John Mulaney Is Predictably Great Hosting SNL for the Sixth Time

And Your Host…

As far as lowly, perennially uncredited Saturday Night Live writers go, this John Mulaney guy’s done okay for himself. Now hosting at his old workplace for the sixth time, nobody’s asking, “Who the hell is this guy?,” as Mulaney implicitly mused in his first-ever SNL monologue back in 2018. With multiple stand-up specials, a Netflix talk show (and another on the way), a Broadway hit, a coming Broadway starring role, and various TV and movie appearances under his belt, John Mulaney is a star.

And a brilliant, hilarious, and profoundly welcome star at that. In his typically strong monologue tonight, Mulaney, referencing the substance abuse issues that almost derailed his career/life, jokes about his father wishing Mulaney’s grandfather could be around to help. Mulaney noting that his grandfather might not have been as good at handling social media backlash as his dad imagined brought up the fact that, for the perennially self-effacing comedian, there’s no hiding from the celebrity he’s attained, and become. John Mulaney, he of the boyish face and old school comic’s delivery of brilliantly clever jokes, has emerged from the sort of personal and professional meltdown that either takes a performer down or hones their talents into something sharper. In this sixth outing filled with exuberance, big laughs, and overwhelming audience affection, there was no question which way Mulaney’s gone.

Unlikely big time success looks great on Mulaney, who’s partially shed his prim stand-up suits and youthful sheen for a fuller-faced, shaggier look more in keeping with his rangy frame. There’s no question Mulaney’s maintained his pace at the mic—as a stand-up, he’s a master storyteller, his singsong delivery marching unsuspecting audiences right where he wants them for the knockout. A comic’s persona is a delicate thing. Mulaney’s was built on the vibe of the baby-faced assassin, lulling us to complacency with his self-deprecating schtick before reminding us of his impossibly sharp wit with a final, deft flick.

This Mulaney (now 42, married, and a father of two as he reminds us) can’t hide behind a constructed “Who me?” veneer—and he’s still as funny. That’s a tougher accomplishment. As a sketch performer, old SNL hand Mulaney is predictably confident as hell. He knows the tricks and the potential pitfalls equally, and his outsized performing style, built as it is around sly bafflement and cheeky subtly transforms to fit each piece’s requirements.

The most acting Mulaney did was in game show sketch “What’s That Name?,” where his beaming contestant whiffs spectacularly once his liberal online confidence comes up against, say, the nondescript in-studio presence of Hillary Clinton’s real-life former running mate, Senator Tim Kaine. The joke about smug internet sloganeering and hashtagging (and superficial fame obsession) substituting for actual political and human engagement is a perfect vehicle for Mulaney’s signature way of puncturing overconfident self-regard. It is pointed, funny, and, with Mulaney as focus, just about perfect.

The Best and the Rest

The Best: Let’s stick with “What’s That Name?” for the top spot. There was plenty of political content to talk about tonight (and oh will we), but this first post-monologue sketch was the best, if nothing else for its sideways angle. The cold open hogged all the time (and no doubt the hysterical internet reactions), but it was this slyer, funnier, less prosaic take on the final days of this interminable election that resonated. Up top, I have to give it up to Michael Longfellow, whose barely concealed deadpan contempt as the game show’s host is matchless stuff. I’ve railed against SNL‘s reliance on the predictable game show sketch template forever, but when it works, it works.

Here, Longfellow is the devil in a suit jacket, knowing exactly how his web will ensnare Mulaney’s contestant in an all-politics edition of the show where contestants’ inability to remember the actual people in their daily lives (doormen, your best friend’s long term partner) costs them untold amounts of prize money. Yanking the premise from the merely social to the political sphere is a potent touch, especially as it throws the focus on just how self-righteously we’ve been taught to express our every opinion online. So Mulaney can easily pick out potential First Gentleman Doug Emhoff (and “only somewhat popular” porn star Aurora Snow) from photos, but when confronted by the unexpectedly in attendance Tim Kaine (an almost-elected VP pick “more recent than the release of Zootopia“), he’s at a stammering, sweaty loss.

