‘SNL’ Recap: Former NBC Page Aubrey Plaza Achieves Career Dream, Attracts All Of The Celeb Cameos (Including Sharon Stone!)

After taking a month off over the holidays, Saturday Night Live returned to greet 2023 without Cecily Strong, but with more surprise celebrity cameos than you ever could have, would have guessed. Even with me writing that, how many cameos would you guess? You might’ve had Amy Poehler on your SNL guest list, but how many of you had Sharon Stone? Or The Property Brothers? Tony Hawk, even? Allison Williams contextually made sense. But Biden? Joe Biden?! President Joe Biden? Let’s make it all make sense for you. To the recap!

What’s The Deal For The SNL Cold Open For Last Night (1/21/23)?

In one of the more timely and topical cold opens ever, the NYC-based show kicked off with a FOX NFL post-game parody happening just as the actual FOX NFL guys were breaking down the Eagles-Giants game that had just ended on the other broadcast network!
Up in 30 Rock’s Studio 8H, Kenan Thompson anchored the panel as Curt Menefee, with Mikey Day as Howie Long, James Austin Johnson as Jimmy Johnson, Molly Kearney as Terry Bradshaw, and the first great showcase impression for Devon Walker as Michael Strahan. And if you wondered what Cleatus, the FOX NFL robot, would sound like, thank ChatGPT for inspiring the writers to craft some awkward moments here. Not quite as awkward as the fellas taking a shot at Paul Giamatti’s Albert Einstein performances in Verizon’s ad campaign, considering his co-star is their newly former co-worker, Strong! Also, Ego Nwodim showed up on the sidelines as Pam Oliver, but she was upstaged by the first of multiple George Santos appearances in the episode by Bowen Yang, which included a costume change in the cold open so Bowen could drag Santos as his “alleged” drag character, Kitara. Tuck and roll, people!

How Did The SNL Guest Host Aubrey Plaza Do?

At the end of her monologue, Aubrey Plaza exclaimed: “The biggest miracle of all is that they let me back in the building!”
But that’s really underselling it, isn’t it? After all, her monologue also included a live appearance by Amy Poehler and a pre-taped message from President Biden. Plaza neatly set the table for her episode by revealing not only her earliest NBC resume listing as a page (intern) but also that when she said hosting SNL was “a dream come true,” she really meant it, and knew that her sarcastic on-screen representations might make that difficult for us to believe. But we believe you, Aubrey!

Steve Harvey may not have hosted the 2023 Miss Universe pageant, but that wasn’t stopping Kenan from presiding over this parody, with Aubrey as Miss France, Molly as Miss Denmark (best callback: answering skydiving as her talent!), Ego as Miss Canada, Chloe Fineman as Miss Albania, Heidi Gardner as Miss Belgium, Punkie Johnson as Miss Barbados, and Sarah Sherman as Miss Israel. While Kenan may have broken a fourth or fifth wall by noting of the judges: “Wow. It really is The Property Brothers and Tony Hawk. That’s crazy.” Not as crazy? Having Steve Higgins announce the pageant is sponsored by the new movie 80 For Brady, then seeing an ad for 80 For Brady later in the telecast.
I appreciated the premise of “The Black Lotus” parody short more than I did the execution (although it did give Chloe another chance to do her Jennifer Coolidge impersonation, and Andrew Dismukes delivered a surprisingly spot-on take on Jake Lacy’s character from season 1). Your enjoyment may have varied.

This Taboo game night sketch didn’t have a lot of gimmicks or plot twists. Just new neighbors Sasha and Ian (Aubrey and Mikey) revealing TMI about Sasha’s sordid history and current state of horniness. Really putting the taboos in Taboo, eh?

