Any way to use MySQL or Python from a mashup?

Greetings. I've done my share of TP mashups, but I now need to access an external SQL DB from my mashup.

Ideally I'd love to call functions I've implemented in a Python script, but I don't see a way to call python from a mashup.

My second best approach would be to execute my SQL queries directly from my mashup JS, but it's not clear if that can be done either.

If all else fails I think I'll need to use a REST API into the SQL server, but that would only be a last resort.

Any advice/guidance would be appreciated.

Thanks