John Mulaney’s Sixth Time Hosting Saturday Night Live Fires on All Cylinders Until It Ends in Weak, Baffling Fashion

Ah, John Mulaney week at Saturday Night Live. In modern times, such an event is intensely beloved. Few former Studio 8H employees have been as revered or trusted on the SNL stage as Mulaney, whose sixth time hosting last night was a rather high-stakes appearance. On Tuesday, millions of Americans will cast their vote in the presidential election. The pre-election episode is nearly as consequential as the post-election episode, which will be captained by Bill Burr next week.

But Mulaney, love him or hate him, is among the few living comedians who understand the ins and outs of SNL so well that even the show’s worst material can find its spark when he’s on-screen. He’s a natural performer, innately skilled at blending in with the other players that it’s a travesty he was never an actual cast member (he was a writer from 2008 through 2013 and was responsible for creating one of the show’s most beloved characters, Stefon). Having Mulaney host the pre-election episode was a brilliant move, as his “Horse in a Hospital” bit remains one of the best commentaries on Trump and our country’s current political state. Even if last night’s episode didn’t harp too heavily on the election outside of the cold open and Weekend Update, I would trust very few celebrities to handle hosting duties at a time like this.

The last four years have been a whirlwind for Mulaney, to say the least. I’m sure most of us who are chronically online already know the gist, but for the uninformed: In 2020, Mulaney went to rehab for alcoholism, cocaine addiction and prescription drug abuse; a year later, he started performing stand-up shows titled From Scratch; that tour turned into a new Netflix special, Baby J. During that time, he also divorced Annamarie Tendler, married Olivia Munn and had two children with her (not in that exact order). Mulaney’s been in outpatient care for over three years now, and some of the comedy he’s been doing since has been among the strongest material in his career. While many folks have indulged their own parasocial habits and offered every opinion under the sun about Mulaney in the wake of his divorce, it’s hard not to root for the guy while he’s succeeding through recovery.

Last night’s episode of Saturday Night Live featured Chappell Roan as the musical guest, and I wanted to give her some flowers in this intro. I’m not sure how many readers out there have kept a running list of musicians who actually sound good on the SNL stage, but it’s not a very long ranking. The last musical guest to really blow me away was Jack White in 2020. Chappell stepped foot in Studio 8H and outmuscled every possible acoustics issue thrown at her. Her performance of “Pink Pony Club”—a song that is four years old—will go down as one of the very best this decade. There’s a reason why she’s, arguably, the biggest rising star in the western hemisphere right now; how many times has a musical guest ever gotten an entire SNL audience to sing along with them the way they did for “Pink Pony Club”? I sure can’t think of another instance. Goosebumps from head to toe; bravo to you, Chappell.

With thousands—maybe even millions—of zoomers and late-millennials likely tuning in last night to see Chappell sing, the SNL writers clearly leaned in on the brain rot of our current culture. So, with the weight of the nation’s future growing heavier by the day and one of our smartest living comedians in the driver’s seat last night, how did the most recent episode of Saturday Night Live fare? Well, as a wise cue-card says…

“Live from New York…”

In the early evening on Saturday, word began to spread online that Kamala Harris was going to be making an appearance on SNL. It wouldn’t be the first time a presidential nominee stopped by Studio 8H for a pre-election pit-stop. Hillary Clinton made a cameo during the season premiere in 2015, and Donald Trump even hosted the show later that autumn. It’s been rather quiet in the nine years since, and that was probably for the best—I’m not sure Joe Biden is the right personality for an SNL spot, and most of Trump’s modern-day antics are far funnier than anything the show’s writers could possibly think up.

Harris, however, is a different personality than all of the aforementioned names. Whether you support her or not, there is no denying that she can command any room she’s in and does so without so much as skipping a beat of charisma. If any political figure was ever going to come on the show and outshine their cast member counterpart, Kamala was always going to be a sure thing.

Most of last night’s cold open doesn’t even matter. We got Chloe Fineman playing another news anchor (this time, it was CNN’s Kaitlan Collins), some ribs about Trump’s (James Austin Johnson) recent blowjob-simulating microphone stunt, a few words (“Where my normal gay guys at?”) from J.D. Vance (Bowen Yang), more play-it-again-Sam cameos from Joe Biden (Dana Carvey), Tim Walz (Jim Gaffigan) and Doug Emhoff (Andy Samberg) that recycled the same old jokes, but this cold open was never going to be about anything other than Kamala Harris (Maya Rudolph) and Kamala Harris.

When the Associated Press confirmed that Vice President Harris would be appearing on the show, I knew that it could only happen in typical SNL fashion: the trusty ol’ mirror approach. And that’s exactly what we got, Rudolph’s Harris talking to the real Harris as a reflection—after a resounding, thunderous minute of applause, that is. Vice President Harris radiated, participating in an IJBOL-off with Rudolph and, as the lingering election makes our collective stress levels all the more confounding, it was a nice three minutes of pure hope and joy. Together, they riffed on Kamala’s name (“Keep calm-ala and carry on-ala”) and finished each other’s “belief in the promise of America.” It wasn’t the greatest political cameo in SNL history, nor was it even the best political cameo of last night, but it was a good pick-me-up after a very bad string of cold opens so far this season.

“You look mahvelous!”

The best goes to “Port Authority Duane Reade.” It’s a template that SNL has milked to the high-heavens since first bringing Mulaney in to host more than six years ago, one that includes “Diner Lobster,” “Airport Sushi” and “Bodega Bathroom,” and it works almost always—and it’s one that, as someone said on X last night, you “need a PhD in gay Twitter to follow.” But the premise is (sorta) simple: Take a very niche New York City thing and make it the most absurd, Vaudevillian thing you can possibly conjure up. “Port Authority Duane Reade” sprawled for more than eight minutes, as each second grew even more chaotic than the previous. We got a very sweet return from Pete Davidson, who looks healthy, has far less tattoos than when he last came to Studio 8H and played a tourist en route to Boston with a friend (Andrew Dismukes).

The sketch went in every direction imaginable: Kenan Thompson and Ego Nwodim singing a Lion King-inspired song about possum breast milk; Marcello Hernandez singing a Sound of Music lick as a shampoo bottle under lock and key; Devon Walker plays Mayor Eric Adams dressed as Aladdin; Samberg dresses up as the bear Robert Kennedy Jr. left in Central Park and raps like he’s in Hamilton; Chloe Fineman and her coterie of Timothée Chalamet look-alike contest participants sing a cabaret chorus line; Bowen Yang plays a very Greyhound bus driver-slash-escaped felon; Mikey Day is a trigger-happy soldier “HERE TO PUT YOU ALL AT EASE!”; Sarah Sherman, JAJ and Michael Longfellow have a bum fight with each other.

The whole thing ends in a Grease-style finale, with a Jewish Christopher Columbus and on-fire bus in tow—all because Davidson wanted to buy a gallon of milk out of a fridge that’s “hotter than the rest of the store.” I’m normally anti-recurring sketch in the show’s modern era, largely because it’s become a crutch for the writers, but SNL knows exactly what formulas work when Mulaney is in town. Why abandon a vehicle that’s still got some miles left on it?

“Yipee! Jerry Rubin died last week.”

Weekend Update was solid this week, striking a good balance between the back-and-forth jokes and guest spots. Colin Jost and Michael Che began by talking about the election that will decide whether or not SNL gets audited. The anchors got caught up in some of Kamala and Trump’s final pre-election moves, including Trump not being able to open the door of a Trump-sponsored garbage truck (a euphemism for his campaign, surely) and Kamala delivering her closing argument speech with the White House—and a tied-up Joe Biden—in the background. Jost brought up Tony Hinchcliffe’s recent comments about Puerto Rico being “an island of garbage,” citing that he took offense to Hinchcliffe’s words because he is someone who grew up on an “actual island of garbage”: Staten Island.

We got some other good jabs along the way, especially the “The MSG rally: It was all white” and “He’s trying to suck his way to freedom” one-liners, and Che skipping over material about the Los Angeles Dodgers beating his beloved New York Yankees in the World Series was excellent work. Jost pushed back against the impending $500 line-skipping “Lightning Pass” that Disney parks are introducing, claiming that he’s going to stick to his tried-and-true method: his trusty wheelchair. The best line of Update came when Che, while riffing on the news of a man who kept his father’s dead body in a freezer in his backyard, said the man was being charged with “making a ‘pop’-cicle.” It was an unexpected punchline that was strongly delivered.

Heidi Gardner came by the Update desk to “endorse” a candidate in the 2024 Election as Reba McEntire. On paper, I wouldn’t have believed that Gardner could pull off a Reba impression as well as Kenan Thompson has in seasons past, but she did a damn fine job channeling the “Fancy” singer’s mannerisms and movements. Great, memorable impressions are built off the energy of good one-liners, and Gardner was holding a few aces last night—including “I don’t care if you’re white, purple, gay, Black, skinny, fake boobs or stinky flappin’ naturals” and “Call me Shawn Mendes, because I’m still ‘figuring it out’!” It wouldn’t be a Reba moment if she wasn’t making fun of her fellow judges on The Voice, including the “blonde Japanese woman from No Doubt.” The best part of the bit, however, was the insinuation that Reba’s dad was Pennywise the Clown (“I’m a redhead, ain’t I?”) and that she and her siblings drank perfume instead of water (“Mama worked 59 jobs just to keep us in school, and Daddy only had the one: eatin’ kids”). We even got to see Gardner roll with the punches, as she clearly shattered her cell phone screen when she put it down on the desk (“Well, that’s broken!”). Gardner remains an anchor in the SNL cast, careening slowly toward a Kate McKinnon-level of consistency.

The “Couple You Can’t Believe Are Together” part of Update will likely fly under the radar, but I’d argue it was the best part of the segment. Hernandez and Jane Wickline were incredible as a loud, football jersey-and-backwards-cap-wearing guy named Grant and a bookish, glasses-wearing, Steven Universe-loving gal named Alyssa. The premise riffed on the recent marriage between Lana Del Rey and swamp tour guide Jeremy Dufrene; Jost couldn’t stop cracking up, and you could tell that Wickline was struggling to keep a straight face throughout the entire bit—and you could see why, as Hernandez was chucking up nothing but half-court shots and draining each one (“Opposites attract, man! That’s science, bro!” Grant says. “Like magnets,” Alyssa snickers). The two met at Club Sweat during a “Trap Night,” and it’s hard to dislike a joke that’s centered around body language: Grant goes berserk to a dance track, bumping into Alyssa and pushing her closer and closer to Jost. It was a wholesome and well-executed sketch about two types of people that everybody knows in some way or another. Through just a few episodes, Wickline is really coming into her own. Hernandez, ever the viral workhorse of chaos in the cast, remains seismic.

“Who’s the barber here?”

Though the “Port Authority Duane Reade” sketch dusted off a well-worn template, we did get one recurring character/sketch last night: “What’s That Name?” First made popular years ago when Bill Hader was still in the cast, the premise last night revolved around the show’s host, Rick Blake (Longfellow), grilling the contestants, Ben (Mulaney) and Margaret (Sherman), on the names of current political figures. It all starts off easy for Ben, as he correctly identifies Doug Emhoff and Jack Smith, but things quickly get tense when Blake brings out former vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine and Ben is unable to guess his name. The genius part of this bit is that it digs right into the gist of contemporary political knowledge two-fold—that Clinton picked a running mate so boring in 2016 that the collective consciousness forgot him, and that political alignments are often more performative than earnest.

Then, Blake pulls up one of Ben’s old tweets about remembering the names of Black victims of police brutality—none of which he can actually remember, besides George Floyd. He wagers a guess: Tomeka New Orleans. “I’m bad at remembering names, okay?” Ben gestures, to which Blake puts a picture of a “somewhat popular” pornstar named Aurora Snow on the screen and Ben gets it right immediately. It’s all done very, very well, even if Longfellow can’t quite fill Hader’s shoes completely (Longfellow’s Blake looks like Hader’s Blake took The Substance). But, in a resounding plot twist, after Ben says that Trump winning the election could result in a real-life Handmaid’s Tale, it isn’t just revealed that Ben doesn’t know who wrote the book, but that the “Margaret” competing against him is the book’s author, Margaret Atwood. Then, when pressed again to identify Kaine, Ben can only offer one guess: Tim New Orleans. It was the best post-monologue sketch of the season so far, hands down.

“In a word? Chaos.”

