Last night John Mulaney hosted Saturday Night Live for the first time since Oct. 31, 2020, a Halloween episode featuring the Strokes that aired live just a few weeks before Mulaney’s heavily covered stint in rehab. Since then the comedian has become perhaps the least famous celebrity to become a regular figure in the gossip rags, with his private life getting pored over by the press about as much as Roseanne Barr’s was back in the early ‘90s. Clearly all of that would make interesting fodder for Mulaney’s stand-up, and sure enough his current From Scratch show digs into his personal life in a way his comedy generally hasn’t before.
In last night’s monologue, Mulaney performed about seven minutes of his latest set, and didn’t exclude the tough stuff. He discussed his intervention, how it feels to delete and block the phone numbers of your dealers, and also his joy at being a new father. Mulaney remains as personable as ever, using his personal issues as matter-of-fact setup for jokes and not for sympathy or melodrama. If you’re at all a fan of Mulaney’s stand-up, you should watch this, even if you understandably try to avoid SNL. Check it out below.