'SNL' season 49, episode 11 recap: Ayo Edebiri with Jennifer Lopez

It's SNL in Review time, Conehead nation — let's time-travel for a bit. It's 2012, and Abby Elliott is a cast member on the NBC comedy variety show Saturday Night Live. It's been a decent if not entirely successful run, and she leaves. A not-uncommon occurrence with cast members, unfortunately. Flash forward a decade and lo, Abby has found herself on a zeitgeisty FX show called The Bear.

One of her Bear castmates, Ayo Edebiri, hosts tonight. She's one of comedy's bright spots, sprinting from jobs on Big Mouth and What We Do in the Shadows to landing movie roles in Theater Camp and Bottoms. As always, all roads lead back to SNL.

I'm joined tonight by former SNL cast member Gary Kroeger, who is a fan of tonight's host for a few reasons. He says Edebiri "may be the best transformation from standup to actor I've ever seen. I viewed some of her early standup, and her authentic personality carried her through rather experimental material but I didn't necessarily see the promise of a great actor. Boy, was I wrong. Her first entrance as Sydney applying for the job [on The Bear] made it clear that she was seasoned already."

Ayo Edebiri Monologue - SNL — Ayo Edebiri.
Saturday Night Live/YouTube

If Edebiri is a — as they say — "fresh face" or "it girl" in comedy, tonight's musical guest is a veritable legend: Jennifer Lopez returns to the show for the first time since hosting back in season 45. The past two episodes have been certifiably meh; let's see if tonight's fun host and musical guest combination turns things around.

Cold Open: CNN Town Hall South Carolina

We're in South Carolina for the Trump town hall. Gayle King (Punkie Johnson) and Charles Barkley (Kenan Thompson) are hosting.

James Austin Johnson's Donald Trump enters taking questions from the likes of Michael Longfellow. Heidi Gardner's character is wondering about Taylor Swift being brainwashed and put in Biden's back pocket. This leads to a funny riff on Swift's Midnights track list: "Another Stolen Election (Taylor's Version)."

Devon Walker's Sen. Tim Scott comes out to call Trump "hot Abe Lincoln." JAJ is doing his best here… and hey, a surprise turn is in store!

NiKki Haley comes out to mild applause. Historically, this would be a huge moment. But this time? Pretty forced. Obama showing up behind a Halloween mask, this is not. Gary Kroeger's take: "I say, 'Get right on the Nikki Haley train!' Not because she will be around much longer in her presidential bid, but the comedy/drama at hand today is perfect for SNL satire." He adds, "There are so many ways to weave her candidacy and her flip-flops with Trump's candidacy and his lying, scheming, misogynist vitriol." He'd like to see the two candidates both using Bumble during downtime and picking each other.

In the sketch's final moments, Haley awkwardly calls back not mentioning slavery when answering a question about what caused the Civil War, with Edebiri herself popping in to ask.

Monologue

Edebiri comments on her family, and growing up in Boston. She reads from a packet she supposedly wrote for SNL back when she was a standup comic in New York.

On Edebiri's Boston origins, Kroeger offers that the city "makes a person fearless, and perhaps a little more multidimensional. Never got there when I lived in New York doing SNL. There was always a bit of rivalry, I think, and so I pretended to be a New Yorker."

Given that she was a standup, I am surprised this wasn't longer!

Why'd You Say It

We saw a version of this last season with Jake Gyllenhaal. A game show host, Danny, tries to find out why contestants (Edebiri, Andrew Dismukes, then Chloe Fineman) commented on certain photos on Instagram. "You're not real and none of this is happening to me," says an embarrassed Dismukes.

Edebiri admits that chasing clout is stupid. She regrets dumb podcast comments she made when she was 24. I like the meta moment, but this worked better the first time, and Kenan's Danny is not quite maniacal enough, given the wickedness of the show's premise (though some of his reaction shots are classic Kenan).

Dune Popcorn Bucket

High schooler Marcello Hernandez is a gentle teenage boy planning to lose his virginity to a Dune popcorn bucket — a bizarre bit of movie theater merchandise that went viral this week.

This beat is dope, good song! I like the vibes!

Drugs on Campus

Andrew Dismukes is microdosing on mushrooms, and his fellow college students (Mikey Day, Edebiri) are very straight-edge — the '90s DARE program really worked on them. Their PSA-inspired antics drive the proceedings here. Meh.

Bad Couples

There are no normal love stories! Danny Love (Bowen Yang) interviews NYC couples on the street about their meet-cute stories. Chloe Troast and Andrew Dismukes cheated on their previous better halves with each other — then she got pregnant, and he's rich. Mikey Day is committing incest with his sister (uhhh… Fineman). Heidi Gardner's father died, so she got together with her professor.

