Amid a limited cast and crew episode, Paul Rudd, technically, hosted the SNL season finale. This comes after he was named "Sexiest Man Alive" of 2021, an annual tradition of sorts. But, as Kenan Thompson rightly pointed out, Rudd's fifth time, feels nothing short of "4 and a half" times. There was also a lack of live audience amidst the COVID-19 omicron variant, with a recent spike reported in the United States. However, despite being an unusual episode, Rudd still got to be one of the "five timers," a ceremonial position at SNL given to those only who have hosted the show five or more times.

Inaugurated into this ceremonial position, Rudd was congratulated by comedy legends and past SNL hosts like Tina Fey, Martin Short (who has actually only hosted three times), Steve Martin, and even Tom Hanks. Kenan Thompson, who made a quick quip about his fifth time not technically being full-time, presented his signature five times jacket. However, Rudd deserves all credit he gets and gets to enjoy that lovely jacket that many hosts crave, and gets to be inaugurated into a special division, enjoying almost legendary company, in terms of actors, actresses, and iconic comedians.

This, of course, comes after the virtually internet-breaking news that Paul Rudd was named the "Sexiest Man Alive" for 2021, a title previously held by names such as Idris Elba, The Rock, and Michael B. Jordan. Rudd has kept many eyes on him still, with details under wraps for his heavily anticipated Marvel sequel to Ant-Man And The Wasp, Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania which is confirmed to star Rudd, Evangeline Lily, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Johnathan Majors, as Marvel's supposed new big bad, Kang The Conquerer. Rudd also enjoys the title of being in some of the highest-grossing films of all time, being Avengers: Infinity War and of course, its record-breaking sequel, Avengers: Endgame.

This week's SNL was cut short to a mere compilation of season highlights and pre-taped sketches. Tom Hanks, while on his way to congratulate Rudd, revealed that the original plan was to have a big Christmas show, as SNL has done for the past few years. However, due to the sudden outbreak of the omicron variant, SNL did the logical thing to limit the number of people and thus the risk of contracting the virus, as the world tries to recover from the tragedies left by COVID, and to some extent, continues to do so today, as well.

With this serving as a season finale, many fans were left disappointed, yet were understanding of the haste of the situation on their part. Their wounds were deepened when Charli XCX announced on Twitter that she was not going to perform at SNL that week either, despite the schedule appearance of her doing so, citing "limited staff" as the reasoning, which is understandable, and in retrospect, inevitable. Now, fans await the upcoming season and hope that following this episode, changes due to COVID are kept to a minimum, and the situation improves.