Best, Worst Moments from Paul Mescal's 'SNL'

by Julian Spivey
The eighth episode of the milestone 50th season of “Saturday Night Live” featured “Gladiator II” star Paul Mescal hosting with musical guest Shaboozey. It’s the first of three straight episodes to wrap up 2024.
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Here are the highlights and lowlights from an episode that was probably at a disadvantage with Mescal, one of today’s most gifted dramatic actors, at the helm of a comedy show. 

Photo: NBC

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Best:
One of my wishes for the 50th season of ‘SNL’ was for the show to bring back great cast members from the past and the show has done that to some extent, though with it mostly being just Dana Carvey, Maya Rudolph and Andy Samberg. Another wish was for those cast members to bring some of their memorable characters or impressions with them, and while we’ve had two new Digital Shorts from Samberg and The Lonely Island bunch, there hadn’t yet been any others. That changed on Saturday night (Dec. 7) when the episode opened up with one of the greatest recurring ‘SNL’ characters in the show’s history in Carvey’s The Church Lady. In doing so, The Church Lady became the first character in the show’s history to appear in five different decades (Molly Shannon’s Sally O’Malley has appeared in four). In this go-around, The Church lady interviewed Matt Gaetz (Sarah Sherman), a recently pardoned Hunter Biden (David Spade, in his first appearance of season 50), and baseball superstar Juan Soto (Marcello Hernandez). My favorite part was Church Lady and Hunter Biden, seeing the two former cast members who collaborate on podcasts together, share the screen – it was … special. 

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Worst:
Weekend Update has been hit or miss this season, and this weekend’s version was likely the weakest of the season, lacking in both quality and quantity when it came to guests. There were few jokes from Colin Jost and Michael Che that stood out. The guest was a pro football player (Hernandez) and his mom (Heidi Gardner) and how the mom wanted to hook up with the show’s musical guest of the weak Shaboozey to make a “shababy.” The bit got too much mileage over the character’s last name being “Dookie.” 

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Best: 
During a promo for a recent episode hosted by John Mulaney, James Austin Johnson revealed that he had a spot-on Bob Dylan impression that I immediately hoped the show would find a way to put into an episode. The best time for it is now, ahead of the Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown,” starring Timothee Chalamet. They brought Dylan out for a red carpet-event for the film, again giving Chloe Fineman a chance to showcase her fantastic Chalamet impression. But there was no doubt the star of the sketch, the final one of the night, was Johnson’s super accurate Dylan, which finds the aged rock star rambling poetically about nonsense. The runner-up for highlight of the spot was Andrew Dismukes and his surprisingly good Bruce Springsteen impression. Give me a Dylan and Springsteen impression playing off each other, and I’ll always be a happy man. 

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Worst:
Between the Church Chat cold opening and the Bob Dylan impression that ended the show, almost nothing else was memorable about the entire episode. The pre-tape turning “Gladiator II” into a musical because it had gotten beaten at the box office by both “Wicked” and “Moana” was humorous and really the only moment Mescal shined all night. Other than that, it was a mess. Here’s looking up, though, as the next two episodes before the show takes a short winter break are former cast members Chris Rock and Martin Short, leading to hopes the show finishes out 2024 on a funny high note.