John Mulaney hosts eventful 'SNL' with Kamala Harris in cold open

You know it’s a stacked week on “Saturday Night Live” when a new John Mulaney-led Duane Reade at the Port Authority Bus Terminal musical sketch is only about the fifth-most important thing to discuss.

The biggest news, as reported earlier, was that Vice President Kamala Harris appeared in the cold open to “stop the dramala” and to literally mirror Maya Rudolph’s portrayal of her. We’ll talk more about that sketch in a moment.

Also notable was that musical guest and festival sensation Chappell Roan performed her sing-along hit “Pink Pony Club” and also debuted a surprise country song, “The Giver.”

In another surprise, 2016 vice presidential candidate, Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, who ran alongside Hillary Clinton, portrayed himself in “What’s That Name?” a game-show sketch. In it, Mulaney plays a man who claims to care deeply about Tuesday’s presidential election, yet can’t remember Kaine’s name.

Mulaney, who hosted “Everybody’s in L.A.” for Netflix in May and who will host a weekly live show for the streamer in early 2025, did an admirable job holding it all together in a solid mix of sketches. There was a sublimely silly video in which Mulaney plays a ground control officer trying to help a chimp astronaut return to Earth early in the show. Two sketches late in the episode jammed in a lot of jokes into simple premises: one was about Little Richard (Kenan Thompson) appearing too many times in a 1990s sitcom. And the other featured Mulaney playing real-life New York City Council candidate Harvey Epstein, who acknowledges in a campaign video that both his names are highly problematic.

Even without the Broadway fantasia that is the latest edition of Duane Reade (more on that one below), Mulaney’s hosting would have been tops for the 50th season so far, or at least neck-and-neck with Ariana Grande from a few weeks ago.

Before the closing goodbyes, a title card honored Teri Garr, who died this week. The actor hosted the show three times in the 1980s.

Rudolph finally came face-to-face with the real-life Harris in this week’s cold open, whose speaking-to-the-mirror conceit was similar to a recent Jennifer Coolidge sketch. But there was lots of ground to cover three days before the national election, including former President Trump (James Austin Johnson) at a rally, sporting a big orange vest for “wearing it in garbage truck” and mocking former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney (“I just said I wanted her to go hunting with her dad”).

J.D. Vance (Bowen Yang) appeared briefly before we saw the return of Jim Gaffigan as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Andy Samberg as Doug Emhoff and Dana Carvey as President Biden.

But of course, it was Kamala Harris who got the biggest reaction, joining Rudolph with, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!”

For his sixth outing as host, Mulaney performed a monologue that was extremely quick-moving, jumping from topic to topic, and that was notable for making absolutely no mention of the impending election. Instead, Mulaney began by updating the audience on his family life: He recently married Olivia Munn and now has a 5-week old daughter along with a 2-year-old son. He described the relative heights of all the people in his life who he’s taller than, including Munn, his even shorter mother-in-law and a nanny who is “negative one-feet tall.” Mulaney talked about his parents, who are aging too slowly for his taste (“They still have brown hair and go on bike trips”) and what it’s been like, at age 42, to already be thinking about hip-replacement surgery.

There’s just something about Mulaney and monkeys that works on “SNL.” Two years after appearing as a monkey judge, the host plays a character trying very hard to bring Beppo, America’s first chimp to orbit the Earth, back home safely. Beppo can communicate with words via a keyboard of icons, but when mission control loses control of the spacecraft, it’s up to Mulaney’s character to tell the chimp the bad news in words he can understand: “Beppo no go home. Beppo go dark. Beppo equals zero forever.” The video sketch takes several dark and absurd turns, includes a “Hidden Figures” reference and ends triumphantly … sort of. Extra points for making Beppo the doomed chimp look so realistic and adorable.

Whenever John Mulaney hosts “SNL,” there’s always a good chance he’ll bring back his musical homage sketch that take place at a Duane Reade at the Port Authority Bus Terminal. For this latest version, former cast member Pete Davidson returned, looking to buy a jug of milk that turns out to be from a family of possums (Thompson and Ego Nwodim), who turn the bit into a “Lion King” number. Marcello Hernández played a shampoo bottle kept under lock and key while New York mayor Eric Adams (Thompson) parodied “Aladdin” in reference to his Turkish connections. There was more, lots more, but the standout may have been Samberg returning to perform “Baby Bear Carcass,” in tune with the “Hamilton” opening number, a reference to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s bizarre Central Park story. As the sketch notes, the former presidential candidate is still on the ballot in two swing states. Either you love these New York-centric musical sketches or you find them completely random, but you can’t deny they’re ambitious.

Hernandez and new cast member Jane Wickline played “a couple you can’t believe are together,” but it was Heidi Gardner as “The Voice” coach and country superstar Reba McEntire who won “Weekend Update” this week. In a segment that continued to indulge the show’s fascination with McEntire (why not have her host sometime?) Gardner portrayed the singer as an undecided voter. “Call me Shawn Mendes because I’m still figuring it out,” she said. Gardner’s arm-waving impression paired with strange stories about McEntire’s hometown of McAlester, Okla., where, “If you think the milk is spoiled, give it another sip.” More disturbing: Reba says she’s the daughter of a Republican momma and a daddy who was Pennywise the Clown from Stephen King’s “It.” “Momma worked 59 jobs. Daddy only had one: eating kids.” Was it the most accurate Reba impression? It was not. Was it the strangest? Absolutely. Let’s have the real McEntire on the show to do another one of those mirror sketches.