Carey Mulligan/Kid Cudi (4.10.2021)

Okay, here's my review. Carey Mulligan was certainly a strong host who elevated a lot of the material she was given. Unfortunately, you couldn't tell from how little she was used but you could get a sense from how many rehashed and repeated premises they used her in. I wouldn't mind seeing her host again some day with better material. The cast seemed a little unbalanced this week. No Cecily or Melissa. Lauren seemed to only be in one pretape all night. Mikey, Chris, Kate and Aidy seemed to dominate the show with everyone else seemingly used very sparingly. Anyway, let's break it down.

Eye On Minnesota - I guess we're back to the low key style of barely topical cold open that started out this half of the season, huh? As soon as this sketch started, I was expecting something similar to the local news sketch from last seasons' Phoebe Waller-Bridge episode that was such a hit. What we ended up getting was more resembled a direct cross between the cold open from last season's ScarJo episode and the "Inside The Beltway" sketch from Woodys' last episode but with Trumps' impeachment taken out as the jumping off point and replaced with the discourse surrounding this weeks' Derek Chauvin trial. It's no surprise to me that Che co-wrote this. Thankfully, the rapid fire energy this had (which made it perfect for the cold open, by the way) counteracted the lack of focus Che's sketch writing tends to have that brings things down. The Prince/DMX ending was allright but while Chris made this for me, I didn't really care much for his last line. I was gonna say this felt like it wasn't supposed to be the cold open in dress but knowing what a slow news week this actually was and how they would've had to dig deep for something topical. C+

Monologue - Careys' deadpan really made this for me. She pulled off standup comedy well and really elevated some of the weaker jokes. I should've expected a cameo from Marcus Mumford but his part kinda went on too long for me and killed some of the momentum his wife had been building up to that point. C+

What's Wrong With This Picture IV? - I usually like these but I didn't need to see it a fourth time (even if the show thought the one they did during the "at home" shows from last season didn't count). This was fine but Chris bring placed into what used to be Pete's role (and having all the best lines) and Careys' delivery (and at one point non-delivery when the camera was supposed to be on Aidy) were the only parts of this that stood out to me. C+

Tremfalta - Yeah, bathroom humor only works for me when Kenan is there to react to it. Funny how they aired this right after they aired the Emma Stone/BTS episode where Kenan pretty much did the exact same thing in that Ladies Room sketch. Thankfully, this was shorter than this. D+

Study Buddies - This feels like Kate and Aidy doing a type of character we haven't seen from them before with voices we've heard from them both as other characters before. Carey seems like she was a little miscast in a role a slightly younger female host would've made work just as easily. I found this a lot more watchable than a lot of Kate and Aidy two-handers from the past few seasons but I couldn't quite get as into it. I still haven't decided whether it hits too close to or too far from home for me. C+

Weird Little Flutes - Given Pete and Kid Cudis' close friendship, I suppose it was inevitable that we'd see them in a pretaped rap video together. I wasn't crazy about this at first, but I got more into it as it went along with the green screens (especially how outlandish it looked trying to pull off Chris' Airport scene) and the reveal that they were just in a music store the entire time was the perfect ending for me. The only thing I didn't care for was Chalamets' unnecessary cameo. I guess what got me more and more into this was how early the realization that this just applied the same concept behind Ferrell and Walkens' famous Blue Oyster Cult Cowbell sketch to hip-hop instead of prog-rock (emphasizing and heavily focusing on an unusual instrument that normally wouldn't belong in its' respective genre). B-

Update was quite fun this week. Jost and Che had a lot of successful jokes on a wider variety of topics than what we got recently. Ches' Will.I.Am joke in particular worked for me. A lot of Josts' Matt Gaetz jokes weren't as great as last week's but his riff on Gaetzs' actual speech was great. I never expected Chris and Beck to play Obama and Springsteen on the show and I gotta say, they each did those impressions much better than I thought they would've. Unfortunately, it seemed like they counted on the audience evaluating the impressions long enough not to notice how thin the material was. Nice to see Punkie finally get a solo breakout Update piece that also explains the Paul Pierce story that Chris' weatherman character referenced in the cold open. She turned in a great performance even if most of the material that actually WAS there was a bit lost in me. Bowen as the Titanic Iceberg was just silly enough to work for me. There were definitely shades of Samberg-as-Cathy there mixed in with what if I had to venture a guess was probably just whatever "Real Housewives" reunion interview segment that inspired Bowen to write this? B+

Starchaser Andromnea - At times, this felt like it put more energy into parodying specific Star Trek tropes than it did on the characters played by Mikey, Carey and Chloe who were obviously the focus of this. In fact, more than anything this reminded me of a couple of sketches from way back in 2015 that specifically made fun of whiny, privileged "millenials" (the ones from the episodes host by Dakota Johnson and Miley Cyrus that year specifically) which made me wonder if this was just another repurposed late season 41/early season 42 Day/Seidell script they resubmitted? As much as I liked the ending of the Mikey/Carey/Chloe characters just being shot out into space, it did make the ending feel a little rushed and hastily edited. C-

Lesbian Period Drama - I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that this was written by some combination of Bowen Yang, Anna Drezen, Fran Gillespie and/or Sudi Green. It was a niche genre parody in the same vein as Drezens' "Space Mistakes" and various pageant sketches but one with the specificity and pointed references of Yangs' "Cheques" and "The Actress" (also shown an hour earlier in the evening during the Emma Stone/BTS vintage rerun, incidentally). While the references were so specific, I couldn't tell which, well...ACTUAL Lesbian Period Drama(s) this was based on I could appreciate just how much though and effort went into dissecting this genre. I do like how they worked in Kate in the least obvious and yet still most "third wheel" way they could. C+

War In Words III - I suppose I should've expected this, huh? I mean, distinguished British female host...comes with the territory and all. Unfortunately, not much stood out to me here either from the previous installments and this might have been the weakest one so far. D+

Beat Buddies - This sketch was okay. I wanted to get into this more but it seemed rushed to the point where it got ahead of itself and tripped on it's own sagging pantyhose to get where it was going. Once it caught it's own breath, I could appreciate how detailed and niche they tried to get with it but it felt like they didn't realize how what a long walk this was supposed be. C-

Now, for my updated rankings for this season…

1. Timothee Chalamet/Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band (12.12.2020)
2. Regé-Jean Page/Bad Bunny (2.20.2021)
3. Issa Rae/Justin Beiber (10.17.20)
4. John Mulaney/The Strokes (10.31.20)
5. Kristen Wiig/Dua Lipa (12.19.2020)
6. Dave Chappelle/Foo Fighters (11.7.2020)
7. Regina King/Nathaniel Rateliff (2.13.2021)
8. Daniel Kaluuya/St. Vincent (4.3.2021)
9. Maya Rudolph/Jack Harlow (3.27.2021)
10. Carey Mulligan/Kid Cudi (4.10.2021)
11. Dan Levy/Phoebe Bridgers (2.6.2021)
12. Nick Jonas (2.27.2021)
13. John Krasinski/Machine Gun Kelly (1.30.2021)
14. Chris Rock/Megan Thee Stallion (10.3.20)
15. Adele/H.E.R. (10.24.20)
16. Jason Bateman/Morgan Wallen (12.5.20)
17. Bill Burr/Jack White (10.10.20)

Well, that was certainly below what I was expecting. I've been told the show is returning live on May 8th but the show itself is unable to reveal any May hosts at the time of this writing so it will certainly be interesting to see who they get. See you then!