Paul Mescal’s Boyish Charm Gets Hurt By SNL’s Poor Sketch Writing

Welcome back, coneheads! All week, I was worried about how last night’s episode of Saturday Night Live would go. Charli XCX’s pre-Thanksgiving episode was a breath of fresh air in an otherwise dull, underwhelming season of comedy. Her energy was fresh, and the writers cobbled together some of their strongest material. It was the best outing of the year by any of the hosts; I can’t believe that, in the Year of our Lord 2024, Charli outperformed a regular host like John Mulaney. But, here we are! What’s tough, however, is that SNL didn’t get a chance to ride that momentum. The show went on break for a few weeks, and we’ve been stuck in limbo ever since—though we did get the announcement of a 50th anniversary episode scheduled for February.

I’d predicted that we would see at least one of the Gladiator II stars take the Studio 8H stage at some point in Season 50. Some of us are still chuckling about Pedro Pascal’s tour-de-force hosting gig two years ago, but I knew that there was a world where Paul Mescal would get an invite—I even predicted he would, given just how bankable and likable a star he’s become. I imagine Pascal will be back, though, as The Last of Us is set to return to Max in early 2025. For now, we’re left with Mescal and his White Boy of the Month charm. Ever since breaking out in the BBC adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People, Mescal has accrued one hell of a short filmography—taking turns in All of Us Strangers, The Lost Daughter and Aftersun, the latter of which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. He’s a lovable guy who owns too many pairs of Adidas Sambas and has a sad girl indie music taste—the perfect combination for a chronically online era.

Mescal being one of the best on-the-rise stars in Hollywood means nothing when the SNL cameras start rolling. You’ve either got it or you don’t, and he was, unfortunately, at the helm for one of Season 50’s weakest outings yet. That isn’t for lack of enthusiasm, though! Evident by his hyper-happy monologue, Mescal was clearly beyond elated to be hosting, which I appreciate. Considering how Jean Smart and Bill Burr couldn’t beat the uninspired allegations earlier this season, I can’t totally knock Paul for last night—he gave it a good try, but the writing failed him. It was a pretty rough 90 minutes with horrible pacing and jokes that, because of the two-week break, were outdated by the time they were told.

As a wise cue card says…

“Live from New York…”

I didn’t think that SNL could run a guest star into the ground quite as badly as they did Alec Baldwin during Trump’s first presidential term, but I was wrong! I’ve been over Dana Carvey for months now, and the fact that the writers couldn’t come up with a cold open idea better than “Church Chat” is laughable. Some old SNL characters are tried, true and timeless. The Church Lady is not one of them, I’m afraid. Carvey is such a good character actor; do you really expect me to believe that he can’t come up with something funnier than a nearly 40-year-old bit that, let’s be honest, was never one of his strongest bits when he was a bonafide cast member?

Trying to have the Church Lady make sense of the state of culture, sports and politics in 2024 is a fool’s errand. The idea that this year was the most satanic one yet is tiring. My anti-Carvey stance this season felt vindicated when he said his classic “Satan!” line and the audience mostly ignored it. I remember being so excited when Carvey returned to host SNL in 2011. I wasn’t alive when he was a cast member, so seeing him dust off the Church Lady and Garth Algar was cool as hell back then. But hindsight isn’t just 20/20; it’s a big old bitch.

This edition of “Church Chat” features three guests: Matt Gaetz (Sarah Sherman), Hunter Biden (David Spade) and Juan Soto (Marcello Hernandez). All three performers are bad—like, really bad. I am Sarah Sherman’s biggest fan, but her casting as Gaetz has already aged like milk (most political impressions on this show suffer similarly). I did chuckle at the Church Lady’s “It looks like your forehead’s trying to go to Heaven without you” joke, but Trump appointing Gaetz as Attorney General was already old news by the time the Charli XCX episode aired.

Seeing David Spade return to Studio 8H was a pleasant sight, even if his Hunter Biden impression did absolutely nothing for me. It landed better than the Gaetz bit, and that’s probably because Hunter’s news headlines are far more timely right now. There was a joke about podcasts, but it’s only funny if you also are clued into the fact that Carvey and Spade host a podcast together called Fly on the Wall, and the quick “Pardon me” was well-done. I love Spade and he’s got my support anywhere and everywhere and in a season filled with gross, misinformed guest appearances, his entry as Biden is the least offensive (and least interesting). Hernandez as free agent baseball superstar Juan Soto was a complete and utter dud—a rare miss for a guy as high-octane as Marcello, who has been SNL’s MVP this season so far. The Celsius hat was a nice touch, given Soto’s recently-announced partnership with the energy drink brand, and the Yankees-versus-Mets joke was a rare but fleeting glimmer.