Apart from the performances (Mulaney, Longfellow, and fellow contestant Sarah Sherman, deployed to magnificent effect for the final gag), the sketch hums along on its unpredictability. Even though the game show setup (and a recurring sketch at that) lets us know what to expect, that oblique choice of target keeps things lively. As assiduously (some might say timidly) as this SNL hides behind its both-sides political skirts, the choice of Mulaney’s liberal contestant as victim doesn’t come off like the show trying to placate the MAGA crowd (as useless a gesture as that would be), but as an observational backhand to entitled online whiteness. Longfellow promising that Mulaney “will walk out of here richer than the pharaohs” if he can remember a single name of the Black victims of police violence he mentioned in a Black Lives Matter-era “#RememberTheirNames tweet he sent out is breathtakingly cold, and hilarious. “George Floyd!,” Mulaney spits out desperately, only for Longfellow to finish his question with an evilly funny, “…beside George Floyd.” (Mulaney’s guess of “Tamika… N’Awlins” is majestically incorrect.)

Look, nobody’s going to be shocked when I complain that Saturday Night Live routinely squanders its unique position to take some bloody live TV stabs at politics. So, so often the diluted, watery satirical stew the show ladles out week after stultifying week genuinely makes my tummy turn sour as I digest an episode in the wee hours. It should also no shock to regular readers that I’m a [insert Trump-era remedial middle school euphemisms for “person who doesn’t want to live in a white supremacist kleptocracy headed by a sex criminal grifter.”] I’d be thrilled if Saturday Night Live, in an actual approximation of its swaggering, post-Watergate self-mythologized reputation, just collectively said, “f**k it,” and went full-on gonzo partisan. You know, instead of the predictably ossifying Lorne Michaels adopting the elder statesman remove he’s built his own rep upon. But SNL isn’t as radical as it likes to tell people it is—honestly, it never was.

The best political satire SNL produces comes from writers slipping something into the rundown too sneakily subversive or left-field odd that even Michaels’ practiced centrism can flatten it completely. The punchline here that the otherwise silent second contestant turns out to be the actual Margaret Atwood lurks through the whole sketch like a patient predator. Sherman’s gleaming eyes match Longfellow’s as Mulaney is left to explain to the author of The Handmaid’s Tale why his glib accusations that America is becoming just like The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t an exaggeration. The show isn’t mocking people alarmed at the evangelical horrors of Trump and the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 full-on assault on women is anything but horrific—it’s taking aim at the unthinking and unoriginal rhetoric internet-era political discourse has turned to meaningless white noise. The joke is potent because it isn’t rote, hacky, and predictable. There’s a lesson in there somewhere, Lorne.

The Worst: The thing about a John Mulaney show is that there’s a “raising all boats” vibe to the proceedings. Mulaney was one of the best writers in the show’s impossibly long history and having someone like that in the writers room is going to bring out the best in people—or at least the most eager efforts to not embarrass yourself. So after weeks of choosing not to pick a “worst” sketch—honestly, some weeks have been too mediocre to rise or sink above or below the median—I’m singling out the Port Authority musical number. Yeah, I said it.

I loved “Diner Lobster.” The way Mulaney and co-writer Colin Jost turned a mundane bit of Seinfeld-style New York observational humor into a completely unexpected and hilariously lavish musical ode to that ancient and un-ordered critter lurking in every diner’s salty tank was an all-time loony bit of inspiration. Each subsequent such sketch was robbed of the surprise, becoming the sort of mandatory staple of a Mulaney episode that, as amusing as they are, I sort of wish the show would pass over.

But I’m an old grumpy guy—these pieces are always fine. One of Saturday Night Live‘s unique joys come from the show tossing ridiculous amounts of time, money, and effort behind someone’s silly premise, and this time out the inciting incident comes from original diner customer Pete Davidson (introduced in the goodnights by Mulaney as “Senator Pete Davidson”) trying to buy a gallon of milk from the Port Authority Duane Reade, despite being, as Mulaney’s cashier warns, in a fridge warmer than the store itself.

