Elon Musk/Miley Cyrus (5.8.2021)

Okay, here's my review. Given the absurdly long litany of controversies and valid criticisms against this weeks host, there's only been one specific past episode of SNL, I've had lower expectations for than this. Thankfully, Elon Musk is legally prevented from becoming President Of The United States (for now) and he seemed to actually WANT to be on the show for more than just the camera time and free publicity. Say what you will about Musk himself or the shows' decision to invite him on as host, he definitely came across as someone who was having fun checking another item off of his bucket list throughout the whole show. Musks' level of "acting" was about what you'd expect from him if you happen to have seen any of his other TV or film cameos but he seemed like he was having a great time doing it (unlike their last controversial hosting choice who would go on to become the leader of the free world). Since Musk was announced as host I was expecting him to be used as little as possible outside of the monologue with Miley Cyrus essentially serving as backup host. Then this morning I remembered how when Donald Trump (the last host to generate as much controversy as Musk did) hosted in 2015 someone actually crunched the numbers and determined that he only had 12 total minutes of screentime throughout the entire show because it was determined that was the most they COULD give him without having to give equal time to the other 2016 GOP candidates. Then, I'd heard he'd be "heavily involved" in the show and remembered Musk isn't currently running for anything at all so the "equal time" rule wouldn't apply to him. Thankfully, my fears of Musk being used the typical way most hosts with any modicum of acting or entertainment experience seemed to be mostly unfounded. Musk seemed to be a genuine fan of the show (which surprises me given how much he plays to a crowd on Twitter that looks down their collective nose at present day SNL) and let that enthusiasm show. To their credit, the writers seemed to actually cater to him (at the expense of, y'know...dragging the entire show down to his and his stans' level and everything) and make him feel welcome by putting him in roles and sketches that fit his distinct performance style like a glove so he didn't stand out too much as an awkward host. In return, he paid back the favor by showing SNL he had enough of a sense of humor about himself and his image to not just force them to turn this weeks' show into a 90 minute SpaceX/Tesla/Dogecoin infomercial. Sure, they had to reconfigure the entire structure of the show around one specific host again but at least this time the host wasn't actively working against them so hard that they created a black hole like Trump and Beiber did. It didn't hurt that he had some fans AT the show on his side either (speaking of which, they also made better use of every single member of this cast than I thought they would). Not everything they did totally worked but it made for a much more watchable show than I was expecting. Putting everything about Musk aside, this episode came off less like the cynical ploy for ratings and publicity from both sides it seemed like it was going to be on paper once you actually watch it and process what you're seeing a bit. Those tuning in for a fascinating slow-motion trainwreck or to just see Musk take on his Twitter troll persona and "own the libs" or whatever must have been sorely disappointed since we just ended up getting the wildly uneven episode modern SNL viewers are used to seeing quite frequently but with a more questionable choice of host. Don't get me wrong, this episode didn't do a whole lot to humanize Elon Musk for me or change my view of him as a person. I still know far too much about him and the things he's done to not have some issues with him or not let him totally get in the way of my enjoyment of the show. I'm just saying I was expecting as little as I possibly could and the show and it's audience just got a little lucky this week for expecting the worst and bring pleasantly surprises by the shows' bare minimum of competence. Anyway, there's still a lot to break down here, so let's not waste anymore time and get right down to it.

Mother's Day 2021 - Well, it was smart of SNL to open this particular show with a redux of the cold open from Amy Schumers' last episode (the only part of that episode that I actually remember enjoying, quite frankly) but with Miley Cyrus singing and the moms of each cast member the show hired since season 43 (who wasn't already a writer on the show in Spring 2018). I particularly liked the segments with Kate, Heidi, Ego, Melissa, Mikey, Beck and Colins' moms (although the latter is something I wish they could've taken further). Good to see Kenan finally acknowledge his penchant for reaction shots. Even better to see Aidys' decision that the chance to plug the final season of "Shrill" on hulu alongside her own mom was enough to convince her not to go low key Nora Dunn on us and sit out the show this week. Cecilys' mom was the best sentimental way they could've ended it and at least inject some warmth and heart into the show before this week's host came out. B-