I can’t wait to see Carvey exit this show. It’s the 50th season and he’s the only former cast member with enough free time to appear every week? This is how you want to spend your money, Lorne? Yawn.

“You look mahvelous!”

This week’s episode sucked, but it started well enough to put some hope on the table. The first post-monologue sketch, “Earring,” works because it features a few cast members yelling some of the most outlandish things—it’s like a pissing contest with no end goal or point, and that’s when SNL thrives. The premise is simple: A son (Mescal) is home from college and has a new ear piercing, and his parents (Heidi Gardner and Emil Wakim) overreact to the news. This sketch rocks, largely because Gardner is putting everyone else in a blender during it. Wakim does his best to keep up, but it’s Heidi’s time to shine. “Earring” is basically just a bunch of really good one-liners cobbled into five minutes of jokes, so here are a few of my favorites:

“Maybe one day I’ll bring a goat home, stick a gun to its head and blow his little brains out! That’s pretty freaking cool, huh?”

“Poli-Sci major got us good! College student owns Ben Shaprio!”

“You think we’re homophobic? Your father’s been gay for 15 years!”

“Does your carpet match your drapes? Blue!”

“Honey, cancel my doctor’s appointment tomorrow, I want a sex worker to take my cholesterol!”

“Brah-vah to the edgelord!”

“I guess there’s nothing cooler than hurting your own mother!”

“What if I roundhouse kicked Nana in the stomach?”

The mom throws Nana (Ashley Padilla) through a window twice, and even sticks a spatula through her own earlobe to show her son how cool a body piercing is. Blood is gushing and the whole scene is a mess. “Earring” was easy, formulaic and damn funny to watch unfold. Sometimes it’s cool to just enjoy a few cast members trying to one-up each other in a sketch. Heidi even breaks for a second. We also got a quick, unexpected shot of the son’s younger brother (Michael Longfellow) showing up to the meal in full leather and piercings. There was also a Gummo shoutout in this sketch, which was very, very cool and unexpected.

“Yipee! Jerry Rubin died last week.”

Last night’s Weekend Update was fine. Che and Jost were locked in with each other, which hasn’t always been the case this season. Of course, we get a lot of jokes about UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s death, including a bit about how the shooter got away because all of the cops in New York are too busy guarding the giant Christmas tree outside Rockefeller Center. It’s another notch in the SNL‘s long, hit-or-miss history of riffing on NYC crime. In honor of National Time Travel Day, Che makes a good joke by saying the holiday “was tomorrow,” and there are some bits about Joe Biden’s visit to Africa, Diddy’s baby oil, squirting cucumbers (with audio), politicians drinking and Trump’s visit to Notre Dame in Paris looking a lot like a certain hunchback’s.

There was just one Update character bit this week, and it was Gardner and Hernandez playing a mother and son duo. The son was drafted into the NFL this year and the mom is still adjusting to her new fame and fortune. Hernandez is a devout follower of God and “dead behind the eyes,” having sacrificed any sort of personality to achieve his dream. Gardner is decked out in designer fashion and wants to make a move on musical guest Shaboozey by showing him her “sha-pussy.” It got a couple of laughs out of me, and I love seeing Hernandez play an unanimated character. If it wasn’t already obvious, Gardner really carried last night’s episode.

“In a word? Chaos.”

“Brilliant Lawyer” was such a horrible idea that it worked beautifully. A trial is coming to an end and a client (Mescal) is upset with his attorney (Andrew Dismukes), who hasn’t argued one lick of his case yet. For the trial’s last day, Dismukes has Mescal wear a bright green suit with flames on it and a red Devo energy dome. Dismukes calls to the stand the only witness (Sherman) who saw Mescal commit the robbery he’s accused of and asks her to point out the suspect. She does, but there are about 20 other men in green suits and energy domes sitting behind Mescal. He’s not convincing the judge of anything, so he has the men all do a shuffle to confuse the courtroom. Nada. With plan A and plan B both out the window, Dismukes turns to plan C: “If you don’t dismiss this case, I’m gonna kill myself.” The judge still isn’t going for it, so Dismukes pivots to plan D: “Your Honor, if you dismiss this case… I will give you oral.” It’s a great sketch propped up by Dismukes going 110%. He continues to be one of the most electric members of the cast.

