Kamala Harris’ real appearance opposite Maya Rudolph steals headlines, but there are far bigger laughs when Tim Kaine spoofs his own Tim Walz-like run as Hillary Clinton’s VP candidate, and host John Mulaney brings back Pete Davidson for another NY musical.
John Mulaney brings a calm consistency to all of his appearances on Saturday Night Live, but if you’re one of those people who thinks these sketches drag on way too long, this is not the episode for you. If you exclude Weekend Update and the monologue, this bad boy only has six sketches.
One of those is the inevitable political cold open, with the SNL election players getting their final curtain calls before the election (though we suspect we’ll still see them in the weeks to come).
Another is John’s signature New York musical, which continued with more quintessential and nonsensical New York-isms from Port Authority. He even brought back Pete Davidson — looking less tatted than ever! — to witness yet another of these crazy sketches.
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The big surprise of the episode wound up not a surprise at all to anyone paying close enough attention to entertainment media as they absolutely spoiled that the real Kamala Harris was poised to take the stage opposite Maya Rudolph’s Harris as they gave one another a pep talk ahead of their final campaign appearance.
It was definitely a night of memorable impressions, from the political regulars to Kenan Thompson’s Little Richard and a totally unhinged take on Reba McEntire by Heidi Gardner, offering her take on the election for Weekend Update.
What a weird and strange election cycle this has been, so we guess this episode was a pretty appropriate way to wrap it up (until we spend the next weeks/months/years arguing over who really won).
Even Chappell Roan managed to generate some headlines of her own by debuting a brand-new lesbian country single, “The Giver” (which is not available on her or SNL’s YouTube pages. While she was certainly giving all the stereotypical country imagery and sounds, we’ll have to wait and see if the industry embraces this any better than they did Beyonce.
As usual, we’re ranking all the sketches from worst to first, including the Monologue, Cold Open, “Weekend Update” and any sketches that were cut for time but made their way online. We’ll skip the musical guests, because they’re not usually funny — unless Ashlee Simpson shows up. We wrap up with a look at the cast-member who had the strongest week.
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Beppo the Astronaut
The almost-ending was a little too obvious, but still pretty funny. The actual ending we got a lot less so. There were some logical inconsistencies in the characterizations where this could have been funnier. In fact, there were some genuinely funny moments mixed throughout the maudlin — which created an amusing juxtaposition — but we just weren’t at all on board with how the whole sketch ended. We also expected a lot more from Ego Nwodim’s appearance as a Black coder in the early days of NASA, but they just kind of ignored all of the potential with that one.
Monologue: John Mulaney
As expected, John delivered some of his signature-style standup material for his monologue, touching base on being a family man — with a very short family — as well as his 1902-born grandfather and is own struggles ash his body starts to give out now that he’s in his 40s. It was all very mellow and charming, but either it got funnier as it went along, or we got pulled into his unique worldview and started seeing things more and more the way he does in his material. Either way, we ended with a smile and a chuckle, which is all we could aks for.
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Cold Open: Kamala Harris Pep Talk
What a different tone from James Austin Johnson’s Trump, running out of gas with spoofs of Trump railing about the microphone (with a yikes! joke about Mike Pence), a dangerous callback to his “grab ’em by the” comment, this time tied with his vow to protect women whether they like it or not. It was kind of fun seeing this gassed version of his iconic take on the former president, before the sketch shifted gears to the surprise spoiled in the hours leading up to the live broadcast.
That’s right, after all the political players made their (last?) exits from the scene, Maya Rudolph’s Kamala Harris had a moment in the mirror with the real deal, who had to delver her opening line twice due to the crowd reaction. It was a fun appearance from Harris, who did a capable job of portraying herself, even with all the “-ala” additions to basically all the words as they pepped one another up for this final push before election day.
Port Authority Musical
The New York musical has become a staple of John Mulaney appearances, but has it run its course? Pete Davidson was looking great — and far less inked — in his return for the sketch alongside Andrew Dismukes as John shared with them the wonders and glories of the Port Authority bus station. The pieces of this, though, felt even more random than usual, with very little connecting thread between them. And considering it all started with milk, Jane Wickline’s random appearance toward the end as a carton of milk felt like a missed opportunity for … something. The musical vignettes we did get were fun (and particularly Andy Samberg’s dead bear Hamilton riff), but the overall piece felt too obvious and inevitable. Half the fun of these was the surprise and outrageousness, but this had neither.