One victim of all the de riguer repeating is that the original sketch’s single focus gets refracted in pursuit of bigger and better. Kenan’s Les Mis solo song turns into a Broadway musical montage of quick-hit gags about multiple New York targets, and it robs the sketches of impact. Here we get a Lion King explanation of where that milk comes from (Ego Nwodim unsuccessfully attempting to control her opossum costume’s teats), a Hamilton song about the bear that Trump-endorsing presidential candidate RFK Jr. first ran over, then tried to frame as a Central Park bike accident (dear God, I wish I were making a joke), Marcello Hernandez’s locked-down shampoo bottle lamenting his fate Sound of Music style, Chloe Fineman leading a gaggle of Timothée Chalamet impersonators through Cabaret, Bowen Yang’s creepy bus driver bringing back some Les Mis, and so forth. (Grease caps it off, anticlimactically.)

It’s all amusing, mostly for how customarily overdone the whole silly enterprise is. There are funny touches, like Mulaney threatening to murder one of Marcello’s travel-size babies if he doesn’t stop complaining, and telling customers Davidson and Andrew Dismukes that it’s called the Lincoln Tunnel “because there’s a 50 percent chance you’ll get shot in the back of the head.” And it’s impossible to get angry when the audience is so clearly eating up the nice big silly meal they came for. Eh, I liked it.

The Rest: Dan Bulla’s “Midnight Matinee” is back, officially shouldering aside the waning Please Don’t Destroy trio as SNL‘s main in-house filmed short franchise. Like last time, this is a lovingly crafted, deeply dark slice of comedy, a standalone short film that only suffers from being good enough to pull focus from the whole “live” part of SNL. Shorts have been with us for 50 years, of course, a holdover from the long-ago time when this was more of a variety showcase. When the show is rolling on the backs of a bright and popping live cast, shorts are an amusing diversion. When, as now, SNL is in a rut of middling cast talent and so-so audience enthusiasm, the shorts act like oases of professionalism. I’m just saying.

And this one is a killer, with a 1962 NASA control room erupting into chaos once the agency’s first Earth-orbiting, monkey-manned flight’s initial success is beset with terrifying failure. See, there’s this monkey (technically, Beppo looks more like a baby orangutan, but I’m not the monkey guy). SNL‘s use of puppets is, for whatever this means, always a highlight—they just give great puppet. (Sorry, Jim Henson—this just wasn’t the right room.) Here, the heroic Beppo, speaking through a digitized keyboard, addresses the bad news coming from John Mulaney’s control room boss with an somber deadpan that’s as uncanny as it is controlled and hilarious.

Oh, and heartbreaking. I freaking love Beppo, the li’l guy’s game suggestions for how he might fly home being rebuffed ever so gently by Mulaney (“I don’t know if you have a God, maybe King Kong or something…”) and met with judicious blinks from Beppo’s far-too-affecting eyes. (Whoever timed Beppo’s eye movements in response to his situation should get a special Emmy.) There’a a moment when Beppo, faced with the grim reality, asks, “Beppo make Earth proud?,” that genuinely made me tear up—right before his digitized, perfectly deployed and tentative plea of “Help?” doubled me over in punched-in-the-solar-plexus laughter.

Meanwhile, everybody in the control room takes Mulaney’s lead in wisely playing the thing completely straight, even when Beppo switches his sound board helpful suggestions to chess moves, and especially once Ego comes in with a Hidden Figures plan to bring him home—only for Mulaney’s detailed explanation of all the necessary maneuvers to conclude with Beppo hitting the wrong button and exploding immediately.

But all is not lost, as Beppo crash lands right into NASA, striding in with a tiny but macho, “Not today,” entrance line,” fist-bumping Ego, and then stealing an uncomplaining Mulaney’s wife Sarah Sherman. “Not any more, Tom,” a beaming Mulaney responds as Beppo passionately smooches Sherman, ceding his happy spouse to this greatest American monkey hero. Again, the short is so good it almost doesn’t belong here—it wouldn’t have the same lived-in layer to play against, but this could have been a live sketch, I suppose. But screw it—Beppo, I salute you, you magnificent monkey bastard.

A couple of major setpieces ate up a whole lot of clock tonight, so there were only a couple of other sketches, both of which were more than solid. The Mulaney-led campaign ad gets the 10-to-one slot below, and the “Sitcom Pioneers” sketch was built around such a weird little joke that it could have been there as well. With Bowen Yang’s host introducing Mulaney as the creator of once-popular sitcom Family Bonds, the bit turns on a piece of stunt casting that wouldn’t die in Kenan’s Little Richard.

