SNL Scorecard: John Mulaney / Chappell Roan

When Saturday Night Live announced this very show right at the outset of Season 50, the internet was instantly alight, both with excitement and ensuing self-aware humor about said excitement. A slew of tweets I loved, for example, sarcastically said something to the effect of "I'm sure everyone online will be totally normal about this episode." And it's true, in longtime SNL writer and current-day wildly successful comedian John Mulaney, and rising pop star Chappell Roan, SNL50's fifth episode had two figures with enormous online fanbases, the former a patron saint of younger millennials and the latter a beloved queer Gen Z icon.

This was already destined to be one of the most-watched episodes of this historic season, and then a few hours before air, the rumors began to circulate that a pretty huge special guest would be dropping by: Vice President of the United States and Democratic candidate for President Kamala Harris. That bomb spiked both online hype and the energy levels in the Studio 8H audience through the roof. Would the episode meet the excitement?

Well, the answer was yes and no. The extremely enthusiastic crowd, an always-reliable host and a bona fide star of a musical guest certainly all lent themselves to an extremely enjoyable episode. But the levels of funny were, at least in this loyal but jaded fan's eyes, disappointingly low. Not "bad episode" low, not at all. There was only one real clunker, which I'll get to, and more than one highlight. But, other than starting and ending on a super high note, the show was mostly just retreads of past Mulaney bits, which especially feels a bit weird given that the host was never a cast member. It’s not Chris Farley coming back to do Matt Foley, motivational speaker, or Eddie Murphy coming back to do "Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood," in other words. So, fun episode, even to a palette-cleansing extent? Absolutely. But I can't help but feel like the fairly lazy and unoriginal choices in writing and sketch selection robbed us of what could have been a truly all-time great episode of Saturday Night Live.

One note in case you forgot- I know my rankings can seem a little arbitrary, and truthfully there have been times where even I will look back at scorecards and think "Now, why did I rate (x) an 8.5, if (x) from this other episode was only a 7...?". So, both to hopefully clear up my scoring system for any curious readers, but also really to help keep myself consistent, here is the rubric to reference:

10/10: Perfect, no notes

8-9.5/10: Very funny-to-hilarious, definite rewatch

6-7.5/10: Pretty funny-to-funny, but won't necessarily be a rewatch

4-5.5/10: Not BAD, but not particularly funny or memorable

1-3.5/10: Terrible/poor taste, to simply bad/unfunny

Here's the sketch-by-sketch breakdown of the 5th episode of the season:

Sketch of the Night

"2024 Pre-Election Cold Open": 8/10

I kind of wish Twitter hadn’t broken the news that Kamala Harris was going to be on the show, because with how electric her appearance in the cold open was, I can only imagine the crowd reaction had it been kept completely under wraps. The veep handled herself well! She didn’t have a whole lot to do, to be fair, but it’s clear she’s got a lot more comedic timing than most politicians, and the writing for her interaction with Maya Rudolph’s Kamala was really clever and sweet. Also, it’s not that they weren’t fun or funny, because they were as always, but I could have done without Dana Carvey’s Biden or Andy Samberg’s Doug Emhoff in this sketch, if for no other reason than I could have watched 10 more minutes each of “Kamala and Kamala” and James Austin Johnson’s exhausted Trump; I’ve always loved his Trump impression, but his riffing this time was the hardest I’ve laughed at it in a long, long time.

The Good

“Weekend Update": 8.5/10

Colin Jost referenced this immediately, but depending on how the election goes this week, this may be the last time Weekend Update can take potshots at Trump in a fun way (i.e. when he’s NOT in a position of power) and without fear of retaliation. If it is, then boy, Jost and Michael Che did not hold back, they came out throwing fire at the political landscape, largely at Trump himself. That energy stayed present throughout though, thanks in no small part to great guest spots by Heidi Garner (as Reba McEntire) and Marcello Hernández and Jane Wickline in tandem.

“New York City Council Campaign": 8/10

A simple— arguably juvenile —bit, but it was so jampacked with funny lines that it worked. Plus, even if it hadn’t been hilarious, it would have been worth it to see bald John Mulaney.

