SNL Scorecard: Paul Mescal / Shaboozey

Saturday Night Live returned for the first time in three weeks last night, back from its "fall break" over Thanksgiving. The show's 50th season has gotten off to a perhaps quietly, perhaps even unexpectedly good start after a few rocky seasons, and Lorne Michaels was clearly hoping to keep the positive mojo going with buzzy first-timers as both host and musical guest. Shaboozey has been one of the breakout stars in music in this calendar year, and host Paul Mescal is riding a peaking crest of popularity that has followed him from his Normal People breakout in 2020 all the way to his current star turn in Gladiator II.

This represented somewhat of a transitional episode for SNL50. The first five episodes of the season came with the presidential election still in its sights, and that obviously dictated a fair bit of the humor. The last two, both in November, dealt a lot with the aftermath of that election, and perhaps had one eye on Thanksgiving, too. Come 2025, the show will resume under a Trump 2.0 presidency AND a renewed focus on celebrating its 50th anniversary, and thus could look very different. But for now, we get three little episodes of holiday cheer to get us into Christmas and the New Year.

Which may explain why last night's episode felt noticeably different. There were no rehashed sketches. Even the characters on Weekend Update were new. The election, politics in general, hardly played a role in this episode at all. Same goes, for that matter, for holidays. It was a night full of wacky, wonderful and weird sketches, which felt oddly refreshing.

Now, did it a great episode make? Unfortunately not, not for lack of effort on the host's part. Paul Mescal, who has plied his trade almost exclusively in emotional dramatic roles, was stunningly adept with comedic timing (many people are saying this is due to a condition known as "being Irish"), and a gamely host who had no trouble committing to each of his different characters. But more often than not on the night, the writing let him and the various cast members around him down. That's not to say there were no highlights (there were), nor even to say that there were a number of lowlights (there was really only one near-dud). Rather, it felt that while every sketch on the night started with a good joke or premise, it rarely bloomed from there into a truly great bit.

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 8th episode of the season:

Sketch of the Night

"Gladiator II: The Musical": 8/10

It’s not that there were a ton of laugh out loud jokes, truthfully, but the idea behind this was so funny, and the execution was legitimately very impressive. I kinda hate to say it, but I would watch a Gladiator musical now! (Also…is that Paul Mescal’s actual singing voice? Because if so, I fear the Twitter girlies will never recover.)

The Good

“Italian Restaurant Commercial": 7.5/10

SNL has done ‘commercial shoot gone wrong’ sketches plenty of times, but I appreciated the new direction this one went in, where the flubbed lines are actually celebrated, and instead it’s the “serious actor” (in this case a gamely brooding Mescal) that’s the butt of the joke. This one had a bit of a sloppy ending— a rare instance in which a cameo from Kenan actually wasn’t needed —but otherwise was hilarious.

“Weekend Update": 7/10

Sheesh, these were some of the darker jokes Che and Jost have told in a while. Not in a way that I was offended, per se, it just felt like the tone was even more cynical, bordering on nihilist, than usual. Sign of the times, I suppose. Anyway, their performance was fine, but far from their best, which was why it was unfortunate there was time only for one walk-on skit. But in that one walk-on, Heidi Gardner and Marcello Hernández were hilarious as a mother who just got a windfall on the back of her college athlete son, ending Update on a strong note.

“Monologue": 7/10

For a man who isn’t known for comedy and presents as humble, sometimes even shy, Mescal seemed pretty comfortable onstage! Many a more experienced figure has seemed more out of place than he did. This was a perfectly fun monologue. Short, simple, plenty of clever self-deprecating and Irish humor. 

"Spotify Wrapped": 6.5/10

A great little 10-to-1 sketch. Nothing all too tremendous, but a simple but silly premise, made hugely enjoyable by Bowen Yang (and Trisha Paytas!) being wildly out of pocket. 

"Earring": 6.5/10

What a wild way to start the episode, post-monologue. This had the feel of a 10-to-1 sketch with the unhinged performances and increasing absurdity. I enjoyed it! It just felt like there wasn’t much more beyond the not-exactly-new joke of parents wildly overreacting to their kid piercing his ear. But thanks to the full commitment by Heidi and Emil Wakim, this was a lot of fun at least

"Pirates": 6/10

Another one in which the idea was funny, the writing started off well, the acting was great…and yet it ended up just pretty good, rather than really good. Seeing the various men’s gleeful commitment to character arc rather than sexy dancing was tons of fun, and I enjoyed Ego Nwodim’s performance as the friend of the bride who reeeeallly likes history. I don’t know why this one didn’t totally land…maybe they needed a great closing twist like this underrated fave of mine.

“Please Don't Destroy - Paul Mescal Is Daddy": 6/10

Please Don’t Destroy had been conspicuously absent from this season, and the excitement at seeing their title card again was palpable. It started off really good, with the host’s token flirty shyness and emotional acting playing perfectly well off the rapid-fire, emasculating humor of the trio. But the turn into the absurd, while fun at first, took over the bulk of the sketch and just got a little too silly to be memorable. Perfectly fine sketch, another fun change of pace from the host, but I’ll admit I wanted a little bit more from the first PDD sketch to air in nearly two months.

The... Less-Good

“Church Chat 2024 Cold Open": 5.5/10

I think, with the confirmation that there is to be a ‘50th anniversary’ special in February, we just don’t need veteran ex-cast members constantly showing up and getting their own extended sketches. This might sound harsh but who is asking for a 10-minute Dana Carvey “Church Lady” sketch with David Spade in the year 2024? I don’t want to get overly snarky; this had plenty of good moments. Sarah Sherman as Matt Gaetz doesn’t really make sense but it makes me laugh, and several punchlines were clever. It wasn’t bad, it just all felt like forced nostalgia more than an actually realized sketch.

“A Complete Unknown Red Carpet": 5/10

When James Austin Johnson recently broke out his late-stage Bob Dylan impression, it was in perhaps my favorite SNL promo ever. It’s delightful, but this sketch was mostly just an excuse for old rockstar impressions rather than an actual sketch. All solid, generally fun, but not really funny.

“Brilliant Lawyer": 4/10

No sketch better summed up the theme of “joke funnier than sketch” than this one. The premise was delightfully silly, and I’ll admit I laughed out loud at Andrew Dismukes’s “Plan C and Plan D.” But by and large, this just didn’t know what to do other than laugh at its own silly little joke, and as a result, felt like it went on far too long.

Musical Performances

Shaboozey: 7/10

Shaboozey has had an amazing year; the country singer featured prominently on Beyoncé’s COWBOY CARTER, and rode that wave of new recognition to a record-breaking single “Tipsy (A Bar Song),” now the longest consecutive Billboard #1 track in history. He’s earned best new artist nominations at both the CMAs and Grammys, along with nods for Song of the Year and Best Country Song, among others. So it’s pretty fitting that the first words he sang on his SNL appearance were “Man, what a hell of a year it’s been.” Not, in fact, from his mega-smash hit, but rather from “Good News,” another cut off his latest album Where I've Been, Isn't Where I'm Going. It’s a much more heartfelt song than “Tipsy,” and Shaboozey delivered it well. It was a fairly restrained performance, but his voice sounded great, and properly emotive, and his backing singers and band were on point as well.

When it was time for his hit song in the second performance, the crowd recognized the opening chords right away and cheered enthusiastically. And Shaboozey delivered! It wasn’t exactly a “burn down the house” performance, sure— his stage presence really seems to be more laid-back than line-dance-initiating —but he sounded great again, as did his band, again.

OVERALL SCORE: 6.38 ('Comedy Only' score: 6.32)