You know it’s a busy week on “Saturday Night Live” with a new John Mulaney in charge Duane Reade at the Port Authority Bus Terminal musical skit is only about the fifth most important topic to discuss.

The biggest news, as previously reportedwas that Vice President Kamala Harris showed up in the cold to “stop the drama” and to literally mirror Maya Rudolph’s portrayal of her. We’ll talk more about that sketch in a moment.

The musical guest was also striking festival sensation Chappell Roan sang her sing-along hit “Pink Pony Club‘ and debuted with a surprising country song“The Giver.”

In another surprise, 2016 vice presidential candidate, Democratic Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, who ran alongside Hillary Clinton, portrayed himself in “What is that name?‘a game show sketch. In it, Mulaney plays a man who claims to attach great importance to Tuesday’s presidential elections, but cannot remember Kaine’s name.

Maya Rudolph, left, with Vice President Kamala Harris during the cold opening.

(Will Heath/NBC)

Mulaney, who hosted “Everybody’s in LA” for Netflix in May and who will be the host a weekly live show for the streamer in early 2025did an admirable job of keeping everything together in a solid mix of sketches. There was a sublimely silly video where Mulaney plays a ground control officer who tries help a chimpanzee astronaut return to Earth early in the show. Two sketches late in the episode packed a lot of jokes into simple premises: one was about Little Richard (Kenan Thompson) appeared too many times in a 1990s sitcom. And the other featured Mulaney real New York City Council candidate Harvey Epsteinwho acknowledges in a campaign video that both his names are very problematic.

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

Before the final farewell, a title card was honored Teri Garr, who died this week. The actor hosted the show three times in the eighties.

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

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

But of course it was Kamala Harris who did that got the biggest responsealong with Rudolph with: “Live from New York, it’s Saturday night!”

For his sixth appearance as host, Mulaney performed a monologue that was extremely fast-paced and jumped from topic to topic, and was notable for making absolutely no mention of the upcoming election. Instead, Mulaney started by informing the audience about his family life: He recently married Olivia Munn and now has a 5 week old daughter together with a 2 year old son. He described the relative heights of all the people in his life that he is taller than Munn, his even shorter mother-in-law, and a nanny who is “negative 1 foot tall.” Mulaney talked about his parents, who are aging too slowly for his taste (“They still have brown hair and go on bike rides”) and what it was like to be thinking about hip replacement surgery at the age of 42.

Best sketch of the evening: Take Beppo home

There’s just something about Mulaney and monkeys that works on “SNL.” Two years after appearing as a monkey judgethe host plays a character who tries very hard to safely bring Beppo, America’s first chimpanzee to orbit the Earth, back home. Beppo can communicate with words via an icon keyboard, but when mission control loses control of the spacecraft, it’s up to Mulaney’s character to tell the chimpanzee the bad news in words he can understand: “Beppo isn’t going home.” Beppo turns dark. Beppo is zero forever.” The video sketch takes some dark and absurd turns, includes a reference to “Hidden Figures” and ends triumphantly… sort of. Extra points for making Beppo, the doomed chimpanzee, look so realistic and cute.

Also tasty: Duane Reade milk is organ, not organic

Whenever Mulaney hosts “SNL,” there’s always a good chance he’ll bring back his musical tribute sketch that will take place in a Duane Reade at the Port Authority Bus Terminal. For this latest version, former cast member Pete Davidson returned, searching for a jug of milk that turns out to come from a family of possums (Thompson and Ego Nwodim), turning the bit into a “Lion King” song. 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, much more, but perhaps the highlight was Samberg’s return to perform “Baby Bear Carcass,” in harmony with the opening number of “Hamilton,” a reference to Robert F.’s bizarre Central Park story. Kennedy Jr. As the sketch shows, 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 that they’re ambitious.

Winner ‘Weekend Update’: Reba!

Hernandez and new cast member Jane Wickline played “a 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 do that indulge the show’s fascination with McEntire (why not have her host for once?), Gardner portrayed the singer as an undecided voter. ‘Call me Shawn Mendes because I’m still working on itshe said. Gardner’s flailing impression was accompanied by strange stories about McEntire’s hometown of McAlester, Oklahoma, where, “If you think the milk’s gone bad, give it another sip.” Even more disturbing: Reba says she is the daughter of a Republican mother and a father who was Pennywise the Clown from Stephen King’s “It.” “Mom had 59 jobs. Dad only had one: eat children.” Was this the most accurate Reba impression? It wasn’t. Was this the strangest thing? Absolute. Let’s have the real McEntire on the show to do another one of those mirror sketches.