John Mulaney is helping us get through the election

Photo: Rosalind O'Connor/NBC

This moment is a real Schrödinger America situation. Like the famous thought experiment about a possible dead cat in a box, the US is currently either rebuking Trumpism once and for all or making its previous rebuke a mere blip on the road to vindication – and no one will know what the reality is afterward until then we took a look at the ballot box.

Likewise, no one can accurately judge whether Kamala Harris' dizzying cameo will last Saturday Night Live Last night was “successful” until after the election. But here it goes.

Harris' performance couldn't have gone better for her.

The cold opens begins with local Trumpologist James Austin Johnson in a blinding orange high-visibility vest – Trump dressed up as a garbage man earlier this week for reasons as logically flawed as they were aesthetic. It was a brief reminder of how the candidate spent his final days on the campaign trail: battling through raucous rallies where even his microphones seemed to bore him.

Then comes the contrast: A candidate, buoyed by hot-off-the-press polls, makes a pit stop to perform live sketch comedy between star-studded rallies. In this way, the medium was indeed the message, but it would have arrived with a thud if Harris had appeared more nervous or stiff. Instead she sat down across from her SNL Lookalike Maya Rudolph reportedly gives herself a pep talk in front of the mirror before Election Day. (It's a classic device in the series, most recently used in the Ariana Grande episode a few weeks ago.) What follows is mostly just the two Veeps beaming and laughing at each other to the thunderous applause of the studio audience. Crucially, the real Harris is attacking Trump for failing to open a door on the first try during his ill-advised garbage truck stunt last week.

Harris and her surrogates perhaps spoke a little too much about joy early in their candidacy, given the sober, existential terms with which they inevitably framed the election in its final days. There has been a clear and understandably light touch of joy in the campaign lately as Harris made her closing statement. But the image of the candidate smiling ecstatically as she brutally attacks her opponent now represents a welcome counterweight to the apocalyptic mood of recent times. It also radiates the confidence of a winner.

Obviously this skit will look very different next week if Harris ends up losing. Why did she hang around on TV instead of returning to Pennsylvania?people will angrily ask. Maybe they're even right. For now, however, this final cold offensive before the election doesn't wear the smug, fake reconciliation façade of 2016 – when Kate McKinnon and Alec Baldwin broke out of character and stormed through Times Square holding hands to the soaring strains of Arcade Fire's “Wake Up” – nor the dark resignation of 2020 – when Jim Carrey read a satirical interpretation of Edgar Allen Poe as Joe Biden The raven. Instead, he seems aware of the recent history inside and outside the show and manages to exude an optimism that doesn't seem naive.

While it won't be clear until after the election whether this sketch was a misjudgment, the jury is still out on the rest of the John Mulaney-hosted episode. It rocked.

Here are the highlights:

This is John Mulaney's house—he's hosting for the sixth time in as many years—and in this house we reliably perform seven to ten minutes of fresh stand-up monologue. This one starts out mediocre, starting with material about the small size of all members of his wife Olivia Munn's family, based on the degree of Asian ancestry per member. It's not funny enough to overcome the questionable wisdom of associating a physical attribute with ethnicity in the year of our Lord 2024. However, Mulaney quickly turns to the more self-deprecating topic of dealing with aging parents while aging himself, and this is where he shines. At the end he gets excited when he refers to his grandfather, who, since he wasn't allowed to fight in World War II, was “too old for the oldest thing that ever happened.” Mulaney's latest Netflix special captured the stand-up in a transitional moment – this monologue is our brightest snapshot yet of who he's transforming into.

Usually, this recurring game show sketch is a means of exposing social faux pas, since many of us may know who The Rizzler is but not the names of our friends' spouses. However, this takes a devastating aim at the unbearable superiority complex of a certain type of liberal. Mulaney gets through the early rounds of the game, but can't remember the name of Tim Kaine, who appears in a cameo – even though Kaine was a candidate in another election that Mulaney reportedly called “the most important in American history.” “ referred to. Later questions twist the knife even further, delving into white hypocrisy surrounding Black Lives Matter. All in all, it feels like the equivalent of 2024 SNLThe apt “The Bubble” sketch aired before the 2016 election, rather than serving as a remarkable 20/20 hindsight.

Part of what keeps Mulaney in the running for the most consistent record SNL Host of all time is the promise that he will always have one of these with him. It's another acclaimed, imaginatively staged musical tribute to the idiosyncrasies of New York City, the most energetic in years. When will Mulaney and SNL Running out of New York Easter eggs to harvest or have recognizable show tunes? This iteration, which brings back former cast member and close Mulaney friend Pete Davidson, suggests that may never be the case.

It's hard to imagine that after 21 years as an actor, Kenan Thompson still has classic celebrity impressions left for his debut. However, his “Little Richard” probably wouldn’t be such a wonderful discovery without an amazing premise. This homage to the incongruous celebrity guest appearances on sitcoms of yore escalates to incredible madness and requires no prior knowledge of Little Richard to make viewers laugh.

What an unfortunate name the real New York Rep. Harvey Epstein has, but at least he seems to be taking this sketch in stride and making fun of it.

• Michael Longfellow took on the role What is this name? host by Bill Hader this week, and it seemed to be one of the best sketchy uses of his delivery dripping with contempt yet.

• Beppo the chimpanzee could be just the hero America needs in this polarized moment.

• Chappell Roan had the crowd singing the chorus of “Pink Pony Club” with her during an intense performance before later debuting the brand new queer cowgirl anthem “The Giver.” That's what the French call it iconic.

• While Weekend updateMichael Che addressed Trump's bizarre microphone pantomime as only he can, describing the former president as “trying to bully his way to freedom.”

• Another banger a desk piece by Heidi Gardnerthis time as the politically conflicted Reba McEntire. Most weeks, this would almost certainly rank in the top five installments of the series, as it happened to appear during an unusually stacked episode.

• However, Gardner almost steals Marcello Hernández and Jane Wickline as an update The couple you can't believe are togetherwhich I would put money on him making another appearance before the end of the season.

• While the musical number by Port Authority Duane Readethere is a bit of word play surrounding the milk jug. Pete Davidson says it's organic, but a close-up shows that it actually says “Organ” on it. However, if you look a little deeper at the container, there are more puns – it's not skim milk or 2%, but “hole” milk.

• Bowen Yang and Chappell Roan looked adorably good friends as they said goodbye.