There are a few other side-jokes (the mom-killing car crash that set up the show’s premise was apparently shown in great detail in the first episode for some reason), but this is all about Kenan’s Richard. Why Little Richard? I suppose it might be a callback to the sitcom trope of the incongruous celebrity pop-in (The Cosby Show never had Little Richard play one of the kids’ long-unmentioned relatives, but it could have). Or it could just be an excuse for Kenan Thompson to belt out nonsensical alternate “Tutti Frutti” lyrics, I don’t know. The actual Little Richard was as flamboyantly contradictory as he was influential, and while Mulaney’s reference to having met the singer at a swinger’s club called Mahogany might seem like a dig at a beloved late celebrity’s sexual proclivities, it pales next to Richard’s actual life, which is—wow.

As an actor, Little Richard was a great singer, although, hey, his role as Richard Dreyfus’ excitable millionaire neighbor in Down and Out in Beverly Hills was the movie’s highlight. Here, Kenan plays up Richard’s supposed unpredictability, with Mulaney noting how the singer’s one-off appearance became a never-ending guest role, largely because he liked the hotel they put him in. The biggest laugh comes from Kenan’s abrupt response to dad Mikey Day’s story of his wife’s death (“Yuck!”), and Richard greeting the sweeps-week imminent death of the family pooch with a similarly curt, “I’m sorry that your goddamn dog died.” (And a pistol.)

Weekend Update Update

I’m of at least two minds (sort of a low number for me as a rule) about the relative lack of comic urgency exhibited by this last show before Election Day. On one, unrealistic hand, it would have been bracing and bold for the show to just throw off Lorne’s practiced Mark Twain Prize reserve and go balls-out, cocktail-throwing revolutionary on the almost literal eve of what could be the end of American democracy. On the other, that’s not really SNL‘s bag at this point (again, it never really was), and when Saturday Night Live has gone big for grand political gestures the results have more often than not come off as eye-rollingly prosaic and/or ill-conceived.

So we got an Update that was amusing, glib, and glancingly impactful. You know, a Che and Jost Update. The jokes referenced the sort of Donald Trump words and deeds that would have sunk any political campaign in a world not poisoned by the Donald Trump cancer, which is sort of useful if you’re a person who somehow didn’t know that Donald Trump is a convicted felon out on bail, or that he acted out deep-throating a microphone just yesterday.

(On that last point, at least SNL got to make “tap you on the back of your head” jokes about a GOP candidate for President regaling his mixed-age rally crowd with the sort of arrested adolescent blowjob joke that you generally have to visit your school’s least-promising detention hall to witness. Watching mainstream news outlets refuse to touch Trump’s bobbing head motions with a ten-inch-pole is to truly marvel at the elasticity of euphemisms and cowardly newsroom sanewashing.)

Anyway, the jokes were decent enough, delivered as ever with the sort of cheeky confidence exhibited by two comics who come off as if they’ve got no skin in the game. Jost joked about everyone at SNL getting audited should Trump win on Tuesday, which merely hints at Trump’s actual, stated, dictator’s plans to shut down, imprison, or censor comedians, channels, and news outlets that dare make fun of him. But it’s something.

I liked Jost glancing off of the racist Puerto Rico joke at Trump’s New York rally (and appreciate the ongoing tradition of not giving air to the stand-up involved by not mentioning his name) by joking that he’s the one who comes from a “garbage island.” (Followed up by a joke about him and tonight’s guest Pete Davidson buying the Staten Island Ferry.) It’s light but effective, as is Jost referring to Trump’s creepy sex pest warning that he’s going to protect women “whether they like it or not” with a callback to the stupid orange vest Trump wore to his garbage truck PR debacle. (An orange vest as red flag.)

