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Along with Superman and Peacemaker post-production work, James Gunn shared that he's been "pre-writing my next DC Studios project."
Posted in: NBC, Peacock, Review, TV | Tagged: saturday night live, snl
SNL 50 Review: Paul Mescal Embraces The Absurdity; Shaboozey Shines
SNL 50 Review: Paul Mescal trusted the cast/writers. Shaboozey took care of business. The result? A winning return and a great December start.
Thanks to a host who wholeheartedly gave himself over to "the process" and a musical guest who might've scored the best pair of live performances so far this season (high praise coming off of the musical magic that Chappell Roan brought), NBC's Saturday Night Live returned this weekend after a two-week break – but you couldn't tell. With musical guest Shaboozey doing what needed to be done and then some, host Paul Mescal (Gladiator II) made the right call by keeping an open mind, having fun, and trusting that the folks over at the long-running late-night sketch comedy and music series know what they doing – because they do. What we got was a show with sketches that hit (no misses, maybe a stumble), with big laughs and big performances (and an especially good week for SNL featured players).
What Worked, What Didn't & More: As we wrote up shortly after it aired, "Church Chat 2024 Cold Open" was a surprising start that saw Dana Carvey offering a strong, updated-just-enough take on his The Church Lady that kept the cold open from being cringey nostalgia-fest (and bonus points to SNL for keeping the late, great Phil Hartman's intro) – with excellent support from a surprise appearance from David Spade (Hunter Biden), along with Sarah Sherman (Matt Gaetz), and Marcello Hernandez (Juan Soto). Mescal's monologue was short and sweet – playing into his charm and how he's not exactly known for comedy. "Earring" offered up Heidi Gardner and Emil Wakim as parents not reacting well to their son (Mescal) getting an earring. Gardner and Wakim are a comedic coupling that really works well together – hope to see more of them together this season.
The same could be said for Mescal and Ashley Padilla in "Italian Restaurant Commercial," with Mescal's growing anger playing nicely off of Padilla's pretty great improvised restaurant puns. "Brilliant Lawyer" was a fun spotlight for Andrew Dismukes, a lawyer who's clearly seen one too many courtroom dramas (with bonus points to whoever suggested the Devo hats) – I legit laughed out loud at the "shuffling" scene even though I saw it coming.
"Pirates" felt like it came from the same universe as the "Washington's Dream" sketches in all the right ways, with a bachelorette party (Gardner, Sherman, Chloe Fineman, and Ego Nwodim) getting an all-too-real history lesson on real pirates from a group of male dancers (Mescal, Dismukses, Hernandez, Mikey Day, Bowen Yang, James Austin Johnson, and Michael Longfellow). Serious bonus points to Nwodim's bride's party member for being the only one who didn't seem to mind it (and Yang's enthusiastic shirt-ripping).
"Spotify Wrapped" found three friends (Nwodim, Sherman, and Dismukes) learning a whole lot more about their friend's (Mescal) Spotify Wrapped. It was a fun premise that went a bit long but was saved by a surprise appearance from singer/model Trisha Paytas. "A Complete Unknown Red Carpet" was the only sketch that left me feeling, "eh." I was buying into Fineman's Timothée Chalamet as much this time, and I was hoping for a slightly crankier take on Bob Dylan from Johnson – but I can't get over Dismukes's Bruce Springsteen reminding me more of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
"Weekend Update": What more can we say at this point? SNL anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che keep hitting hard topics hard, week in and week out. Here's an example: "This week, New York City officials sent a tough message on crime: If you shoot somebody in the middle of the street, you better get on your bike, hop on a bus, and get the heck out of here," Jost reported at one point. "The manhunt continued for the assassin who gunned down the CEO of UnitedHealthcare on Wednesday, and it really says something about America that a guy was murdered in cold blood, and the two main reactions were, 'Yeah, well, health care stinks,' and also, 'Girl, that shooter hot.'" Gardner and Hernandez, as a mom navigating/manipulating her son through his overnight sports success, worked because Gardner knows how to go over-the-top in all of the right ways.
The Highlights: In two very different sketches – both filmed, interestingly enough – we see just how much both Mescal and the show benefitted from Mescal's approach to embrace the SNL process and trust in the faith the cast and writers had in him to tap into his strengths and daily them up to a "Spinal Tap"-honoring eleven. Mescal not only embraces the absurdity, he takes it out for dinner and dancing… and DMs it the next day to let it know it had a really great time. As much as I laughed at "Gladiator II," the sketch actually made a decent argument that a musical could be had (don't start – look what's made it to the stage over the past 20-30 years) – and Mescal sold those songs harder than he had any right to (with serious bonus points to whoever the songwriters were) and even got a little "Wicked" along the way.
Of course, "Please Don't Destroy – Paul Mescal Is Daddy" was exactly the kind of epic absurdity that we didn't see coming from Ben Marshall, John Higgins, and Martin Herlihy. What begins as a meeting to pitch sketches becomes an epic struggle for "Daddy" Mescal and his boys to preserve their way of life. Once again, Mescal matched his sincerity with the absurdity of it all, and it won the day.
Saturday Night Live Season 50: Paul Mescal/Shaboozey
8.5/10
Thanks to a host who wholeheartedly gave himself over to "the process" and a musical guest who might've scored the best pair of live performances so far this season (high praise coming off of the musical magic that Chappell Roan brought), NBC's Saturday Night Live returned this weekend after a two-week break - but you couldn't tell. With musical guest Shaboozey doing what needed to be done and then some, host Paul Mescal (Gladiator II) made the right call by keeping an open mind, having fun, and trusting that the folks over at the long-running late-night sketch comedy and music series know what they doing - because they do. What we got was a show with sketches that hit (no misses, maybe a stumble), with big laughs and big performances (and an especially good week for SNL featured players).
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