After Pete Davidson’s bumpy personal year, including publicly working through his issues on several guest appearances on “Weekend Update,” concerned S.N.L. viewers would be forgiven if they braced for impact Saturday night as Davidson took his now-customary seat to the left of Colin Jost. Davidson was almost entirely cut from the last episode of S.N.L. after a disturbing social-media message left his fans, friends, and ex-fiancée, Ariana Grande, concerned for his health. But with a little help, Davidson’s return this week also happened to be his most successful and hilarious appearance all season.

Instead of issuing one of his customary confessional monologues, Davidson was joined by former S.N.L. writer John Mulaney for an entirely delightful segment riffing on the 2018 Clint Eastwood oddity The Mule, prompting more than one person on Twitter to suggest that these two should get a regular segment reviewing films. But S.N.L. fans unfamiliar with the particulars of Mulaney’s life might have been scratching their heads at this unlikely duo. Even Jost expressed (pre-written) astonishment that the two were hanging out at all—let alone performing bits together. But despite Mulaney’s straitlaced appearance, the Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse star has his own rocky history with mental health and substance abuse.

Mulaney mentioned on Saturday night that he wanted to show Davidson—who briefly left S.N.L. in 2017 to get sober—how to have some substance-free fun. Though Mulaney hasn’t made his past struggles with alcohol a central aspect of his comedy, he did have a lengthy bit in 2009’s The Top Part about getting blackout drunk and combining the prescription drug Ambien with daiquiris. According to that bit, Mulaney started drinking at the age of 13. In 2014’s New in Town, Mulaney acknowledged that he’s an unlikely poster boy for substance abuse: “I don’t drink. I used to drink, then I drank too much and I had to stop. That surprises a lot of audiences because I don’t look like someone who used to do anything.”

All that’s to say that as someone familiar with substance abuse, general anxiety, and the specific anxiety of work at S.N.L., Mulaney is uniquely qualified to help Davidson through this particular rough patch in his life. With Mulaney’s assistance, Davidson was able to deliver his first controversy-free “Weekend Update” appearance of the season after past monologues about both the personal and the political landed the already-struggling comedian in hot water with the viewing public last fall. And anyone who has heard Mulaney riff at length on Back to the Future or The Fugitive knows that this joyous little rant on The Mule has his fingerprints all over it.

In years past, Davidson’s humorous “Weekend Update” takes on deeply personal issues like his hard-won sobriety and mental health have been a hit with audiences. But the comedian’s 2018 affair with the glare of super-fame seemed to have put him in too vulnerable a position to deliver tightly controlled comedy on matters that were clearly weighing heavily on his mind.

Even with Mulaney by his side, Davidson came close to derailing his comeback with a quip about “publicly threatening suicide,” which caused Mulaney to visibly flinch. But Mulaney—literally holding onto Davidson at one point—quickly steered the ship right back to where it belonged on Saturday night: comedy. “I didn’t mention her once!” Davidson muttered in mock celebration of side-stepping the subject of Grande as the segment closed out. “We did it!” he and Mulaney said together.

The two-hander with Mulaney wasn’t Davidson’s only successful appearance of the night. He was also perfectly cast as a fireman with a juvenile sense of humor who cracked up in the background as host Rachel Brosnahan read out some awkward names in an earthquake sketch:

Divorced from the tumult of his relationship with Grande, Davidson is a welcome element of S.N.L. The comedian also just seems steadier and happier than he has in some time. We can only hope we see more of this version of Davidson (and, dare we hope, Mulaney?) in future episodes this season.