Che did his thing, too, this time out relying on some punchy zingers. “Donald Trump held a rally in Madison Square Garden and honestly, it was all white.” “Speakers hurled insults at minority groups, used Nazi rhetoric, and suggested that Democrats should be slaughtered. But this lady’s got a weird laugh, so I still can’t decide.” And, “Donald Trump defended himself from claims that he’s a fascist, saying ‘I am the opposite of a Nazi.’ [Shows clip of Nazis waving swastika flags at a Trump boat parade] Yeah, but opposites attract.” Zing and move might not be a John Oliver-style impassioned comedy expose of the roots of the MAGA Nazi pathology, but, well, that’s why you tune in to HBO on Sundays.

Apparently, country singer and NBC reality show judge Reba McEntire doesn’t talk politics. Which is her right as a lucratively signed multimedia star with an eye toward her bottom line. (She did get mad at that dog-killer lady for claiming otherwise one time, but that seems more about branding.) So Heidi Gardner’s exaggerated impression of The Voice star’s practiced public neutrality is a bit of intra-network sniping, although it’s tough to imagine McEntire getting to riled up at a sketch mocking her for doing what she actually does.

If anything, Gardner makes her McEntire’s gesture-happy avoidance of all things election loopily endearing, which sort of makes it unclear why the show is doing it at all. The culture of celebrity endorsements is something ripe for parody, certainly. The way that partisans immediately leap to blanket mockery of a performer’s entire career should they actually pick a side is as inevitable as it is deeply, pathetically simpleminded. And not to pick a predictable side here, but the “how dare you boycott [insert A-lister accused of racism and/or sexual abuse]” crowd is awfully ready to boycott people who come out for Kamala Harris. Maybe it’s because Harris, not being a sex criminal racist, gets all the biggest names. (Just as an exercise [clears throat]: Jon Voight’s turn as an embittered Vietnam vet in Coming Home is one of the most understated performances in an anti-war film I’ve ever seen. Also, present-day Jon Voight is a laughable old lunatic. Try it some time.)

Anyway, Gardner is a funny performer, and the political part of her impression makes this one even funnier, with the running gag of her bizarrely hardscrabble Oklahoma childhood including details like crunchy milk and the revelation, “Momma was a Republican and Daddy was Pennywise.” It’s so out of the blue that it makes you forget that this is an awfully inconsequential piece to do before the election.

Also inconsequential but adorable are Marcello Hernandez and Jane Wickline as “the couple you can’t believe are together.” He’s a boisterous bro prone to burst out in bombastic catchphrases. She’s a sensitive, nerdy poet (majoring in “18th century graveyards”) who he met while she was watching Steven Universe on her phone at the club. It’s impossible not to root for these crazy kids, as Marcello greets his love’s every poetic line (“The celadon waves slap against the lighthouse/Softly, as if they’re dreaming of another life…”) with enthusiastic hype-man support. (“BOOM! !”) Slight, silly, and showcasing what you can do is what these Update bits are for, and both performers come off great.

Recurring Sketch Report

As both a repeater and a game show, “What’s That Name? had to overcome two of my innate SNL prejudices, and it did. Nicely done.

Political Comedy Report

In the last political cold open of this goddamned eternal and soul-crushing election cycle, this one surfed on the tingly anticipation of a rumored big name drop-in. Yup, Vice President Kamala Harris eventually showed up in the old mirror gag across from doppelgänger Maya Rudolph to end the long and guest-filled opener, another in SNL‘s tacit endorsements of political figures.

And “tacit” as it might have been, Harris’ cameo was greeted with the sort of swelling relief and enthusiasm that right-wing viewers (of the clip at least—not sure now many MAGA watchers SNL actually has) have already begun sweatily attempting to spin online. (Sorry, Trump fans, this was live TV—your alternate reality takes just don’t work here.) As for Harris herself, the future President (should America come to its senses) was engaged and charismatic. She’s not taking Maya’s gig any time (again, here’s hoping Harris will be incredibly busy), but the VP was a cut above poor Hillary Clinton, whose innate lack of performing vim marked her SNL appearance.

