A breakout star fromSaturday Night LiveSeason 46 returned ontheTimothée Chalamet-hosted episodeto make our spirits bright: Dr. Wayne Wenowdis. The character, played byKate McKinnon, firstdebuted during a “Weekend Update” segmentwithColin Jostearlier in the season. During McKinnon’s first Dr. Wenowdis outing, she memorably broke character and proceeded to have a heart-to-heart with Jost and theSNLaudience about how rough 2020 has been.
Dr. Wenowdis was in just as goofy and honest a mood for the second “Weekend Update” appearance on December 12. The segment was meant to involve a discussion between McKinnon’s Wenowdis and Jost about the new COVID-19 vaccine. Once again, every time Jost offered up an obvious or true statement about the creation and purpose of the vaccine, ol' Doc McKinnon replied with a “wenowdis,” mean to imply (albeit confusingly) confirmation. To avoid the bit from getting stale, McKinnon began heightening the absurdity with replies like “No, welovethis!” to encourage laughs. And, when the silliness got to be too much, McKinnon pulled out syringes of the “vaccine” and began spraying Jost with them — just a stunning image to behold.
Once again, the Wenowdis character broke down as Jost pulled McKinnon out of it (while still dressed as the goofball doctor) to discuss how theSNLperformer is doing. Through some giggles and with a large dose of endearing honesty, McKinnon and Jost made time to have a human moment about getting to this point in 2020, which has been — to put it mildly — one hell of a year. All in all, Dr. Wendowis' return toSNLwas exactly the kind of romp we needed to perk up an otherwise so-so episode.
Saturday Night Liveairs Saturdays at 11:30 pm ET/8:30 pm PT on NBC. Watch Kate McKinnon’s return as Dr. Wenowdis below. For more, see thePete Davidson PS5 sketchfrom last week’s episode.