Muskologue - I should've expected the monologue to be this full of statements (well, I hesitate to call most of those "jokes") meant to (almost literally) humanize Musk and make him seem relatable to SNLs' audience. I REALLY wasn't expecting Musk to go as far as admitting his Aspergers' diagnosis for the first time on television, though. I mean, that doesn't exactly make me think of him any differently but I certainly don't want to disparage Elon *just* for being on the spectrum, don’t get me wrong. Still, it certainly does explain A. LOT. about him to me, though (and yeah, given how this show works Lorne would probably *prefer* you and the cast make eye contact with the cue cards than each other). Aside from his "chill normal dude" and "smoking weed on podcasts" jokes, they were pretty cringe (and not to be "that guy", O.J. hosted in '78, not '79 and *certainly* not in '96). Bringing his real life mother on was a nice break from Elons' delivery, but didn't do HIM any favors for me. Overall, this monologue was less stiff but still more stilted than I was expecting and even the two lines of his I kind of liked I could barely bring myself to laugh at. C-

GenZ Hospital - Yeah, I had to REALLY dig deep to find ANY redeeming value in this that made it remotely watchable. The funniest thing I could find about this sketch was how it seemed like a failed pitch that they realized they could finally get on the air this week of all weeks because this host needs SOMETHING that doesn't make him stick out like a sore thumb acting-wise. It's like everyone involved in this sketch deliberately did their own impressions of Musks' line readings without him even realizing it. Still, them doing this made the sketch borderline incoherent to the point where it was just white noise to anyone under 25. Other than that, I just kept waiting for Miley to make a walk on given how strongly this sketch reminded me of "The Millenials" from her last hosting stint. Speaking of which, it just occurred to me how naive it was of me to expect a sketch that portrays stereotypical young people as whiny bitches who criticize Musk just for being the ultimate troll he views himself as since this depicted him as the hip youngster he *really* views himself as (and subtly exposed him to be the walking, living, breathing Steve Buscemi "how do you do, fellow kids" GIF he *actually* seems to be at the expense of possibly doing the same for Kate, Mikey and Heidi whether intentionally or not). C-

Every Conversation Post Quarrantine - Now, this got off to a promising start. It wasn't the most relatable "Covid winding down" thing they could've wrote to me but I mostly liked the execution of it (well, I liked the Kate/Beck and Chris/Ego parts along with Andrew's closing line anyway). It was just too bad Heidi and Elon had to kill the momentum of this but at least it was smart of them to stick Musk into something where his character was *intentionally* awkward. C+

The Ooli Show - While I was glad Chloe finally got to debut her big non-impression character in a live sketch, it made me realize that this character really only works in pretapes. It was even more incoherent than "GenZ Hospital" to the point where I barely noticed Chloe got the word "tit" on the air twice in a row. Plus, this was the second segment in a row with characters were implied to be narrowly avoiding incest which was a little off-putting and the timing wasn't great as certain things have come out about Chloes' past that have made her almost as divisive of a figure as Musk. Speaking of, this sketch made better use of him given that everyone has similar accents to him in it. Still, I feel like they could've given him even fewer lines. Honestly, this sketch was really only worth to see how the cast impersonations were utilized. I liked seeing Kate's Frances MacDormand again. That was a fun impression from her. I know people seem to see a strong resemblance between Pete and Steve Buscemi but Pete in that role made me wonder why Melissa wasn't used in that role until I saw she was playing Bjork (which was honestly a better use of her than Steve Buscemi would've been). C-

