4/4/26: Jack Black | Jack White
Hey guys, just wanna say sorry once again for kind of disappearing for a while. Right after the Harry Styles episode, basically all of my free time was taken up with school, and I had almost zero time to watch or review any of the latest episodes of this season. But now I’m done with school and I have all of my free time back! So now my goal is to catch up with all of the rest of the episodes this season before the season finale with Will Ferrell.
NCAA Final Four Post Game Show
Nice to see a non-political cold open. This is only the SECOND cold open of the season that wasn’t political. The first was in the Sabrina Carpenter episode.
Nice to see Jeremy and Kam right out the gate. Both of their impressions are pretty fun.
Kenan’s Charles Barkley impression still isn’t very good, but he’s still fun.
JAJ: Bruce, any thoughts on the game?
Jeremy: Tons! …
Kenan’s messages to the camera aren’t funny unfortunately. I feel like they would work for me if this cold open didn’t have such a weirdly ho-hum feel, despite some funny individual moments.
Kenan’s message to the camera roasting Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem’s really didn’t work for me, and it felt very preachy.
Ashley as Pam Bondi randomly appearing was pretty funny.
Ashley: Happy to be here at the Final Four… years of this country.
Ashley’s crying as Pam Bondi isn’t working for me.
Despite some good individual moments, this cold open didn’t work for me, and it felt like it never really took off. It’s a shame.
Rating: **
Monologue
As expected, we’re getting a Five-Timers Club monologue.
Oh wow, Jonah Hill was the LAST person I expected to make a cameo in a Five-Timers Club monologue, especially with all the stuff he’s had going on these past few years.
Tina Fey: You’re officially the first Black in the Five-Timers Club.
I liked the SNL UK shoutout Tina made.
Candice Bergen!!!
Candice: A bitch can party!
Nice to see Melissa McCarthy back despite her disappointing episode earlier this season.
Ha, I did like the random Domingo appearance.
JACK WHITE!!! Nice to see him here, continuing the joke from Jack White’s last musical guest appearance.
Nice to see Jack singing a song, a tradition for his monologues.
Oh hell yeah! Jack’s singing a song to the Seven Nation Army riff!
It feels so good to see Jack with the Five-Timers jacket.
Jack Black: Stick around, and we’ll be right BLACK!!!
A fun monologue, despite not much being done with its “Five-Timers Club is rundown” concept.
Rating: ***
Kathy
I don’t think Jack’s ad-lib at the beginning about him being out of breath was necessary.
I like the camera angle with Ashley’s character being between Kenan and Jack, but at a table away from everyone else in the scene.
Ashley’s Kathy character is pretty funny so far.
Everyone's disdain for Kathy is really funny.
There’s not much to this really at all, but everyone is committed and I’m enjoying it so far.
Ashley’s repeating of “We talkin’ TV?” was really funny for a bit, but it’s honestly starting to numb my brain.
Yeah, this is really annoying me now, even the audience seems tired of the repeating of “We talkin’ TV?”
Rating: **½
Words To Live By
Ha, I like this concept with the inspirational words to live by being forgotten by JAJ.
JAJ’s frustrated singing after forgetting what his grandpa said is really funny.
They’re repeating the same joke with Jack, but it’s still funny.
Jack: What the f*ck did the wise man say???
I would complain that we don’t need Andrew’s section of this, but since I know where this is going, I’m not gonna complain.
HILARIOUS moment with Andrew yelling at his son for acting like he knows a cool saying, and that he only knows “the name of a couple Pokemon guys, and a sh*tty way to draw a dog”.
Another great moment with Jack White (making another fun sketch appearance) appearing to play a guitar solo, but forgetting it.
Rating: ****
Self-Defense Class
The setup for this sketch is very similar to the Dance Class sketch from the Ariana Grande episode.
Ha, Jack has a perfect look for this Self-Defense teacher.
Chloe: Melanie, 28, and I’d like to use my gun less.
Was Jack running at the camera an ad-lib? Marcello seemed thrown off by it, and you can loudly hear Chloe laughing off-screen.
Jack is fun in this sketch, and Marcello isn’t bad here, but their self defense demonstrations aren’t working for me.
Jack makes another apparent ad-lib(?) with him smacking Jeremy’s butt before he walks off. I think it was ad-libbed because Marcello starts stifling laughter once again.
Jack: I have fought an STD in my P N S!
This sketch is reminding me a LOT of the Dance Class sketch from the Ariana Grande episode. It has a loose energy that isn’t working, it feels very all over the place, and it isn’t fully coming together.
Okay, I did like Marcello’s self-defense against Kenan, with Kenan randomly singing “Amazing Grace”.
