Saturday Night Live can be either hit or miss depending on whether or not the host is ready to fully throw themselves into whatever sketches the team wants them to do. When hosts like Jenna Ortega take the stage in Studio 8H, you know it’s going to be a good time. Ortega was an amazing example of what a good host can do and she knocked it out of the park alongside musical guest, The 1975. Which isn’t surprising since Ortega has slowly begun rising to fame in the last few years with her roles on hit shows like Wednesday as well as in the Scream franchise.
But Saturday Night Live had her testing her ability as an actress, by playing two versions of herself. In a remake of The Parent Trap, Ortega was playing Hallie in a scene at the camp and needed someone to read lines with since her body double was out sick. Since it was just the lines, the director (Bowen Yang) asked Raymond (Fred Armisen) to step in and read with her. Armisen was there to support his Wednesday co-star and even made a joke during the monologue about how excited he was to be a part of Saturday Night Live finally, which prompted Ortega to point out that he used to be a player on the series for eleven seasons.
Unsurprisingly, reading lines with Raymond doesn’t go that well when he starts to improvise things and go off book. At one point, Armisen’s Raymond alls Hallie the B word which has the director stopping the scene before moving on to the next.
Mixed with a lot of the actual lines from the Lohan remake and even having Ortega wear the same camp uniform, this was clearly a love letter for fans of The Parent Trap who still think about it regularly… like me and all my fellow millennials. It also was just hilarious to see Ortega going up against Armisen and holding her own as he started to improvise (as Raymond) in the scene.
It is revealed that their pictures of their parents go together and are two pieces of the same image, which is the same as in the 1998 film. This time the parents are played by Ed Helms and Leslie Mann. It’s simple, funny, and very much the kind of Saturday Night Live sketch that will have you eating Oreos with peanut butter.
It is worth noting that the editors of Saturday Night Live are preparing for a strike against NBC as they try to negotiate for fair contracts. You can support them by sharing their tweets and signing their call to action.
Check out Ortega and Armisen’s Parent Trap sketch below:
