Arguably the best joke of every episode so far of Everybody’s Live is the very fact that Netflix has given John Mulaney carte blanche to fill an hour with whatever he finds amusing and/or interesting. The results have been invariably shaggy, with some weeks feeling like an inside joke between Mulaney and Mulaney more than anything else. If you’re on Mulaney’s wavelength, that’s part of the charm. But it can also be slightly baffling and/or a little dull.
This week’s episode was the show at its most inviting. Which isn’t in any way to say it was predictable.
The guests included Baltimore trash movie icon and all-around dapper charmer John Waters, comedians Wanda Sykes and the returning Stavros Halkias, and Supreme Court argument all star and former acting Solicitor General of the United State Neal Katyal. They were there for Mulaney’s hang-out amusement, of course, although technically the unlikely quartet was assembled to discuss squatting, which Mulaney stressed was not a question of unhoused people seeking necessary shelter, but those “unique American pieces of sh*t” who occupy other people’s property, sometimes for years.
Why squatting? You might as well ask why cruise ships, or funeral planning, the show’s two most recent episode topics. Apart from the fact that Katyal’s bottomless legal knowledge provided seemingly off-the-cuff in depth answers to some of Mulaney and his guests’ questions (tenant rights vs. adverse possession is now a distinction viewers know about), the theme simply provided an organizing principle for Mulaney and company to chat on his retro talk show couches and be entertaining.
That was helped immeasurably by the 78-year-old Waters happily chiming in with anecdotes about old Baltimore haunts (he and fellow Baltimorean Halkias bonded over the defunct lesbian watering hole Port in the Storm, which Waters says Debbie Harry called the scariest bar she’d ever been to) and the odd old flame. (Seen-it-all Waters once picked up an anarchist who could only sleep in places in which he was squatting at the time.)
At one point, the chyron under each guest’s name joked that Sykes had no idea what the hell she was doing there, which might have also applied to the esteemed legal mind Katyal. (Habitually crude Halkias suggested that people were “beating off” in the Supreme Court restrooms, which didn’t seem to ruffle a guy who regularly argued human rights before the likes of Samual Alito.)
Back to the issue of John Mulaney wasting Netflix’s money, the episode opened with the show’s most engaging sort-of monologue yet, as Mulaney shared a ten-minute-long story concerning the abortive near-booking of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, the formerly famous 90’s close-harmony R&B/hip-hop group.
Told in the sort of slyly wide-eyed cadence that marks Mulaney’s stand-up tales of his adventures in the unlikely waters of show business, the story was all twists and delightfully weird turns involving a pressing need for $2,800 of his own money (which he can’t get without going through several self-imposed, sobriety-related checkpoints), a series of escalating negotiation tactics with someone who it turns out may or may not have been said group’s actual manager, and some elaborately tortoise-embroidered pants.
It’s the sort of middle-rent show biz interaction you get when you pitch a “ridiculous bit of shoehorned comedy” to formerly famous L.A. types, and Mulaney’s pitch to the very real singing group to call in during the show for some clarity only added to the entertainment factor. (Sadly, no call was forthcoming, but watch this space for the inevitable follow-up story.)
Apart from the panel and callers (including one who claimed to be a scary-sounding Los Angeles “squatter hunter”), Mulaney’s Saturday Night Live pal Aidy Bryant showed up in the audience as Jelly Roll, her elaborately accurate face tattoos unable to conceal the fact that she doesn’t know anything about the country-rap superstar. “I was driving,” a apologetic Bryant admitted when asked about the Wikipedia summary Mulaney sent prior to the show.
Everybody’s Live also called back to a running joke from last episode, inviting Randall Park and some adorable kids to film a PSA inviting grown men to get measured for their actual heights. What seemed like a throwaway joke last week where an irate audience member challenged Mulaney to line up 24 men from 5 to 7 feet tall “in a perfect diagonal” on his stage is apparently a season-long goal now, sadly hampered by Mulaney’s admission that so far the show had only located three men to participate and they’re all 5’7″.
Another bit saw Mulaney, Waters, and Sykes peeping (“It’s not illegal,” enthuses Waters, incorrectly) at neighbors through Mulaney’s telescope, only to witness sidekick/announcer Richard Kind’s twin brother being murdered. The murderer eventually reemerges during the goodbyes to silently strangle Halkias, who does some alarmingly convincing red-faced struggling.
The week’s one filmed interview segment focused on a wine-sipping Florida Man and professional yard saler happily explaining how he was charged with attempted murder for braining an attempted squatter with an axe.
Meanwhile, this week’s typically eclectic musical guest saw Daniel Hope and the New Century Chamber Orchestra play an achingly lovely Vivaldi riff, made only more affecting when Mulaney explained the odd booking by revealing that it’s the song he and his young son listen to every morning.
"My son and I listen to this every morning."
— Netflix (@netflix) April 3, 2025
John Mulaney introduces a performance of Vivaldi: Spring by Daniel Hope and New Century Chamber Orchestra on #EverybodysLive pic.twitter.com/DNuxLvClFR
So what did we learn from Everybody’s Live, episode four? Squatting exists, and has a rich history of dirtbag precedent going back to the Code of Hammurabi. (Thank you, Neal.) Stavros Halkias’ mother worked at the actual diner used as The Greek’s grimy headquarters in The Wire‘s second season. John Waters calls the squatters profiled in the documentary Plagues & Pleasures of the Salton Sea (which he narrated) “C.H.U.D.S,” based on the 1984 cult horror movie, and thinks that Bud, the main character of the comedic sequel is cute. Bone Thugs-N-Harmony really need to tighten up their representation situation.
Most importantly, John Mulaney is having a ball doing anything he likes.
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