'Saturday Night Live' Sets Shane Gillis, Lady Gaga Double Duty For March Episodes

Juuuuuust under the wire, I know. It got away.

Saturday Night Live wasn’t back immediately following its massive 50th anniversary special weekend. However, like in 2015 after the 40th anniversary special, it’s back the following week, which in this case will be tonight, March 1. On the Tuesday after the special, February 18, the show announced that almost-cast member Shane Gillis would be hosting for the second time with musical guest Tate McRae. But obviously with five weeks without a regular episode, they weren’t going to do one and dip, so Lady Gaga will be doing double duty for March 8’s episode.

Gillis, a standup comedian hired as part of the 2019-2020 season 45 class that included Chloe Fineman and Bowen Yang, was fired before his would-be first season began over a litany of racist remarks on his podcast. Now star of the Netflix series Tires, he was first given grace to host last season’s twelfth episode with musical guest 21 Savage. It included such sketches as “Church on Vacation”, “HR Meeting”, one for the Fox game show The Floor, and the pretape “White Men Can’t Trump”. His musical guest is Tate McRae, who is returning following a similar stint in last season’s Jason Momoa-hosted episode on November 18, 2023. There, she performed “Grave” and “Greedy”, and comes back now to promote her third album So Close to What. Because of how long it took me to get this out, the promos have already been released, so here’s the plotty promo as a treat.

'SNL50' Anniversary Special Lines Up Musical Performances, Including Paul McCartney, Miley Cyrus

Gaga is coming off of the SNL50 Homecoming Concert, where she partook in the bookends of the Lonely Island medley, performing “Dick In a Box” and “Motherlover” with Andy Samberg but not “3-Way (The Golden Rule)”, which is her song with them, well, Samberg and Justin Timberlake’s singer characters. She was also part of the finale cacophony of the medley, and then performed “Shallow” from A Star is Born more genuinely than Samberg had fun with as the penultimate performer of the night. On SNL itself, this is her second time pulling double duty, after November 16, 2013, which has a cameo that made the 50th anniversary special’s “In Memoriam” to its poorly-aged appearances. Her debut on the show was as musical guest to Ryan Reynolds on October 3, 2009, and followed by the Justin Timberlake-hosted May 21, 2011 episode. Her third and most recent musical guest gig was October 22, 2016, the Tom Hanks-hosted episode that introduced the world to David Pumpkins.

Gaga does have a new album, Mayhem, which will mark her “return” to her “pop roots,” or so the press release says. The 14-track album, features the previously-released singles “Disease”, “Abracadabra” and “Die with a Smile” featuring Bruno Mars, which have been pretty well received. They are tracks 1, 2, and 14 on the album, with “Garden of Eden”, “Perfect Celebrity”, “Vanish Into You”, “Killah” ft. Gesaffelstein, “Zombieboy” “LoveDrug”, “How Bad Do U Want Me”, “Don’t Call Tonight”, “Shadow Of A Man”, “The Beast” and “Blade of Grass” filling the gap.

There could be another episode in the March 20s (22 or 29) but the fact that they stopped with these two still guarantees a break on March 15. Being only the 13th and 14th episodes of the season means April and May will finish the season with three episodes each.

'The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie' Marks Release Delay With Official Trailer

Sources: Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter