Pedro Pascal recently made his highly-anticipated Saturday Night Live debut, and he didn’t disappoint.
After a wholesome opening monologue thanking his family in Chile, Pascal took part in a humourous skit inspired by his hit new HBO show, The Last of Us. The idea behind it was that HBO saw the success of the PlayStation video game adaptation and wanted to give the same treatment to Mario. And when we say “same,” we mean it — a dark, grounded take on the beloved Nintendo platformer series.
HBO’s adapting another iconic game pic.twitter.com/YtsIswwSBb
— Saturday Night Live – SNL (@nbcsnl) February 5, 2023
That’s where Pascal comes in, wearing the iconic plumber’s signature red-and-blue outfit but keeping the rugged weariness of his The Last of Us character, Joel. Like Joel, Pascal’s Mario has to escort a young girl (in this case, Princess Peach) on a dangerous journey across a ravaged world. Naturally, he uses a (Mario) kart to do so.
On a base level, it’s certainly amusing to see Nintendo’s family-friendly series reimagined in such a gritty way. But beyond that, it’s just fun to see the ever-charming Pascal ham it up as the mustachioed hero. SNL also gave us a video of Pascal dancing with the deadly Clicker creature from The Last of Us, which was incredible in and of itself.
The Last of Us is now streaming on Crave in Canada. The upcoming fifth episode of the series will premiere on the service two days early due to the Super Bowl.
Image credit: NBC
Source: @nbcsnl