The first post-Update sketch last night was awesome, as we finally got to see Kenan be Kenan. When the creator of Family Bonds shows up for a PBS interview on Sitcom Pioneers (“the only show watched exclusively on mute at the airport”), we get to see Kenan play Little Richard—the rock ‘n’ roll originator whose one guest appearance on the show turned into a full-time role after his “tour bus broke down outside, woooooo!” This sketch only worked because of Kenan—and that’s totally fine and encouraged. When folks argue that he is one of the greatest cast members of all time, this is the kind of moment that backs up those claims. All he’s doing for four minutes is impersonate Little Richard by singing the musician’s most recognizable lyrics and doing very flamboyent, Little Richard-esque gyrations and mannerisms. It’s simple but done to perfection, even if Mulaney is supposed to be the centerpiece of the skit. These are, to me, the sweetest SNL moments—unexpected turns that take out-of-date references and make them shine. It’s why JAJ’s Bob Dylan impression in Mulaney’s pre-show promo rocked so hard. How many of the zoomers tuning in last night give a damn about Little Richard? It didn’t matter for even a second, as Kenan was magnetic from his first line.

“You are weak like H.R. Pickens!”

The worst sketch of the night was the final one, a pre-recorded campaign ad for a real New York city council candidate (Mulaney) unfortunately named Harvey Epstein—a mash-up of the two most notorious sex offenders of the 21st century. Mulaney does his best as the bald-headed candidate, but the sketch’s premise leans on him just correcting everyone about the misconceptions around him because of his name. It was never going to be a concept that moved the needle, but it would have probably been less of a low point in the show if it wasn’t a 10-to-1 sketch. In fact, the last 10 minutes of the show last night were weak and confusing, as if the actual final sketch of the night was somehow cut at the last second. All season long, there have been two sketches after the musical guest’s second performance—and the commercial breaks felt even longer as 1 AM approached. For an episode that was, until Chappell Roan’s performance of “The Giver” concluded, easily the best of the season so far, the momentum simply crashed, burned and ended on one of a tragically poor concept.

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

We got two pre-recorded sketches last night: “Beppo” and “Harvey Epstein.” “Beppo,” which was actually a “Saturday Night Live Midnight Matinee” written by the great Dan Bulla, was legitimately thrilling. There was a moment when I felt sorry for the titular chimp once it was revealed that, after he completed the first ever orbit around the Earth in 1962, NASA wasn’t going to be able to safely bring him home. And then, as Mulaney’s technician character has to break the news to the chimp that his life is coming to an end, him trying to make sense of death so that the astronaut can understand it is painfully funny. But then swooped in Ego Nwodim, playing a Hidden Figures-like character, who “did some calculations with paper and pencil” and figured out how to bring Beppo home. No dice; after an explosion, all seems tragic for Beppo. The NASA men mourn their fallen chimp, until he falls down to Earth, survives the crash and sleeps with Mulaney’s (soon-to-be ex) wife. It was a near-six-minute production, and I loved every second of it. It’s not every week that an SNL sketch is good enough to take its audience across a spectrum of emotions, but Dan Bulla is not your average filmmaker.

Not Ready For Primetime Power Rankings

1. Marcello Hernandez
I’m giving the top spot to Marcello because he was the only cast member with two memorable characters last night: Grant the loud, obnoxious jock on Update and the caged shampoo bottle at Duane Reade. Marcello’s “Domingo” virality is no fluke; he’s very much the brightest rising star on SNL right now—possibly one of the show’s best this decade.

2. Heidi Gardner
Hats off to Gardner for giving Reba McEntire an animation that rivals Kenan’s impression of the country singer. From the moment her chair rolled onto the Update set last night, she was cooking with gas. I applaud Gardner’s consistency on the show; she’s the cast’s anchor for a reason.

3. Kenan Thompson
Speaking of anchors, Kenan’s “Little Richard” was incredible and will surely become a bit that lives on in the show’s vocabulary for a long time. It’s got real recurring character potential, though I’m not sure how much longer Kenan’s tenure on SNL will be. If his reign is drawing to a close, Little Richard is hand’s down one of his best impressions in years.

Goodnights

“I watched her put on her finest voting dress and crawl down to the polls—not because she couldn’t walk, but because those stinky naturals swang low.” —Reba McEntire

“I was left in Central Park, yes, by RFK, RFK… and he’s still on the ballot in two swing states!” —The bear RFK Jr. dumped in Central Park

“I don’t need to guard the Duane Reade now that New Yorkers are allowed to shoplift up to $1,000!” —John Mulaney

SNL returns next week with another former host, Bill Burr, and first-time musical guest Mk.gee. Laters on the menjay!

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