Who is Hosting Saturday Night Live Tonight: June 19, 2021

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Saturday Night Live is off tonight, but we’re getting a promising young rerun hosted by Academy Award nominee Carey Mulligan!

As far as repeats go, tonight’s encore presentation of Saturday Night Live is still an infant. It’s only 10 weeks old since it originally aired on April 10, 2021. It’s hosted by the Oscar and Golden Globe nominated actor from foggy London town, Carey Mulligan.

Carey Mulligan is a drama specialist who is going for comedy on tonight’s episode of SNL. Her two Oscar nominations were for “An Education” (2009) and more recently “Promising Young Woman” from last year which earned her a second Oscar nod. Both those roles also earned Carey Mulligan two Golden Globe nominations for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role as well.

More importantly, her performance as the revenge-driven anti-hero in “Promising Young Woman” secured Carey a spot on the SNL – Season 46 schedule as a host. The Oscar winning film (Best Original Screenplay for screenwriter Emerald Fennell) was billed as a dark comedy thriller, but it had significantly serious content attached to it. The same thing could be said for how tonight’s SNL rerun opens the show.

Saturday Night Live dares to tread on very sensitive subject matter this evening with an SNL Cold Open sketch about the trial of former Minneapolis police officer (& current inmate) Derek Chauvin. We’re hoping you don’t need a reminder of who Derek Chauvin is, but here’s one anyway. He’s the man who abused his authority and public trust and murdered George Floyd on Chicago Avenue at 38th Street in Minneapolis. So, you can see why this is risky business for SNL to build comedy around.

The verdict in the trial wouldn’t come for another 10 days after this episode of Saturday Night Live aired on April 10, 2021. No one took what the decision of the jury would be for granted, even though the outcome seemed obvious. That’s the same feeling that the Saturday Night Live writers captured and added comedy to in the opener. This SNL repeat opens right in the middle of the trial while emotions were running high.

Saturday Night Live‘s cold open begins with a news show sketch featuring a local Minnesota TV broadcast with four political pundits at the news desk played by cast members Kenan Thompson, Ego Nwodim, Alex Moffat and Kate McKinnon. With two black newscasters and two white newscasters in the sketch, you can see how this is going to go. While Kate and Alex’s characters are convinced that there is no way that Derek Chauvin is found not guilty and avoids punishment, Kenan and Ego’s characters are more skeptical. A lot more.

Staying topical and mining the headlines for punchlines is what SNL is known for, and has been for the past 4 1/2 decades. The writers and cast do it again in tonight’s cold open and somehow also work in the deaths of DMX and England’s Prince Philip in the same sketch while drawing laughs from the studio audience. They pull it off as usual this evening. Even if the laughs are nervous laughter.

The monologue segment is standard fare for SNL. Carey Mulligan introduces herself to the country for anyone who doesn’t already know her work. According to Carey, she has to introduce herself because she’s constantly being confused with Michelle Williams. She also explains what she did all during the pandemic quarantine and how she passed the time while not doing any film work.

She’s interrupted during her monologue and oddly enough, it’s not by an SNL cast member. It’s her rock star husband Marcus Mumford, the lead singer of Mumford & Sons as you can see in the above photo. He arrives with his guitar handy and with his own SNL experience. Marcus Mumford is a 3-time musical guest on Saturday Night Live and he’s trying to make it 4 times. Unfortunately for Mumford and his sons, Kid Cudi is already booked as musical guest on this rerun.

A pleasant surprise during tonight’s monologue run-in is that Marcus Mumford has that great British comedy timing. A very droll old chap indeed. He looks very comfortable on stage doing comedy and he’s definitely what the Brits would consider “cheeky.” Mumford really should host some Saturday night. He’d be a natural.

This evening’s Saturday Night Live contains two stand-out moments of comedy. One is a sketch and one is a Weekend Update appearance. While the entire episode is pretty good tonight, these two bits are wildly funny and unconventionally creative character work. And that’s really what you hope for when watching Saturday Night Live.

First, there’s cast member Kate McKinnon (of course) who is once again doing some gender-bending as she plays a middle school student named Josh in a sketch called “Study Buddy.” Josh is a geeky kid who considers himself much more sophisticated than he really is, but in an adorable way.

