Best, Worst of Mikey Madison's 'SNL' Debut

by Julian Spivey
Mikey Madison made her hosting debut on “Saturday Night Live” on March 29, fresh off winning the Academy Award for her performance in director Sean Baker’s “Anora.”
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It was a bit of a head-scratcher as the show seemed to hide the 26-year-old actress more so than usual for the host of the sketch comedy show, giving her more supporting roles in sketches. Her two biggest moments came in the show’s cold opening, which is a rarity for a host, and then one of the night’s final sketches, in which she played a game show host questioning a man she’d been seeing about the seriousness of their situationship.

It wasn’t an awful episode, but there wasn’t much throughout the evening that will stick in my head for over a day or two. It’s also unfortunate for Madison and the show that the biggest story to come out of the evening was the goodnights portion of the show, because the evening’s musical guest, Morgan Wallen, made a fool of himself – something he’s no stranger to doing – by walking off stage before the cameras turned off.

Here are the best and worst moments from Saturday night’s episode: 
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Photo: NBC

Best:
One thing about the show that has been clicking since President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January has been Weekend Update with co-anchors Michael Che and, particularly, Colin Jost sticking it to the administration's ineptness. This happened again on Saturday night with hard-hitting jokes about the ridiculousness of key officials in the Trump administration, including the editor of The Atlantic, in a text chain about war plans. Jost began the segment by saying, “Well, this week we learned our entire national security team has the texting skills of my Aunt Janet.” Potentially the best of these jokes included a graphic of the fist bump emoji, American flag emoji and fire emoji, to which Jost said: “National security advisor Mike Waltz texted the group the first emoji, the flag emoji and the Tesla emoji.” 

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Worst:
Country music superstar Morgan Wallen has no business being on “Saturday Night Live.” He’s only there because executive producer Lorne Michaels believes he can bring a different set of eyes, meaning conservative viewers, to the broadcast. However, I don’t think many conservative watchers would sit through a cold opening mocking the ineptitude of the Trump administration and Weekend Update mocking the same thing to watch Wallen perform two songs from his latest album when they can pull them up on YouTube the next day. Thankfully, because I was viewing the episode via DVR, I had the luxury of fast-forwarding through them. I rolled my eyes a few weeks ago when it was announced that Wallen would perform on the show again. The guy became a superstar mainly on the back of a perceived “cancellation” for using the N-word on video and has a history of jackassery, like last year when he was arrested for disorderly conduct when he dangerously threw a chair off the balcony of a Nashville bar. He also had a controversial history with ‘SNL,’ as his scheduled first appearance on the show in 2021 was canceled because he refused to follow COVID-19 protocols leading up to the show. Wallen once again looked like a fool – whether he intended to or not – when he walked off stage before the end of the goodnights on Saturday night. It didn’t seem the show's cast wanted anything to do with him either, as the cast stood noticeably further back during the segment than usual. After the show, Wallen bitchily posted a photo of his private jet to his Instagram with the caption: “Get me to God’s country.” What a twat. 

Best:
I’m a big fan of Andrew Dismukes. He has the weird, absurd kind of humor that I’ve always enjoyed. Now and then, he’ll take a wacky one-note joke, place it into an interesting scenario, and make a meal of it. Pop’s Big Regret from Saturday night may not have been the best of Dismukes’ work on the show, but it entertained me. Dismukes played a mob boss who is shot in front of his sons, played by James Austin Johnson and Marcello Hernandez, and among his dying regrets is that he never got a chance to do stand-up comedy. The rest of the sketch shows him running potential stand-up jokes by his sons as he’s dying, which are all amateurish and dumb and often include the catchphrase: “Make that make sense!” 

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Worst:
I didn’t need to see a return of Bowen Yang’s Barry the Midwife character. It was definitely the worst sketch of the evening. The sketch sees Madison playing a doctor and helping a character played by Ashley Padilla give birth, when Barry the Midwife shows up and is offended that Madison’s doctor didn’t recognize him from years before. It’s played like a bad soap opera. There isn’t much here to laugh about.