Jenna Ortega is a Gen Z icon and every teenager in the world is into her thanks to her excellent performance as Wednesday Addams in Netflix’s spin off of The Addams Family. If my 17 year-old daughter’s reaction to her SNL gig is any indication, Ortega can do no wrong.
But whoooooweeee, was that ever a middling episode.
Comedy is hard. If you read any of my stuff, you know that the hill I consistently die on is that comedy is more difficult than drama and this was yet another example of that concept playing out.
Who knows why this episode was such a shoulder shrug? It was abundantly clear from the get-go that the writing staff was doing their best to protect Jenna Ortega. They featured not one but two old videos (technically one video re-edited and played twice) and had comedy Hall of Famer Fred Armisen assist her in her monologue. They also, in the Austin Butler and Miles Teller vein, have started to lean heavily on saccharin sweet extollations from the hosts in the monologue about what a dream come true the hosting gig is. Not that it’s not true: it most certainly is, but how grumpy can you be about someone who is living out their life’s dream?
Throughout the episode, the writers almost didn’t give Ortega a single, independent punchline of her own, casting her exclusively in straight-man roles. I thought it was noticeable when they insulated Michael B. Jordan earlier this season, but this was so much more earnest. They wrote an entire sketch where Jenna is doing teen drama in the foreground while the comedy is happening in the background, totally stealing focus. Even when they asked her to just be a demonically possessed child, her performance was what my kids would classify as “a little cringe.”
I really enjoyed Wednesday, and as a person Ortega seems delightful, but maybe in a few years she can come back and be more ready to kick ass on the SNL stage. In more SNL-focused news, Please Don’t Destroy continues to be moved higher in the batting order, continuing that recent trend, and one wonders if they’re approaching The Lonely Island level of relevance on the show.
Previous Episodes:
- Miles Teller
- Brendan Gleeson
- Megan Thee Stallion
- Jack Harlow
- Amy Schumer
- Dave Chappelle
- Keke Palmer
- Steve Martin & Martin Short
- Austin Butler
- Aubrey Plaza
- Michael B. Jordan
- Pedro Pascal
- Woody Harrelson
- Travis Kelce
A Word on Laughstatting:
Everyone has a different sense of humor, so the things that I laugh at will most likely not be the exact same things you laugh at. The goal of this exercise is not to convince anyone, but to say “here’s what worked for me” and hopefully, if our tastes are similar enough, maybe it worked for you too and the overall stats for the season will have some value. It also strangely works if you have polar opposite taste to me, because you’ll know the episodes that were a hit for me might not land with you.
I try to be very generous with my rankings in the hopes that eventually a more clear picture of the cast and season will shape itself and contribute to some additional insight. And we get charts.
Everyone likes charts.
Oscars Red Carpet Cold Open
Concept: A report from the Oscar red carpet
Execution: Good
s – Heidi Gardner: “I’m either Maria Menounos or Kit Hoover, they haven’t told me which yet.”
S – Marcello Hernandez: “The 95th Academy Awards sponsored by Ozempic.”
s – Marcello Hernandez: “But it’s all worth it to ask Angela Bassett if she really did the thing.”
s – Kenan Thompson: Mike Tyson voice
S – Kenan Thompson: “Also hearing the phrase ‘The Magic of Movies.’”
S – Kenan Thompson: “This year all the nominees have been given tazers.”
S – Kenan Thompson: “Luckily we were able to slip one of those Apple Air Tags into Will Smith’s pocket.”
s – Kenan Thompson: “Unless of course he changes pants and then he could be anywhere.”
s – Heidi Gardner: “So if you consider how racist and sexist your grandpa was at 95? Oscar’s looking pretty good!”
S – Chloe Fineman: “Kirkland by Costco.”
S – Chloe Fineman: “Tar was iconic, vivacious, carnivorous, queer, vague, confusing, long, partially in German, and it was hands down the funniest movie of the year.”
s – Andrew Dismukes: “That a young actor brings out an older actor in a wheelchair and regrets it immediately.”
S – Molly Kearney: as Brendan Gleeson
s – Sarah Sherman: “But, baruch hashem, I’m here.”
s – Bowen Yang: “Top Gun 2: Top Bottom”
s – Michael Longfellow: as Pinocchio
Jenna Ortega Monologue
S – Host: “Like TikTok, but for racism instead of dancing.”
s – Host: “I wanted to face my biggest fear: happy, extroverted people who are always trying to perform.”
s – Host: “You were on the show for 11 seasons.”
School vs. School
Concept: High School quiz battle between a regular school and gifted mutants
Execution: High marks for Kenan and Mikey Day but not a lot to work with
s – Mikey Day: professor X voice
l – Mike Day: “Because you cannot yet control them child!”
