Whatever it is, Buttigieg proved once more that he always shows up prepared. The night’s only awkwardness came courtesy of the coronavirus, which deprived the former South Bend, Ind., mayor and Democratic contender of a full studio audience. Instead he settled for a sparse but supportive gang of Kimmel staffers and a few guests, including his husband, Chasten. They gamely, if lamely, chanted “Boot! Edge! Edge!” a couple of times.

“When you don’t have a real audience, you have to fake one, just like Trump’s inauguration,” Buttigieg joked during his opening monologue — which was written, he reminded viewers, by Kimmel’s staff. (Kimmel is off taping episodes of a coming revival of the game show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” which, Buttigieg quipped, “Michael Bloomberg won 56,000 times in a row.”)

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Buttigieg talked some about the coronavirus pandemic and how it’s reshaping American economic and social life, urging viewers to call their congressional representatives and ask them to take action on virus testing and paid emergency leave. America, he said, will always be America — what better proof, he said, than a clip from Wednesday’s episode of “The Masked Singer,” in which Sarah Palin rousingly performed the 1990s rap hit “Baby Got Back.”

“That’s gonna be me in three months, isn’t it?” Buttigieg said.

He made some more jokes about politics — nothing too saucy. “I really thought we had a shot. Turns out I was 40 years too young and 38 years too gay,” he said of his run for the nomination, but he’s glad he could offer inspiration to any children hoping that “one day, I too can run for president while dressed like the manager of a CarMax.”

A prerecorded segment made light of Buttigieg’s search for his next gig, as he walked along Hollywood Boulevard asking for job applications at a pizzeria and a souvenir shop. At Wetzel’s Pretzels, a skeptical manager named Debbie gave him a shot handing out free pretzel samples, even though Buttigieg couldn’t name the store’s five dipping sauces and failed to properly braid the dough. (This is what’s hard for Buttigieg — pretending to be bad at something.)

Unsurprisingly, Buttigieg is an attentive interviewer — showing himself in one night to be a better listener and banter-maker, I’d wager, than NBC’s Jimmy Fallon has ever been. Of course, the show picked a dream guest for Buttigieg, the lifelong nerd: Sir Patrick Stewart, currently reprising his role as Capt. Jean-Luc Picard in CBS All Access’s “Star Trek: Picard.”

The host respectfully fawned over Stewart, who presented him with a signed, original episode script from “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” After a commercial break, the two faced off in a Trek trivia battle (called “Who’s the Captain Now?), hosted by “Next Generation” alum LeVar Burton. (Stewart won, barely.)

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Buttigieg’s ease with the rhythm of a talk show was even more apparent during a short, cheerful interview with Tony Hale, the Emmy-winning actor who played Gary, the pathetic presidential bag man, on HBO’s “Veep.” Buttigieg gave some insight into what it’s like to be the person who needs a bag man. That conversation would have been even more interesting if it could have been longer.

Returning from one of the show’s commercial breaks, Buttigieg jammed on keyboards with the show’s band on a rendition of “The Way We Get By” by the indie rock band Spoon. That choice seemed very Buttigieg, just a whiff of the cool.

Though the late-night gig doesn’t matter as much now that his campaign is over, something about Buttigieg remains fascinating, if blandly so. Bland is part of the appeal — that constant yet authentic attempt to loosen up while admitting one’s preternatural stiffness.