Paul Mescal tries something new

Photo: Rosalind O’Connor/NBC

“Another sad hot guy,” is how Martin Herlihy describes Paul Mescal’s likely next film role in the latest sketch “Please Don’t Destroy.” Judging by Mescal’s track record, it seems all but inevitable. From his breakthrough role in the Sally Rooney adaptation Normal people to his devastating, Oscar-nominated work Aftersunand even Gladiator IIMescal’s specialty is playing smoke shows that are “Going Through It.” Rarely has someone who looks carved from oak so often appeared as if they were in desperate need of a medical-level hug.

Fortunately, Saturday Night Live has always offered dramatic actors the opportunity to spread their wings and touch the sky. In his hosting debut, Mescal seemed as ambitious as any of his typecast predecessors. And by that I mean flying on a broomstick and soaring up the Defying Gravity reef level.

During a playful monologue, Mescal updated uninitiated viewers on what they needed to know about the rising star. He is a fashion-adventurous Irishman who tends to play frequently tearful characters. (“I’m really not known for comedy,” the host says in perhaps the biggest understatement of the year.) With this intro, Mescal has the freedom to show viewers a lot of things they haven’t seen from him yet. As the night progresses, he seethes with jealousy, seethes with rage, behaves like a fool, and participates in song and dance. (Twice!)

Some serious actors have used this in the past SNL stage as a misguided launching pad to demonstrate her quiet mastery Commedia dell’arte or whatever. That is not the case here. Although Mescal delivers whatever is asked of him at all times, he never seems anxious to prove himself as a natural sketch performer. Instead, he steps out of the spotlight in several sketches, coming across as someone whose main outlet for comedy is telling stories over a pint at the pub.

But Mescal isn’t the only one who had some fun last night. For the first time, all three of this season’s new cast members – Ashley Padilla, Emil Wakim and Jane Wickline – were featured prominently in the same episode. Previously, SNL seemed to assign the trio tiny background roles, with only one per week getting the chance to appear. For whatever reason, on Mescal’s show, all three were either the anchor of a sketch or at least a big, memorable presentation — and each made the most of their moment. Finally it feels like we’re getting to know her.

Here are the highlights of the episode:

Can a single joke turn an otherwise decent, nostalgic sketch into hilarity? Apparently yes. Dana Carvey – one SNL This season’s houseguest reprized his role as Church Lady for the first time since 2016 thanks to his eerily accurate Joe Biden impression. (So ​​long ago Darrell Hammond was playing Trump back then.) Now as old as the Church Lady Perhaps it was originally intended, Carvey adopts the familiar tactics of patronizing every guest on the Church Chat and calling things satanic until he comes to an incredible moment with Hunter Biden. (Played by David Spade in another cameo.) Hunter slyly compares himself to Jesus, to which the church lady fires back: “Last time I checked, Jesus wasn’t walking around in a robe with no underwear hanging out with prostitutes. ” With perfect timing, Hunter reminds her that Jesus did just that. The joke rightly gets a round of applause from the studio audience – and makes everything else about the overlong cold opening worthwhile.

Paul Mescal cuts throats and hits notes in a digital short film that presents a musical version of this Gladiator II. (Did we know he could sing? I don’t think we did.) It’s an impressively directed and choreographed production with real-sounding lyrics – both in standard Broadway style and in full Lin-Manuel Miranda mode. (“I am the mad emperor with the bad temper, the damned eunuchs and tunics, from January to December.”) This is the kind of sketch that makes you wonder what it is SNL Team can achieve something in a single week.

Although all of the new cast members get some much-needed airtime in this episode, Ashley Padilla makes the biggest meal of it. Here she plays a local theater actress who shares her first television commercial with Mescal’s veteran commercial star. In a moment of inspiration, she throws a pasta pun into an Italian restaurant ad, and the director (Mikey Day) loves it. However, this is not the case with Mescal. Now several comedic games are in motion: Padilla’s silly pasta puns, each delivered with mischievous goofball energy; Mescal’s increasing hostility towards his co-star; The difference in how his own pasta puns are received on set. (“What’s going on, buddy? Is there someone we can call?”) ​​Padilla seems just as comfortable in a leading role as her character in her commercial.

What makes this sketch click is the supreme confidence that Andrew Dismukes brings to his lawyer character as he embarks on the most idiotic move in legal history. Well, that and the stone faces of the 20 men he hires to wear equally ridiculous outfits to disguise his client in the courtroom. It’s a shame this episode didn’t air before Halloween; Otherwise we might have seen gangs of 21 guys in lime green suits, Devo hats and beards on the streets.

Never trust anyone who is a little too excited to reveal their Spotify Wrapped. That’s one takeaway from this skit, in which Mescal is horrified that his friends have never heard of the esoteric multimedia force that dominates his Spotify Wrapped. However, the main reason for this sketch’s existence is to introduce artist Satoshi Gutman, “the anti-instrumentalist sound guru from Dundalk, Maryland.” Bowen Yang clearly had fun creating this character, who looks like a blonde Jedi with a partial cornrow, whose deep-tissue massage would be crazy, and who addresses his fans as “my bastards.” Hopefully this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Dundalk’s best.

• If it seemed like an odd remark during the Church Lady sketch when Carvey unpromptedly told Spade’s Hunter Biden, “At least you didn’t do a podcast,” so be it. This shoehorned line was a nod to that SNLThematic podcast that the two do together.

• The outdated slang in the earring sketch – “Let’s go to a rave, pimp” – was absolutely perfect, even if the sketch as a whole could have been more cohesive.

• The fatherly path Mescal falls in love with the guys from Please Don’t Destroy is a new twist on the way crushes in these sketches have gone in the past.

• And the award for the most fun we had a Weekend Update joke This season goes to Colin Jost and Michael Che for the cucumber joke.

• Marcello Hernández is on the verge of collapse his shared desk piece with Heidi Gardner when Gardner says about it musical guest Shaboozey“I’ll show him my Shapoozey.”

• James Austin Johnson plays an incredible Bob Dylan The sketch for the film premiereand Mescal sounds exactly like Bono, but it also has to be said that “Jess, Logan, Dean” is actually the correct ranking of Rory’s friends Gilmore Girls.