Paul Mescal is trying something new

Photo: Rosalind O’Connor/NBC

“Another sad hot guy” is how Martin Herlihy describes Paul Mescal’s likely next film role the latest Please Don’t Destroy sketch. Judging by Mescal’s track record, it seems pretty much inevitable. From his breakout role in the Sally Rooney adaptation Normal people to his devastating, Oscar-nominated work in Aftersunand even Gladiator IIMescal’s specialty is playing smoke shows that go through it. Rarely does someone who looks carved from oak so often seem in dire need of a medical-grade 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 eager to soar as any of his typecast predecessors. And I mean it flying-on-a-broomstick-belting-out the “Defying-Gravity” riff level sky high.

During a playful monologue, Mescal brought uninitiated viewers up to speed on everything they needed to know about the rising star. He is one sartorially adventurous Irish guy, prone to playing characters who often cry. (“I’m really not known for comedy,” says the host, with perhaps the biggest understatement of the year.) With that intro out of the way, Mescal is freed up to show viewers a lot of things they haven’t seen him do yet. During the night, he seethes with jealousy, smolders with rage, acts like a fool and engages in some singing and dancing. (Twice!)

Some serious thespians in the past have used SNL stage as a misguided launch pad to show their quiet command over commedia dell’arte or whatever. That is not the case here. Although Mescal delivers whatever is asked of him at any given moment, he never seems intent on proving that he is a natural sketch performer. Instead, he cedes the spotlight in several sketches and comes across as someone whose main source of comedy is telling stories over beers in the pub.

But Mescal isn’t the only one branching out last night. For the first time, all three of this season’s new cast members – Ashley Padilla, Emil Wakim and Jane Wickline – featured prominently in the same episode. Previous, SNL seemed to dole out the trio in small background roles, with only one getting a chance to pop a week. Whatever the reason, Mescal’s show found all three either anchoring a sketch or at least getting a big, memorable showcase in one — and they each made the most of their moment. It finally feels like we’re getting to know them.

Here are the highlights from the episode:

Can a single joke elevate an otherwise decent, nostalgia-driven skit to hilarity? Apparently so. Dana Carvey – a SNL houseguest this season, thanks to his uncannily accurate Joe Biden impression — brought back her Church Lady character for first time since 2016. (So ​​long ago, Darrell Hammond was still playing Trump at the time.) Now as old as the church lady might have originally been intended to be, Carvey hits the familiar beats of condescending every Church Chat guest and calling things satanic until he got to an incredible moment with Hunter Biden. (Played by David Spade in another throwback cameo.) Hunter compares himself to Jesus, prompting the church lady to shoot back: “Last I checked, Jesus wasn’t walking around in a robe with no underwear hanging out with prostitutes.” With perfect timing, Hunter reminds her that’s exactly what Jesus did.The joke rightly gets a round of applause from the studio audience — and makes everything else about the far-too-long cold open worth it.

Paul Mescal cuts throats and hits notes in a digital short film that imagines a musical version of Gladiator II. (Did we know he can sing? I don’t think we did.) It’s an impressively staged and choreographed production with legit-sounding lyrics — both in the usual Broadway style and in full Lin-Manuel Miranda mode. (“I’m the mad emperor with the bad temper, bangin’ eunuchs and tunics, January to December-er.”) It’s the kind of sketch that makes one wonder what SNL team can reach in a single week.

Although all the new cast members get some much-needed airtime in this episode, Ashley Padilla makes the biggest meal of hers. Here she plays a local theater actor who shares her first TV commercial with Mescal’s seasoned commercial star. In a moment of inspiration, she throws a pasta pun into the ad for an Italian restaurant, and the director (Mikey Day) loves it. However, Mescal does not. Several comedic games are now set in motion: Padilla’s goofy pasta puns, each delivered with mischievous goofball energy; Mescal’s increasing hostility towards his costar; the difference in how his own pasta games are received on set. (“What’s up, buddy? Is there anybody we can call?”) ​​Padilla seems as at home in a lead sketch role as her character does in her commercial.

What makes this sketch click is the supreme confidence Andrew Dismukes gives his lawyer character as he embarks on the most idiotic gambit in legal history. Well, that and the stony faces of the 20 men he hires to wear identically ridiculous outfits in an attempt to camouflage 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 roaming the streets.

Never trust anyone who is a little too excited to reveal their Spotify Wrapped. That’s one of the things that can be taken from this sketch, where Mescal is horrified that his friends have never heard of the esoteric multimedia power that dominates his Spotify Wrapped. But the primary reason this sketch exists 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 partially cornrowed blonde Jedi whose deep-tissue massage would go crazy, addressing her fans as “my bastards.” Hopefully this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Dundalk’s finest.

• If it seemed like an odd note during the Church Lady sketch when Carvey unprompted told Spade’s Hunter Biden, “At least you didn’t do a podcast,” it should. The shoehorned line was a nod SNL-themed podcast that the couple makes together.

• The obsolete slang i The earring sketch – “Let’s go to a rave, pimp” – was pitch perfect, though the sketch as a whole felt like it could have been more cohesive.

• The paternal way Mescal falls in love with the Please Don’t Destroy boys is a fresh twist on the way crushes in these sketches have gone before.

• And the award for Most Fun Have Under a Weekend Update Joke This season goes to both Colin Jost and Michael Che for the splashing cucumber joke.

• Marcello Hernández is extremely close to cracking along the way his shared desk piece with Heidi Gardner when Gardner says about musical guest Shaboozey“I’ll show him my Shapoozey.”

• James Austin Johnson does an incredible Bob Dylan in the movie premiere sketchand Mescal sounds exactly like Bono, but it must also be said that “Jess, Logan, Dean” is actually the correct placement of Rory’s boyfriends on Gilmore girls.