Fun! Ego Nwodim is dating Please Don't Destroy's Martin Herlihy. Edebiri's character returning also gives this an actual arc, rather than simple cast member walk-ons. Maybe this should've been the cold open?

The crowd loves the ending with Danny Love meeting the anchor's husband (surprise).

Jennifer Lopez performs 'Can't Get Enough'

I love the energy of the camerawork, with Lopez giving a James Brown-style kick. This music video just dropped. Latto shows up in this song, which interpolates Sean Paul's "I'm Still In Love With You."

This Is Me… Now: A Love Story, releasing Feb. 16 on Prime Video, is both a new album and a movie, co-written by Ben Affleck. This song is an ode to their marriage.

Redman coming out is an amazing surprise — love him. J. Lo recently posted a track that samples his 1998 Busta Rhymes-assisted hit "Da Goodness," which also incorporated "Can't Get Enough."

Gary Kroeger isn't necessarily a fan of J. Lo's music but says he "always thought that she was great in films. She knocked us all out in Selena, and she proved to be a real star from Out Of Sight on."

Weekend Update

Che is surprised and entertained when the crowd groans at his ribaldry! "I like this crowd a lot, man!"

This ticket lottery at SNL is the stuff of lore. CJ Rossitano (Sarah Sherman) comes out to discuss — he looks exactly like "Mr. Colin." I love when Sarah comes on the "Update" desk to ruffle Jost. Great stuff! "Cat's in the Cradle" cutaways are pretty funny. Same with the Scarjo jokes, and Sherman commenting on her "dump truck ass." They keep making Jost the butt of the jokes, and yet — it works! The crowd eats this up, Che was right.

Trivia Quest

Another game show sketch? (And third reference if you count the monologue. Okay then.) Ego Nwodim's host connects with one of the contestants — they both went to Spelman. Mikey Day's Jeff just wants a fishing boat. “Creepy ass," mutters Nwodim. She plays favorites.

Great to see Ego with a showcase tonight, she's great. Her bonding with Ayo over Baby Boy is fantastic.

This works better than the previous game show sketch, honestly — just wondering why the show leans on these sketch tropes so, so much. It's not the '70s, ya know?

Stuck in the Elevator

Several people in the south bank elevator get stuck. They have 25 minutes before the fire department shows up. Bowen and Edebiri respond by wanting to hook up and remake society.

They all fantasize about the utopia of Elevator Town. Random! We love random humor, don't we, folks?

School Hypnotist

A classroom has won a cookie dough fundraiser. The magnificent hypnotist Mr. Fantastic (Andrew Dismukes) visits a classroom. Solomon (Edebiri) does not give consent. This is pretty funny! Edebiri kills it. Watch this one!

Ending with Chloe Troast revving up to sing Jordin Sparks should've been curbed. Not necessary.

Jennifer Lopez performs 'This Is Me… Now'

J. Lo was first musical guest way back in season 25 — Alan Cumming was the host that night and people like Tim Meadows were still in the cast!

Funny, I think last week's musical guest, Justin Timberlake, helped with this song, the title track from J. Lo's new album. It's a sequel to her early-2000s record, and true to form, it captures that era's pop soul.

People's Court — Bad Hair Day

"Got damn!" screams Devon Walker, seeing Edebiri's exposed scalp. When it's windy, she can feel her memories being blown away. Another great combo sketch for Ayo and Ego. I love Ego finally getting an episode to run things.

Past "People's Court" sketches have included Jon Lovitz's Devil and Donald Trump.

Final Thoughts

What did you all think? Vote here! Vote early, vote often.
Ha, Shane Gillis is hosting the next episode. Let's enjoy the discourse on this one…
Thank you as always to former cast member Gary Kroeger! Check out his website, garyhasissues.com, as well as The Gary & Kenny Show on YouTube.
On immigration and the border crisis becoming the subject of jokes at the show, Kroeger says, "SNL can potentially make hay of any social or political topic. The border is a humanitarian crisis and that is where it can be difficult to satire, but the GOP smokescreen of creating an 'invasion of body and job snatchers' in order to rally their base of wannabe militiamen — and women — is the stuff of comedy."
More than half of you thought last week's episode was crappy or outright terrible. Still, just barely, a plurality (35.1%) seemed to like the Dakota Johnson and Justin Timberlake matchup well enough.
Edebiri shouts out Redman and Wally the Cue Card Guy, that's fantastic. I'm won over. One critique: The sketches picked up energy after a few clunkers; they should've reorganized what aired when. Ayo had real chops, so give her real parts — not asking Nikki Haley BS.