When Josh finds himself alone in the bedroom of his “study buddy” from school (Carey Mulligan), he’s not sure what to do. So, he calls his equally awkward and nerdy best friend Jason who also considers himself quite worldly. Jason is played brilliantly by cast member Aidy Bryant (of course again) who has trouble getting through the sketch without breaking as does Carey Mulligan. Hopefully, we’ll see these characters again soon on Saturday Night Live.

The next stand-out moment happens during tonight’s repeat edition of Weekend Update where we get thee best Weekend Update guest of SNL – Season 46. Featured player Bowen Yang secures his future as a Saturday Night Live cast member by appearing on WU as “The Iceberg that Sunk the Titanic.”

The Iceberg is talking to Colin Jost about the anniversary of the world’s most famous ship wreck while giving his side of the story of how the colossal luxury liner known as the “Unsinkable Ship” went down in the frigid North Atlantic Ocean. In true crime fashion, the Iceberg tells the world who’s the real bad guy in the story of the Titanic. The interview turns into a journalistic hit job by Colin Jost. Especially when all the Iceberg wanted to do was plug his album. It’s definitely one of the best performances of the entire season.

As for the rest of this SNL repeat, the first post-monologue sketch is a recurring one that always works. It’s the game show sketch, “What’s Wrong With This Picture?” with Kenan Thompson returning as the exasperated and frustrated host, Elliot Pants. The contestants are made up of our host Carey Mulligan and cast members Chris Redd and Aidy Bryant who always kills in this sketch. There’s a reason why SNL keeps bringing back this sketch. It’s funny.

Also tonight, you’ll also see your host Carey Mulligan in a sci-fi sketch similar to “Star Trek” where she plays an overly-emotional starship crew member constantly on the edge of a sobbing meltdown with cast member Mikey Day as her very supportive bestie. Plus, since this evening’s host is English, that means the return of another recurring sketch, “War in Words.” This time, Mikey Day plays a sailor writing his wife while he’s stationed on a ship during WWII. Correspondence isn’t easy during wartime.

Finally this evening, Carey Mulligan and Aidy Bryant, play a reps from L’eggs, the hosiery and pantyhose that were a hit starting in the 1970s through the ’90s with their egg-shaped plastic containers. Carey and Aidy infiltrate a high school by impersonating students (poorly) to recruit some teenagers for the company. Odd? Sure. But what do you expect? It’s the last sketch of the night.

In the first SNL Short we get this evening, Saturday Night Live goes lowest common denominator with a parody commercial for “Tremfalta“, a fictional medicine for IBS. The mother in this spot didn’t want to miss her son’s recital, even if it means destroying the school bathroom with her intestinal disorder. “Tremfalta”. It puts the irritable in Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

Musical guest Kid Cudi joins cast members Chris Redd and Pete Davidson for…you guessed it. A hip-hop music video for the second SNL Short of the night. The song is called “Weird Little Flute” and they’re right; this short is weird. One bright spot in this short is the guest appearance by a dreamy Timothée Chalamet.

A third short tonight is a movie parody spot for the film tragedy titled “Lesbian Period Drama“. It’s a period piece that throws every cliché involving a forbidden love three centuries ago between two women all into one movie. It’s “a film that isn’t afraid to ask, ‘will these lesbians be lesbians together’?”. And it stars “two straight actresses who dared not to wear makeup.” It’s every lesbian movie that takes place in 1840 all at once.

For the second week in a row, Weekend Update laser-focuses their comedy on its new favorite target since Trump left town, Matt Gaetz. He’s the Florida Congressman who’s been accused of having an inappropriate relationship with an under-age girl. The latest Gaetz update from Weekend Update was that the not-so-slick Representative reportedly had a Venmo fund that he was using to pay an alleged sex trafficker who in turn, paid three young women in disbursements marked “tuition.” Jost says this would make Gaetz, “the only Congressman actually helping with student loans.”