The sketch kicked off with a Trump rally, giving James Austin Johnson another, perhaps final crack at portraying candidate Trump’s erratic blend of old school hate-mongering and off-the-rails babbling. Even more than usual, Austin had a lot to work with, as just this week the Republican candidate said creepy sh*t about women (“When you’re famous they let you protect them,” Johnson’s Trump barely exaggerated), alarming sh*t about killing GOP critic Liz Cheney (“I just said I wanted her to go hunting with her dad, okay”), and publicly fellated a microphone stand. (Again, MAGA minions, you can lie about what we all saw with our own eyes all you want, but your boy straight-up mimed sucking a d**k on national television. Congrats on the choices you’ve made.)

As ever, Trump provides enough bafflingly horrifying stuff for SNL to simply let Johnson read out a transcript and call it a sketch, with the added criticism here that the underlying premise of the bit is plain wrong. Trump’s whole schtick is that he’s an indefatigable, omnipotent alpha male. Therefore neither he nor his cultish followers can admit—ever—any sign of weakness or error (or, you know, sundowning brain-rot). Resorting instead to bald-faced denial of reality in order to maintain the illusion that an elderly, morbidly obese convicted felon with barely more bankruptcies than ex-wives and a penchant for Hitler-cribbed racist authoritarianism is a paragon of manly, patriotic virtue.

So having Johnson’s Trump admit how sick he is of having to speak to the peasants who decreasingly flock to his hate rallies (“Where the hell am I? This place reeks.”) is just wrong-headed as a satirical building block. Donald Trump absolutely does despise the working class rubes he does his schtick for, but to admit even a glimmer of that truth would cause his whole rickety, orange-daubed facade to crumble to dust.

Anyway, everybody was here for the big reveal, which came after the three other ringer impressionists said their uncertain farewells. (Even should Harris win, the prospect of Dana Carvey, Andy Samberg, and Jim Gaffigan sticking around for the next four years is pretty unlikely.) Samberg nodded to this with Doug Emhoff’s “And with that, t’was I Doug” exit line, leaving Maya’s Kamala to sit for some self-reflection with the real deal.

This could have gone any number of ways, but it’s sort of refreshing that the sketch stayed on the silly side, honestly. After an endless campaign, Harris’ simple presence was enough for her supporters needing a jolt to reach the finish line, while Harris’ canny choice to keep things light only underscored the joy and hope theme that’s set her apart from the guy who’s literally out on bail for attempting to overthrow the election before last and calling his opponents “retarded.” The only real jab was at Trump’s feeble flailing at the garbage truck door he used in his most recent, widely mocked campaign stunt, leaving Maya and Harris to do some side-by-side affectionate, meme-baiting wordplay. “End all the dramala—with our new stepmamala”—you get it.)

Saturday Night Live has shamed itself pretty thoroughly in the Trump era. Having him host during his first candidacy was an appalling disaster for all involved, but especially for SNL, where allowing the guy who’d already planted his flag in the manure of race-baiting and fear-mongering left cast and viewers alike smarting in embarrassment and anger. The Trump presidency was, if anything, worse, with the inevitable cold opens taking a long hard look at every horrible, racist, authoritarian move Trump made and—taking a further look at sponsor and viewership numbers—saying precious little about them. It was abrogated comic responsibility at its high-profile worst, and we’ve had to endure nearly a decade of Saturday Night Live stripping bare its naked desire not to piss off the powerful people its so long claimed to hold in comic contempt. It sucked.

So now Trump and his supporters are furious (Trump hasn’t done his social media meltdown as of this writing, but it’s going to be a doozy), MAGA idiots like Marjorie Taylor Greene are claiming the mirror gag is “plagiarism” from Trump’s 2015 appearance because they don’t know what words mean, Harris supporters are fired up, and the election needle has moved not one voter. (“Undecided voters” in this election and at this point being nothing but drama queens desperately looking to get booked on cable news.) The election is in two days, early voting is massive, and if Saturday Night Live isn’t going to make an explicit endorsement, Kamala Harris’ ably breezy appearance is enough for Lorne to cover his ass with in his next interminable interview in which he complains about comedy getting too “woke.”

Not Ready for Prime Time Power Rankings

I kind of hope this turns out to be a bittersweet night for James Austin Johnson. Even if I’m certain Johnson the human would be happy to give up Johnson the performer’s plum Donald Trump role on the regular after Tuesday’s Election Day (and Trump’s inevitable months of dangerously whiny incitement once he loses again). Still, JAJ has been SNL‘s best Trump ever—and I genuinely hope he gets to retire the f**ker forever. That said, I continue to marvel at Johnson’s skills as SNL‘s resident character actor, even in the smallest roles. In the Beppo sketch, Johnson’s side-techie is absolutely, Apollo 13 impeccable.