What’s with Ben’s awful lines? “This class is B, and in many ways, S!”
Yeah this was a mess. Thank god for Jack being fun (for the most part).
Rating: **
Husbands
I really like the first scene with all of the husbands not knowing how to talk to each other, and then they slowly but surely all start to sing.
All of the husbands singing continues to be very fun. JAJ, Andrew, and Tommy in particular are great here.
I like the reveal that Kenan doesn’t even know the song they’re singing.
Ha, I like the moment with Kenan throwing out a Playboy in exchange for a Powerful Women magazine.
I love the husbands ripping off their clothes to reveal jumpsuits they have on.
Chloe: Why are you in your underpants?
JAJ: I got excited and I pulled too hard.
Sarah and Chloe seem to have a hard time keeping it together for the rest of this.
Rating: ****
Weekend Update
Che, about Trump’s “Little Journey” comment: Because “Little Journeys” is all anyone can afford to take right now.
Che, with a photo of a smiling Hegseth: …seen here demoting a black general.
Che: Leave it to the black astronaut to catcall the entire planet.
In case you can’t tell already, Che is having a surprisingly strong night. Colin on the other hand is unsurprisingly forgettable here.
I hate to say it, but the dumb visual of Sarah as Kristi Noem’s husband with big fake boobs is pretty funny.
Sarah as Kristi Noem’s husband daring everyone to find something comical about his situation is really funny. This is the first Sarah Update commentary in a WHILE that worked for me (I think since the Michael Keaton episode last season). It also helps that Sarah is actually staying in character for most of this.
Hey, a cameo from Wally the Cue Card Guy!
Ashley as Krisit Noem: *cocks gun* Did someone say Puppies?
Kenan’s random appearance was SO stupid that it made me laugh.
I really feel like I shouldn’t like this, since it’s honestly SO stupid, but it’s making me laugh.
Blah, after Che has been having a strong showing, he makes another very lame and hacky joke about Women’s Basketball.
Colin, about Canada’s hot dog stuffed crust Pizza: Hey Canada, our culture is not your costume!
I loved Che’s “I am a fool…” ad-lib after his “Strong Glutes” joke.
I like this idea with Kam playing Professor Snape.
Snape: We got this new kid, Harry Potter, and he’s racist as HELL.
I like Kam as Black Snape’s accusations of Hogwarts’ racism.
Man, Colin is CRACKING UP during this, even more than he usually does.
Colin: Wow, I’m starting to think JK Rowling may be problematic.
A pretty short commentary to end Update on.
Rating: ***½
The 301 Spartans
Ha, I like the reveal of Jack as one of the spartans, after Andrew reveals one of the 301 spartans have to stay as the rest leave.
Jack as the overly cheery, and affable Spartan is pretty funny so far. This is the type of role he can sell.
Jack’s reassuring of the Spartans Andrew are picking is pretty funny (“That makes sense”)
I love the reveal that Andrew is picking between Jack and a little kid.
Andrew going on and on about why Jack wasn’t picked was pretty funny.
Andrew: Plus you keep talking about how you have a hard out at 5?
Jack: Dinner is what dinner is!
Very short, but good piece. It almost had an earlier era vibe with it’s brevity.
Rating: ***
Airbnb Superhost
Jane has had a lot of little roles throughout this episode, nice to see.
I like the weird vibe this has so far, with Jack saying he’s gonna leave and goes into a storage closet.
I’m liking Jack’s character work here, with him being (just like the previous sketch) overly affable. But also being pretty weird with him not leaving when he says he’s going to.
Nice to see Melissa make another appearance.
Ha, Melissa making the doorknob slippery is pretty funny.
The audience is pretty quiet for this, but I’m liking it so far.
This was decent for what it was, but you could tell they were really rushing since the show was running long. I know this since the goodnights were VERY short when this episode originally aired. They actually went to commercials before Jack was even done speaking (much like Jack’s 2003 episode).
Rating: ***
Thoughts
An okay episode overall. Noticeably uneven, but this episode had a fun vibe, and nothing stood out as flat-out bad (despite not much standing out as strong). Jack Black was pretty good this time around, but he gave what I would consider to be his weakest hosting performance. While he was utilized better than most of the hosts this season (and he did give some strong performances in a couple of sketches), it felt like all of his roles weren’t tailormade for him (unlike his fantastic episode from last season). There were also some weirdly loose moments where he would unnecessarily ad-lib something that didn’t add anything to the sketch, and it made him feel a bit disconnected from the proceedings.
Segments ranked Best to Worst
Husbands
Words To Live By
Weekend Update
The 301 Spartans
Monologue
Airbnb Superhost
Kathy
NCAA Final Four Post Game Show
Self-Defense Class
6.0/10
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