Molly gets a nice showy role as Sister Clarence to Aubrey’s Sister Cecilia on the mics for their Catholic high school announcements. Turns out Sister Cecilia just survived a near-death experience and it has her questioning everything, leaving Sister Clarence to find answers wherever they can, leading to singalong of “Shallow” from A Star Is Born. Why the audience applauded to end the sketch before the rest of the cast had fully joined in is a question for the producers and crew…
And all I could keep thinking during the Avatar parody was how they pulled off making Aubrey and five of the cast members appear as blue Na’vi characters without applying full makeup, because there’d be no way to get them in and out of character for the rest of the show. Was it lighting? Yes, it was a lighting trick!

How Relevant Was The Musical Guest Sam Smith?

Sam Smith had one of 2022’s hottest songs with “Unholy,” and snuck Kim Petras under their costume for the full duet on the show. And yet, somehow this performance didn’t hit quite as hard live as it ever has on someone else’s TikTok.

Not to be outdone, though, Smith’s second song, “Gloria,” featured Smith in the deep background, fronted by a cloaked chorus, and…Sharon Stone splayed out like she’s getting a tan? Dead. 💀💀💀

 

Which Sketch Will We Be Sharing: “M3GAN 2.0”

With all of the surprises in this episode, it’s a bit difficult to predict which one of them will go more viral than the others. I’m inclined to go back and say the “Miss Universe” sketch will get more views on more platforms because it’s so funny and so random, but since M3GAN is pop culture’s belle of the ball in terms of current chatting, and because the pre-taped short videos have better production values, I’m giving the nod for now to this parody featuring Chloe as the original movie doll come to horrific life, Aubrey as the 2.0 model that’s even more of an icon for gay men, and an Allison Williams appearance to cement this parody as canon.

Who Stopped By Weekend Update?

Colin Jost’s memoir may have suggested he wears “A Very Punchable Face,” but the kids in the live audience continue to express their desires to do something else to it. Woot, there it is. Still.

We’ve seen celebrity George Santos impersonators on all three of the main late-night shows (Harvey Guillén on Colbert, Nelson Franklin on Kimmel, and obvious deep cut get with SNL pathological liar “Tommy Flanagan” Jon Lovitz for Fallon), so what’s left for Bowen Yang to chew on? Well, he’s Bowen Yang! He scores points here just by allowing his own personality to put some more polish on the performance.

Since we saw Poehler pop up during the monologue, it only felt right to pay off the Parks reunion by having her and Aubrey get back into their Pawnee roles as Leslie Knope and April Ludgate. Only Poehler got to make it all meta by having Leslie jostle Jost about the Weekend Update gig, and asking: “Do you mind if I tried to tell a joke?” Not at all. Even if it’s a punny one. Really.

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

At 12:49 a.m. Eastern, we’re live with Aubrey as a director for a TV commercial for HIV medication Dovato (a real thing), and Mikey, Devon and Marcello Hernandez as the actors she has to wrangle in a gay nightclub scene. Marcello is great. Mikey’s dancing is questionable. But it’s Devon’s character, Jamal, who’s too afraid to play gay that he keeps ad-libbing lines to ensure viewers that he’s straight.

We saw Sharon Stone, silent but deadly, statuesque in front of Sam Smith. We saw a bumper with Aubrey Plaza re-creating Stone’s infamous Basic Instinct look and scene. So at 12:55 a.m. Eastern, we get Aubrey calling Stone her mommy in a black-and-white pulp detective sketch, with JAJ as the private dick investigating Aubrey’s character due to her fetish of marrying old dudes who keep dying on her.
Fun fact: Plaza has previously called Stone both an idol and a mentor, testifying that she met her queen on a red carpet during Emmy season some 13 years ago. What an epic pull bringing her onto SNL for this occasion.

Who Was The Episode’s MVP?

Celeb cameos aside, this was a great episode for two of the new kids: Molly Kearney and Devon Walker. They both received multiple opportunities this week to demonstrate their value and worth to the cast for the rest of Season 48 and beyond.
Next week: Michael B. Jordan hosts with musical guest Lil Baby.

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.