S – Kenan Thompson: “Okeydokey.”
S – Molly Kearney: “We could enslave you!”
S – Mikey Day: “Knockout, no!”
S – Kenan Thompson: “Well that’s fun.”
S – Mikey Day: “Enough, child!”
S – Kenan Thompson: “Alright.”
s – Host: “Toby.”
l – Kenan Thompson: “I just got blasted and hit in the face with what I can only describe as electric wind.”
s – Michael Longfellow: “Uh, I think there’s something wrong with our teacher.”
S – Kenan: fake cough
Please Don’t Destroy – Road Trip
Concept: Things go awry on a road trip
Execution: One of the most consistent parts of the show. That said, just an okay version for them.
s – Martin Herlihy – PDD: “We missed the exit.”
s – Ben Marshall – PDD: “Price of being shotgun.”
s – Martin Herlihy – PDD: reaction look backward
S – John Higgins – PDD: “Did we miss the goddamn exit again, Martin?”
L – Martin Herlihy – PDD: “Sorry I’m not focusing on the nav.”
l – Martin Herlihy – PDD: “I don’t know why I said that, he did not have a stroke.”
s – Ben Marshall – PDD: “Probably shouldn’t have sucked down that slurpie so fast.”
s – Host: “Shut up, Ben!”
s – James Austin Johnson: as Jesus
The Parent Trap
Concept: A reshoot of iconic The Parent Trap scenes with a stand-in
Execution: Eh.
s – Fred Armisen: “I would let her wreck me.”
S – Bowen Yang: “Nope nope, not there yet.”
s – Fred Armisen: “Like in that Lindsay Lohan movie about the twins.”
S – Fred Armisen: “A whole picture? You’re 11! Don’t look at those!”
S – Fred Armisen: “Leslie Mann & Ed Helms. Is this for streaming?”
S – Fred Armisen: “We gotta kill them.”
Ridiculousness
Concept: A vacuous MTV game show gets hijacked by a girl with sad stories
Execution: Passable
s – Mikey Day: “You wouldn’t know it from my clothes but I’m almost 50 y’all!”
s – Chloe Fineman: “I’m already laughin.”
S – Host: “And like, the propeller cut her head off.”
S – Kenan Thompson: “I’m um…I’m so sorry girl.”
S – Host: “Fused into one furry ball of cat parts.”
S – Host: “It was not fire.”
s – Mikey Day: “Fake laughing.”
s – Chloe Fineman: reveal looking sad
S – Host: screaming from the inside sound
l – Mikey Day: “Yo, no more cat ball.”
Waffle House
Concept: Shit goes down in a waffle house behind a teen drama
Execution: Physical comedy was solid, but woof. Damn.
S – Molly Kearney: throwing food in background
S – Molly kearney: full suplex in background
S – Mikey Day: reveal shirtless with cornrows and an arm cast
l – Heidi Gardner: “Oh my god, who’s dog is this?”
S – Molly Kearney: reaction to empty wheelchair crashing
s – Mikey Day: “You ready to go, baby girl?”
Weekend Update
S – Colin Jost: “Switching from red to champagne usually turns me into a full-on bitch.”
S – Colin Jost: “Tucker Carlson, seen here laughing at a dog locked in a hot car.”
S – Michael Che: “Anyway, back to you, Colin.”
S – Michael Che: “At a starting salary of $19 an hour.”
L – Michael Che: “I feel like the record is longer than that, said the people of New Orleans.”
S – Michael Che: “Over half the world’s population will be just how I like ‘em!”
L – Michael Che: “So I coulda told her: Don’t get on that boat!”
S – Colin Jost: “If you’re comfortable filming yourself eating in the shower, I would argue you don’t have enough anxiety.”
l – Michael Che: “I said was. Next joke.”
S – James Austin Johnson: as Jay-Z downstairs.
S – James Austin Johnson: as Bob Dylan’s cell phone on vibrate
Exorcism
Concept: A little girl needs a demonic exorcism
Execution: Fucking brutal.
s – Ego Nwodim: “I tossed salad once and I was like nah uh this ain’t for me.”
s – Kenan Thompson: “at 9pm in the middle of the night.”
Jingle Pitch
Concept: A law firm needs a new advertising jingle
Execution: Good-ish, but only because of Dismukes and Austin-Johnson
s – Andrew Dismukes: “We are Soul Booth.”
s – Bowen Yang: “But then that barback with the glasses lookin’ like Mayam Bialik.”
S – Chloe Fineman: breaking
s – Andrew Dismukes: “Forty each.”