Michael Che aimed his opening comments at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who was denouncing corporations that were boycotting the state of Georgia over its new restrictive voting laws. Che added that former President Trump was calling for a boycott of Coca-Cola for its stance against the suppressive laws. To which Michael Che replies, “I would have guessed Don Jr. would have the problem with coke” while showing a photo of a wide-eyed and wired former First Son.

Jost & Che comment on other news stories as well tonight including build-your-own gun kits, the CDC’s confusing Covid guidelines, California’s new reopening plan for the state, Dick’s Sporting Goods new stores, Taylor Swift re-recording her album “Fearless“, Tyler Perry’s new “Madea” origin TV series, the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast, singer and producer will.i.am developing a new protective mask, Starbucks’ “Borrow a Cup” promotion, and a naked Texas woman breaking into a home.

The first guests stopping by Weekend Update tonight are President Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen. Actually it’s cast members Chris Redd and Beck Bennett as Barry and the Boss who are on WU to talk about their Spotify podcast “Renegades.” Tonight, they’re showing off their chemistry and riffing skills to show how unpredictably zany their podcast can be.

Michael Che introduces the next guest seated beside him as a stripper named “Pineapple” who was at the wild post-game party that got ESPN NBA analyst Paul Pierce fired from the sports network after he posted video of it on Instagram.

Pineapple is played by featured player Punkie Johnson who gets a shot as an Update character. Pineapple wants to know if it’s against ESPN’s rules to “love big asses”!? Che then has to tip her to get more information. She also tries to turn the Weekend Update news desk into a dance floor. It’s an admirable job by Punkie by another featured player. And also be sure to stick around through Weekend Update for Bowen Yang’s Iceberg which we mentioned earlier.

Unfortunately, the huge laughs Bowen gets tonight from the studio audience were immediately followed by a very somber SNL moment. Saturday Night Live went to its commercial break after Weekend Update by showing a still-frame photo of the amazing Anne Beatts who had passed away earlier that week at age 74.

Anne Beatts was a brilliant comedy writer who worked for National Lampoon comedy magazine. She once said she was the “first woman they let in the door.” Anne worked at the Village Voice as well during her career. In 1975, she became part of the original writing staff for a new late night comedy variety show at NBC called “Saturday Night Live.”

She was influential in making the show a hit in its infancy despite bumping heads with cast member John Belushi. Anne created the “Nerds” sketch with Lisa Loopner (Gilda Radner) and her boyfriend Todd DiLaMuca (Bill Murray) as well “Fred Garvin: Male Prostitute” played by Dan Aykroyd along with many more early SNL moments.

Another claim to fame for Anne Beatts was the CBS sitcom she created, “Square Pegs” (1982) starring Sarah Jessica Parker. Anne was always an advocate for women writers in television and hired an almost all-female staff to write “Square Pegs“, giving breaks to women that wouldn’t have had them at that time. Later in her career, Anne taught sketch comedy writing at the University of Southern California. She was nominated for 5 Primetime Emmy Awards for her writing on SNL and brought home the trophy in 1976.

Very late in the show, Saturday Night Live also pays its respects to the award winning rapper, songwriter and actor DMX who also passed away the same week back in April. He was a Billboard Music award winner and an American Music Award winner for Favorite Rap Artist. DMX also appeared in films like “Romeo Must Die” and “Cradle 2 the Grave” with Jet Li. He was the Saturday Night Live musical guest back in 2000 during SNL – Season 25 in an episode hosted by Julianna Margulies.

In preparation for this episode of SNL re-airing tonight, host Carey Mulligan recorded some promos for the show. If you scroll down, they’re available just below. In the promos, Carey is joined by Kid Cudi and “Adult” Kenan Thompson who gives the host a cute little baby name. Also, we learn that Carey can turn on her dramatic acting skills whenever necessary. Plus, you’ll see how hard it is to fill 5 seconds of a television promo.

Two-time Academy Award nominee Carey Mulligan hosts a Saturday Night Live replay this evening with musical guest Kid Cudi who performs in a dress for this show from April. Too bad it didn’t take place during Pride month. Then it really would have killed. Tonight’s SNL repeat begins at 11:30pm et on NBC.

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Ernie Tripper
Ernie Tripper