell makes surprise return to ‘scream’ franchise after exiting over pay dispute, where to watch the jenna ortega/martin freeman movie ‘miller’s girl’ online, intimacy coordinators now banned from discussing sex scenes without actors’ permission — shortly after ‘miller’s girl’ sex scene interview went viral.

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 .

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