In “Pirates,” a bachelorette party is at a club hoping for a Magic Mike-style all-male revue show. We all had the same thought: How does Domingo fit into all of this? The short answer is: He doesn’t. No, this is a sketch about pirate strippers (Mescal, Hernandez, Dismukes, Wakim and JAJ) that runs far too long and feeds the audience a lot of information and almost no standout jokes. The comedy we do get is in the commitment to the bit and the very clever reveal of Wakim’s not-at-all-sexy peg legs. The pirates jaw a Brit (Mikey Day) delivering a letter from the Queen of England, but they are more interested in sailing to Bermuda. These guys sell themselves as anything but strippers so well that, once we get the punchline five minutes into the sketch—that, yes, they are actually strippers—it doesn’t pay off so much as it just feels like a bit that plum ran out of steam. Mescal charmed, but that was about it.

“You are weak like H.R. Pickens!”

The worst sketch of the night… Can I just pick 50% of the show? I think the obvious standout was “Spotify Wrapped,” a timely idea executed confusingly. At a hangout between friends (Ego Nwodim, Mescal, Sherman, Dismukes), they all talk about their recently released Spotify Wrapped stats. Mescal boasts about his results, showing that some of his top artists were Kendrick Lamar and Sabrina Carpenter, but his love of the Dundalk, Maryland-based, anti-instrumentalist sound guru Satoshi Gutman (Bowen Yang), whom he spent 170,000 minutes listening to in 2024. Culturally, this sketch works because Wrapped is all that anyone talks about the week it comes out, and it’s fascinating to explore other peoples’ tastes, niches and obscure favorites. But, it was just executed so weirdly. I suppose brain-rot internet sketches are a fickle sell, or maybe the writing was just that bad. Gutman is a pioneer of the “ace-core movement,” and he even welcomes podcaster/vlogger Trisha Paytas in for a cameo in his year-end message to top fans. Seeing Trisha Paytas and Paul Mescal on the same stage together felt like a ketamine dream, so it wasn’t all bad.

“Who’s the barber here?”

If I have to see another “Church Chat” rehash, I might take Dismukes’s plan C approach.

“If you have a $50 bill, we can give you 50 singles.”

A Please Don’t Destroy film! Finally! It was fine, definitely not as immediately entertaining as the skydiving instructor skit from a few months ago. This time, “Paul Mescal is Daddy” is more of a slowburn that gets its wind once the PDD boys compliment Mescal’s normalness and he takes an extra shine to them in response. He fantasizes about moving into a log cabin upstate with the trio, teaching them about the joys of life and them reciprocating those values. It’s a lifestyle where he can go off and shoot more movies as a “sad hot guy” and then come back to a loving home with his three boys. His fantasy takes a sharp turn, as townsfolk come by their “little slice of paradise” with guns because the local militia “doesn’t understand folks” like Mescal and PDD. “Paul, why do people hate?” Ben Marshall asks. “Because they don’t know love like we do,” Mescal replies. It’s a really sweet moment, and seeing Mescal tuck the PDD crew in, kiss them all on the forehead and say “goodnight, sweet boys” was a lovely conclusion. It wasn’t the most daring angle that Please Don’t Destroy have taken in their films, but I had a good time. SNL should really stop cutting these guys’ airtime.

We also got a “What if Gladiator II was a musical because Wicked and Moana 2 are box-office smashes?” sketch, and it was fine! It’s Gladiator II, but with 50 more minutes of singing. Mikey Day shows up and delivers a Lin-Manuel Miranda-style rap verse and Mescal (as Hanno) joins in on the action (he can sing???). Kenan Thompson makes an appearance as Macrinus, while we get a brand new character made specifically for the musical portion—a Christian character played by James Austin Johnson. My gripe with the Gladiator II musical sketch (“Gladiator Twosical”) is that it ran far too long. I’d like to think its runtime is why we only got one Update character this week, which, considering how good some of the Update characters have been this season, is a bummer. But, hey, there’s no place like Rome! Watching Mescal and Day have a floss-off was splendidly stupid.

