Pete Davidson returns to SNL, smuggling in pal John Mulaney to trash Clint Eastwood's The Mule

The last time we saw Pete Davidson on Saturday Night Live, it was an understandably brief appearance, introducing musical guests Mark Ronson and Miley Cyrus. Understandable because, earlier that Saturday, an unsettling internet post from the publicly troubled Davidson had a lot of people worried for his safety. Well, 2019's a new year, and Davidson had plenty to do on last night’s Rachel Brosnahan-hosted SNL, which had fans and those concerned about a young man struggling with his mental health in one of the most high-pressure, high-visibility show business jobs there is feeling relieved. And, luckily for Davidson, and us, he brought along some very funny help.

Introduced for one of his frequent Weekend Update spots as himself by Colin Jost, Davidson at first shyly joked about having “a really crazy month,” before announcing solemnly that he wanted to talk about something “that matters a lot” to him—Clint Eastwood’s newest film The Mule. Puncturing the in-studio tension as that curveball did, Davidson wasn’t kidding, bringing along real-life pal and former SNL writer John Mulaney to rave about what they paired up to call “the greatest, weirdest, most bananas movie ever made about a 90-year-old drug mule.” (Tough competition there, certainly.) First joking about their unlikely friendship, the married and settled Mulaney claimed he was showing his younger chum that “you can have a life in comedy that is not insane.” To which Davidson joked that seeing Mulaney’s “sober, domestic life” made him “publicly threaten suicide.”

Onto The Mule, which the duo eagerly saw on opening day, and which Mulaney called easily of equal insanity to that time Eastwood “berated and empty chair” at the Republican convention. Calling the movie essentially “a superhero movie for old people,” in that Clint’s 90-year-old man can drive unsupervised, and can do any job better than a Mexican (even drug smuggling), Mulaney and Davidson also noted that Eastwood’s character (who, again, is 90) has not one but two threesomes in the course of the movie. (“And he directed it!,” beamed Mulaney, in gleeful bafflement.) Basically the whole five minutes was a delightfully funny break from a middling SNL, so howsabout having these two on Update to review a different bonkers blockbuster every week. Good for Pete, good for SNL—good for America.