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What’s That Name?
Michael Longfellow is becoming the go-to guy for these game show host positions, delivering snark-asm better than anyone else in the cast. The way he patronized former vice presidential nominee (with Hillary Clinton 8 years ago) Tim Kaine was incredible. But even more incredible was that Tim agreed to do this sketch, which was a game as simple as … what is his name? Even the show failed that one, which made his guest appearance even funnier. The only thing awkward about the sketch was that Sarah Sherman was a contestant and she wasn’t even involved in any of those exchanges, which was implausible, even with her identity twist. We loved the hypocrisy on display throughout from Mulaney’s social justice idiot, but Sarah could have been used more effectively.
Harvey Epstein for City Council
A one-note premise that succeeded thanks to John Mulaney’s delivery throughout, and keeping it short and simple. The combination of Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein’s names to create a wholly new person whose campaign was as much about him trying to prove he’s not either of those people than what he can do for New York was pretty consistently funny — especially as it became clear that everyone seems to think he’s either one or both of those guys, or at least a perv or monster of some sort. The jokes were sharp and the sketch knew when to end (though the quickly dwindling time left on the show was definitely a factor, too.
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Weekend Update
The boys wrapped their pre-election banter with some savage jokes that Donald Trump teed up pretty nicely for them by … mimicking something very NSFW with a microphone. They got some jabs in at Kamala Harris as well, but were definitely hitting harder at the GOP candidate. From a pure joke-punchline standpoint, he’s a walking setup, so he makes it sometimes too easy to resist. Kamal took hits for her laugh and for replacing Biden on the ticket, while the former president was skewered with a pretty funny joke for biting a baby dressed as a chicken.
Props to Heidi Gardner for an impression of Reba McEntire that managed to both be not very much like the real Reba at all, but still extremely funny. All of the physicality was completely over the top, as were her anecdotes about growing up in Oklahoma. But the resemblance of the impression wasn’t what made it work. It was the fact that everything she was doing was ridiculous and funny, with a passing resemblance to the subject. Dana Carvey is the master of this type of impression — as evidenced by his J’Biden impression this season (and his entire SNL tenure). It’s not about being mimic perfect, but about being funny.
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For their post-political commentary, Colin Jost and Michael Che really tested the boundaries of taste, and what this audience could handle, with some wicked jokes about Armie Hammer’s new podcast, the Disney $500 Lightning Lane pass, new allegations against Diddy and a new AI that can reveal the face of a typical man who cheats. It’s all very technical and very accurate!
Marcello Hernández and Jane Wickline were pretty cute as an “opposites attract” couple, with Marcello the over-the-top sports bro and Jane the mousey anything-but-that. We kind of loved his asides during her poetry reading, with a fun twist at the end about a more aggressive side Jane has underneath all those browns. This was probably one of Jane’s more successful outings so far, giving a sense of her understated potential as a completely different vibe than the rest of the cast (we know this is a character, but you can still see her comedic voice in there).
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PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Thanks to a few extremely long sketches (8.5-minute cold open, 8.5-minute NY musical, 7-minute monologue, 6.5-minute game show), this episode had way fewer sketches than most, meaning there were way fewer opportunities for the cast to really shine. John Mulaney was given the lead in most sketches, too, meaning it largely comes down to who played off of him the best.
Kenan Thompson got to shine on his own as a very off-the-wall Little Richard, and a New York City possum, while Heidi Gardner found big laughs with her unique take on Reba McEntire for Weekend Update. Bowen was fun as both J.D. Vance and the Port Authority bus driver, but we’re going to have to throw our honor at someone who didn’t have quite as much to do, but did it all so well.
Michael Longfellow has this sarcastic, condescending vibe to his comedy that’s really growing more and more week after week, with his take on What’s That Name? one of the best game show host characterizations the show has seen. He’s settling into his era on this show and knows how to find the funny in every appearance, big or small.
Kenan may have had the biggest week in a week that was very stingy in moments for the actual cast, but after watching Michael’s masterclass in just facial expressions in that sketch, we felt it was worthy of giving him his flowers here and now.
Saturday Night Live’s 50th season continues next week with host Bill Burr and musical guest Mk.gee.