“A wooden bowl, some oversized index cards, and a funnel…”

Sometimes, all you need is a premise you can’t really screw up and a cast member’s commitment to underwhelming writing, and that’s what we get in “Italian Restaurant Commercial.” Two actors (Padilla and Mescal) are taping a commercial for an Italian restaurant together and, during the first take, Padilla’s character (a still green actress) improvs a line (“imagine the pastabilities”). The director (Day) is a fan of the flub, but Mescal wants to just stick to the script. The whole thing turns into a contest, as Padilla’s puns are lauded while Mescal’s attempts fail so badly that he grows resentful towards his co-star. It’s a fun enough back-and-forth, with Padilla showing why she should be asked to return in Season 51, and the way Mescal winds up and blurts out “spaghetti or not, here we come” genuinely tickled me pink (as did his “spaghetti or not, we’re going to kill you” line later in the sketch). “I’m learning so much from you,” Padilla says. “Shut up,” Mescal replies in a manner that’s so serious you don’t know whether to cringe or burst out laughing. It’s excellent work from both players, even if the sketch runs out of steam by the time the restaurant’s owner (Kenan Thompson) makes an appearance.

“Your very precious lunch hour…”

Post-Update SNL was a good time last night, cumulatively. We got the “Brilliant Lawyer” sketch, along with “Spotify Wrapped” and “A Complete Unknown Red Carpet,” two of which were solid entries! “Buzzfeed Red Carpet” was my favorite of the bunch, acting as a very serviceable 10-to-1 bit last night—mainly because my gut busts every time James Austin Johnson does his on-the-nose Bob Dylan impression. This time, Buzzfeed is at the premiere of the new Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown starring Timothée Chalamet (Chloe Fineman). Fineman’s Chalamet is worn-out already, this having been the second time she’s reprised the role this season alone—and it was never a very good impression to begin with—but JAJ’s Dylan is an absolute gas as his gibberish turns into him talking about eating a Dodger Dog while watching Shohei Othani, loving Dune (“Hell of a feature!”) and calling Chalamet “Tim-O-Tay.” Dylan is so hungry that he demands Buzzfeed “relinquish him” so that he can raid the appetizers at the nearby hot bar and “see the Promised Land.”

We also get Andrew Dismukes playing Bruce Springsteen, and Mescal playing Bono. The Buzzfeed reporter (Gardner) asks Springsteen if he has a favorite Chalamet movie, and he immediately waxes poetic on “that Wonka picture.” “You know, I grew up in a chocolate factory town. I remember the day they closed it down. Pops came home drunk, Mama ran off with an Oompa-Loompa! But of course, like all my stories, that’s not true” was, by far, my favorite moment of the night. Bono says he didn’t have a Brat Summer because of the “sweltering heat brought on by climate change” and then the three men all, in unison, rank Rory Gilmore’s boyfriends (Jess, Logan and then Dean) correctly (no one likes Dean). Gold star for closing the night out in style.

Not Ready For Primetime Power Rankings

1. Heidi Gardner
Heidi carried SNL on her back last night, between her being the mom offended by her son’s new earring, the mom taking advantage of her son’s NFL fame or the bachelorette dissatisfied with pirate strippers. It was one of the best outings Heidi’s had in a while, at least since her infamous break during last year’s “Beavis and Butthead” sketch. I love it when a veteran has a night like that, one where you can feel just how well they anchor the whole cast.

2. Andrew Dismukes
Dismukes had almost as good of a night as Heidi, if only because his turn in “Brilliant Lawyer” was tremendous. Toss in the joke of the night during “A Complete Unknown Red Carpet” and you’ve got a good night in New York City. He was also in “Pirates” and “Spotify Wrapped,” albeit more as secondary characters. I’ll be laughing about his “I’ll kill myself” line all day.

3. Please Don’t Destroy
I’ll give some love here to the PDD boys, who have really been getting Kyle Mooney’d by SNL all season long. Seriously, before last night we had more Digital Shorts than Please Don’t Destroy Films. Their short last night was a well-done charmer, and you could tell that their chemistry with Mescal wasn’t forced. It was a good four minutes spent, and I hope this leads to a hot streak for the PDD crew.

Goodnights

“People also think the Irish hate British people. That’s not true, we just don’t consider them people.” —Paul Mescal

SNL will return next week, as former cast member Chris Rock returns to Studio H8 to host for the fourth time with musical guest Gracie Abrams. And that’s the way it is! Goodnight.

Matt Mitchell is Paste’s music editor, reporting from their home in Northeast Ohio.