Kenan as Little Richard. Enough said.

Michael Longfellow’s talents are most fully realized for comic evil. Bravo, you deadpan sonofabitch.

Devon Walker donned a genie costume. Emil Wakim was in the NASA control room. Ashley Padilla was nowhere to be seen. One of those nights.

Dispatches From 10-To-Oneland

These should be live, dammit. I blame the inevitable disruption caused by Harris’ raptuous and extended audience response. Now that that’s out of the way, the campaign ad for New York city councilman candidate Harvey Epstein saw Mulaney donning a bald cap and a can-do steamroller attitude as a dedicated public servant with two very unfortunate names. I’ll say that the foundation of the sketch is a bit shaky—”Harvey” and “Epstein” are common enough that the combination doesn’t necessarily conjure up two of the most notorious sex criminals in recent memory. (The latter of whom was just revealed once against to be even more the Donald Trump underage sex criminal wingman than previously realized.)

Still, Mulaney makes the unfortunate candidate’s determination to plow ahead with his PR-disaster name pretty amusing, especially when he has to keep butting into his own commercial to rebut person-on-the-street testimonials from voters willing “to give him a second chance.” “I’m still on my first chance!,” Harvey Epstein reassures everyone, Mulaney’s deliberately graceless delivery familiar to anyone beset with not quite camera-ready local politicians’ TV ads.

Stray Observations

Chappell Roan broke out a presumably ad-libbed “Live From New York, It’s Saturday Night!” at the close of her exuberant performance of “Pink Pony Club,” thus fulfilling the prophecy.

I was not 100 percent sure one of those Timothée Chalamet impersonators wasn’t actually Timothée Chalamet. I’m still not.

The saddest goodbye title card in a long time tonight. Late-night MVP Teri Garr hosted three times, the last one coming nearly 40 years ago (she also popped up in Michael O’Donoghue’s infamous Mr. Mike’s Mondo Video as herself), but somehow she always felt like one of the SNL crew. (She and Bill Murray played off each other brilliantly in Tootsie.) She was pure comedy, and pure joy, and the world is darker since her death on Tuesday at the age of 79.

Presumably this is also the end for Dana Carvey’s Joe Biden. Which, good riddance. That sounds harsh, but the show’s take on Biden has perpetually been “OLD” and Carvey bringing along some interminable catchphrases didn’t exactly deepen the take. As with any politician, there’s plenty to criticize about President Biden—you don’t get to be President without pissing off literally everybody at some point. But comics (SNL or otherwise) have done Joe dirty by playing up the old/not especially good on the mic thing over his actual accomplishments, up to and including leaving the presidential race for the country’s good. (And in part due to public perception about as sophisticated as “OLD.”)

I did recognize Tim Kaine when he came out, but that may be due to him popping up in every fourth fundraising email I’ve gotten over the last six months.

Oh holy cats, Harvey Epstein’s a real guy.

That’s a wrap on the 2024 election season SNL, people. And if there’s one thing I want to leave you with—apart from utter and unabashed contempt for anyone voting for Donald f**king Trump—it’s that there is and will never be any environment more conducive to comedy than it being interrupted every few minutes for racist partisan political ads.

Just to follow up, try writing about comedy at 4 a.m. when every YouTube sketch you pull up for research plays either a political ad or Neil Diamond singing 15 seconds of “I Am… I Said.” That I have not traveled to and burned down YouTube’s corporate HQ by this point is a personal triumph.

“The last time I hated a mic this much I tried to have him killed.”

james Austin Johnson’s pre-BJ trump

“New York City passed a new law this week making jaywalking legal. Which is terrible news for whoever cleans the front of buses.”

michael che

Episode Grade: B-Plus.

See you on the other side, when our post-election host will pointedly be Bill Burr (and pointedly not Dave Chappelle). Musical guest Mk.gee (who will force me to triple-check my punctuation at 4 in the morning.)