“What's That Name: Election Edition": 7.5/10

You may recognize this as the sequel to the winner of the 2019 Woodiwiss Family SNL Bracket. I was curious whether this was going to work as well without Bill Hader’s star turn as host, and the answer is, eh, not really, although Michael Longfellow acquitted himself well in that role. But what may have been lost in the ‘chaotic host’ humor from that great sketch 5 years ago was offset by the clever political twist in this version. This was some really solid writing, and what an unexpected star turn from Tim Kaine! I think the senator from Virginia showed off more personality in this sketch than he did the entire 2016 election cycle.

"Little Richard": 7.5/10

This was similar to a previous sketch they did with Mulaney a number of years ago, but this time the joke wasn’t a show that had aged horribly in its pervy content, rather it was a show that got cancelled because of… its copious Little Richard appearances. If that sounds wild and dumb, rest assured it was. But like, in the most delightful way imaginable. Kenan is such an SNL constant that it can be easy to forget how hilarious he is; it’s nice to see him get a star turn like this every now and then to put his comedic brilliance on display.

"Monologue": 7/10

John Mulaney isn’t just one of the most successful comedians out there, his bread and butter was made at SNL; matter of fact, as he mentioned in his monologue, this was his 6th time hosting, and all within the last seven years, so there was no question he was always gonna be comfortable in this setting. If I’m not mistaken, he’s not in the middle of or gearing up for any comedy tour at the moment, so you get the sense this was more off the cuff, or perhaps some material he was workshopping. It wasn’t his funniest, at times overly rambling, but still very enjoyable with plenty of memorable moments.

The... Less-Good

“Beppo": 6/10

I wanted to love this one, because it was the most original bit of the night. You could tell the thought behind this joke was really funny, and it was a terrific send-up of schmaltzy American space cinema, but it just never really materialized into a great sketch. There were a handful of great moments; I laughed out loud at some of Beppo’s “dialogue” after things went sideways, but it went on far too long and felt half-baked most of that time.

“Port Authority Duane Reade": 4/10

As soon as I heard John Mulaney was hosting, I braced myself for the inevitable cheap knockoff of the Les Mis lobster sketch. I get that the crowd is expecting it every time, and if I had to guess, John and perhaps the cast probably always love doing their mini-musicals. But I just don’t understand the need to keep trotting out this concept which has only really worked the first time, when it was just a wacky sketch and not New Yorker inside jokes. Also unnecessary: a Pete Davidson cameo? He was fine in this sketch, that’s not really a problem, but he isn’t exactly an integral part of these sketches, and every guest appearance robs a current member of the bloated cast of airtime. Anyway, while the production value was very high, this was probably the most forgettable entry of these musical sketches yet (the only parts I found funny were the arrival of the Timothée Chalamet lookalikes and Andy Samberg as the bear victim), and I hope we can finally just yeet these sketches into the sun forever. 

Musical Performances

Chappell Roan: 8/10

This was the most excited I’ve been for a musical guest on SNL in a long time. I’ve seen some of my absolute favorite artists perform on the show over the years, but I can’t think of the last time in which an artist I had only recently fallen in love with was going to make their first-ever appearance on Saturday Night Live.

I was curious which songs she would perform, as, with the exception of “Good Luck, Babe” pretty much all of her songs are from at least a couple years ago and are kind of all just now turning into hits. I got my answer when she opened with “Pink Pony Club,” one of her best tracks and I’m guessing what her most devoted fans would say is THE quintessential Chappell Roan song. It was a rousing performance; I’ve heard her have much stronger vocal outings, but she sounded very good in the verses at least, hers and her band’s energy was off the charts, and considering it was her first-ever performance on a famously unforgiving stage, I was wholly impressed.

The second track threw me for a complete loop, though. I don’t know what I expected from Chappell’s second performance, but a country song with live fiddles was extremely far down the list. From what I can gather on the internet, this is a brand new, upcoming single named "The Giver" that Chappell has been hinting at on her Instagram recently. While I’m a little sad we didn’t get another burn-it-down pop performance (any of “Good Luck, Babe”, “Red Wine Supernova”, “HOTTOGO!”, “Super Ultra Graphic Modern Girl”, or especially the geographically appropriate “Naked In Manhattan” all would have gone so hard), we did get a riotous country performance and a rare totally unexpected buzzy moment live on the show, and that’s worth celebrating. Overall, it's hard to see Chappell's highly-anticipated SNL debut as anything other than a tremendous success.

OVERALL SCORE: 7.11 ('Comedy Only' score: 7.00)