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
TV Reviews Jenna Ortega
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.
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!
56 Comments
Not only was that a really good episode, despite the clumsy start, it’s been a while I’ve laughed as hard as I did during the Waffle House sketch. Like that was near perfection.
It really was “America the sketch”.
Absolutely. Came here to post this exact comment as I was in stitches during that scene. So well staged and written, Mikey Day killing it in the background with his usual insanity.
By the way on Mikey Day, and I realize this is solely due to the characters Day usually plays, but man was I shocked how solid he looks without a shirt on. I had to take a double take that was that actually him.
He forgot his dog!
That was the hardest I’ve laughed at an SNL sketch in a long time. It reminded me of the TC Tuggers sketch from I Think You Should Leave.
Nobody watches SNL anymore.
Thanks for the input.
Hey, can’t expect Samhain to banally whine about race and white grievances *all* the time.
I do.
“It’s too popular.” – Yogi Berra
I should not have laughed as hard as I did at Punkie Johnson’s empty wheelchair rolling into the wall in “Waffle House”, but I did.
And when the kid(?) shoots the gun in the air.I was surprised they’d even shoot off a gun like that, especially post-Rust, until I remembered it was pre-taped.
It was probably a cap gun or something similar.
Waffle House was good
Waffle House was pretty funny but I had to watch it twice, because obviously the funny parts are the background hijinks. The second time I watched Otega, and this still does not convince me that she can actually emote. Even when she smiles it’s like she is physically stretching the limits of her human-mimicry abilities.
It’s like she’s M3GAN.
I think she was supposed to play it deadpan.It was supposed to be badly done, lazy, formulaic teen drama.Her blank reading made it funnier
I thought she was *really* stiff seeming in the monologue but not bad for most of the rest of the show…maybe the jingle board room sketch too, I bet the style in the Waffle House sketch was an acting choice. (It was my favourite sketch too.)
How can y’all have watched that 10-year old commercial and still doubt Jenna’s acting chops?!
But she’s hot
She is not hot. She is more of adorably cute.
Was this some kind of spot-the-errors game or deliberate irony in a passage where editing was mentioned? “The signifcance and popularity of pretapped segments on SNL have 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.”
If you don’t have editors, they can’t strike!
They spelled Jenna’s name wrong in the very first sentence of the review. It’s comical.
No worse than calling her a “scream queen” because she is in the 5th and 6th movies of a franchise…Jesus Christ FFS people need to stop trying to throw around the god damned term scream queen….Jamie Lee Curtis was a scream queen because she was in Halloween, Prom Night, Terror Train, The Fog, Halloween 2 practically all back to back. Its also why she refused to do horror after getting labeled a scream queen because she didn’t want to be just known for horror..Wednesday is NOT horror, nor does being in 2 sequels of a franchise scream queen worthy
who gives a fuck
Literally had to grit my teeth to make it through that paragraph.
Hope you got all that literal grit out of your mouth safely afterward!
A paragraph on the hazards of missing editorial that contains “littel” and “claerly” is just…
Ridiculousness is very real. There are days when it plays on MTV for 12 continuous hours — or more. I have only seen it while trapped in places like a car mechanic’s waiting room. I’m so jealous that the writer can be unfamiliar with it. If you’re ever stuck watching to it (or closing your eyes but still having to listen to it) then you definitely remember.Flaming Saddles is also real. It’s a gay bar in Manhattan where the bartenders (all male) occasionally dance on top of the bar like Coyote Ugly. It’s the perfect setting for the closeted Tennessee politician.
Does anyone else think PPD does the same sketch almost every week? I don’t get their vibe. I liked the cold open though. They shouldn’t be afraid to mix up the format and not have every open be politics. I thought Jenna Ortega was fine but the sketches were lacking. I think that usually happens after they’ve been on three weeks in a row. But I’m loving how rare recurring characters are right now.
Yeah, in the time honored AVC tradition, I don’t agree with this rating. I thought the cold open was fine and the PDD video was ok but not the best. I like Jenna Ortega but some of the sketches fell pretty flat. Also felt like she didn’t quite know what to do at times and was given direction to just scream to make things funny, like in the school competition one and jingle pitch. She did her best acting in the Parent Trap remake imo.
If anybody is going to leave at the end of the season, it’s gonna be Molly Kearney. She just isn’t funny and/or hasn’t been given good material to show it off with.
Which is disappointing after the advice for new cast members sketch.
I found the catball concept very disturbing.But yeah, I’d couldn’t have helped looking at the pictures either.
The Waffle House one was the clear standout, then the Exorcist one (I love Ego), and then maybe the last one with the jingle pitch. Agree on Molly Kearny’s appearance as Randy McNally being great.
I did have to see if Ridiculousness was a real program.
Um, what? I get that MTV has been on a downturn for a longass time but that show has been basically all they air for the last 10 years. Not an exaggeration either. Every few months a picture of MTV’s schedule will trend and it will be days of endless Ridiculousness repeats interrupted by a 1 hr block of Teen Mom. You’d think website that cover TV and pop culture would have heard of it.
But back to the episode, it was solidly entertaining. An A grade is pretty damn high so I wouldn’t go that far, but a B+ is more than fair.
As a former Floridian, the Waffle House sketch was inspired.
I need to know if I am hip to the musics of today
I can’t really fault anybody for forgetting there was musics last night.
It was the same as most SNLs for the majority of this century – funny pre-tape skits; awkward, cringy live sketches. My main takeaway though was how brutal a band The 1975 is. They play the most excruciating, Target loudspeaker muzak I’ve ever heard. What an insult to the year Bowie released “Young Americans,” Parliament released “Chocolate City,” and Aerosmith released “Toys in the Attic.”
And the year SNL debuted.
Yeah, the 1975 are not good, no…
It seems to be de rigeur these days for the reviews to not mention the musical guests at all, though in this case maybe that’s for the best.
never watched snl and never will but i love the header images for the episodes that are used here
If this is an A then the bar is set pretty low. There were some decent skits but overall it wasn’t anything crazy funny.
The cold opening was so-so. Keenan didn’t even attempt to do an impersonation of Mike Tyson. The rest of the show went well, very enjoyable.
Jenna’s “cat ball inner screaming” was kinda hot
MTV’s Ridiculousnesswas it for me, I have COPD and that one almost killed me I laughed so hard.
When I saw the thumbnail, I thought she was wearing high heel roller skates. The reality is somehow worse.
MAYBE she’s Junior Scream Queen, but the official Scream Queen is the one and only Jamie Lee Curtis – who finally got an Oscar tonight!
might be a littel misguided
Forfucksakes.
Oof. I know the cast felt that Ridiculousness/cat ball sketch dying.
“I did have to see if Ridiculousness was a real program.”And the three day marathon joke isn’t really a joke. That show overran MTV, even moreso than “The Real World.” Jenny Ortega looked more like Chanel West Coast than Chloe Fineman though.
Those shoes look dangerous.