Murdur Durdur - As a fan of Kroll Shows' "Pawnsylvania" sketches and those "Pittsburgh Dad" videos on YouTube, I REALLY wanted to like this more than I did but it just seemed like nothing more than the only three Pennsylvania centric jokes they could've come up with (without Tina Fey or Christine Nangle as guests writers that week apparently) beaten deep into the cold, cold ground. This didn't have even a shred of the lived in, written and performed by authentic born and raised Pennsylvanians element that really sold "Pawnsylvania" and Pittsburgh Dad for me and just left me dreading the potential online discourse of Kroll Show/Pittsburgh Dad fans baselessly accusing the show if plagiarism just to get that "SNL hater" clout. Plus, they just had to shoehorn Musk into a sketch where he REALLY didn't belong. C-

Update was a REAL Rollercoaster this week but there was fun to be had here. Once we got past Josts' brown-nosy Musk rocket joke, he and Che really hit those Bezos Rocket/Trump blog/Florida/Evangelical vaccine/underage golf/L.A. Harvey jokes out if the park before getting a few "meh" at best jokes out of the way. I'm glad Ego finally got her weary Disneyland mom commentary from her first season on the air because it was genuinely the funniest moment of the whole show for me (even the whole unexpected Viola Davis/Tyler Perry vibe of it) and kudos to Ego for one upping Chloe by getting "pushy" on the air. I wasn't exactly looking forward to a potential Elon commentary (especially once it seemed like it was going to be a blatant on-air Dogecoin infomercial) but once he had to keep finding new ways to answer Jost & Che's pressing question of "what IS Dogecoin?" until they just got him to flat out admit "it's a hustle" I was actually glad this got on the air. A lot of people online have been saying that the only way to justify having Musk actually host would be to write some sketches that viciously skewer him right under his nose and if this isn't what that segment of Twitter was asking for, it's as close as they're gonna get. I really don't think we needed to see Baby Yoda again (especially not as a newly jacked MMA enthusiast) but I do appreciate them adding something new to this character. Maybe they're trying to bring Baby Yoda to his logical conclusion if Kyle turns out to be leaving? B-

Mario Kart Trial - This sketch was a rollercoaster, too. For one thing, I do have to admit this was Elons' strongest live performance of the night. He really made the Walugi accent work for him. He seemed so in his comfort zone here I'm willing to bet money he cowrote this with Mikey Day and/or Streeter Seidell. Hey, if this is *was* actually one of Elons' own sketch ideas he pitched to the show I'd say we really dodged a bullet by getting this on the air instead of "Irony Man" or "Woke James Bond" or "Baby Shark Tank". Still, the strongest thing about this was Elon and the rest of the casts' strong commitment to this premise (much like the similar Jurassic Park trial sketch from the Donald Glover/Childish Gambino episode which was actually stronger than this one for a few reasons). The weakest parts of this were the all Toad jury and the reading of the Wario Wiki page. The ending with the sexts followed by Pete bringing back his Gov. Cuomo alongside Kenans' Mario was the best possible note to end this on. When Pete first walked out I thought he genuinely missed a cue until I realized he was probably taking a second to keep himself from breaking so he could get his lines out. Other than that, the only other part of this that really grabbed me was Princess Peach since I was trying to figure out if she was being played by Chloe or Grimes. The nose prosthetic and the voice gave me zero hints but the hands and Grimes' promise on Instagram of her "acting debut" on Instagram (which I would NOT have seen if it weren't for a certain Twitter mutual of mine, you know who you are) were a dead giveaway that it was her. Speaking of which, did anyone else get any flashbacks to around the time it first became public that Grimes and Musk were an actual couple a few years ago when there was an actual "Italian Elon Musk" joke Twitter account that got suspended and then a new "French Elon Musk" joke Twitter account popped up? C+

Mars Needs Chad - I was worried that *this* would be the sketch meant to stroke Elons' Ego Trump 2015 style until it became obvious this was the Chad pretape we were promised. Honestly, this wasn't my favorite "Chad" outing but I did like the Miley scene as well as Chad's "death" (yeah, he's gotta be leaving in two weeks, right?) Elon was fine here. He obviously had no problem just playing himself in a pretape and he *did* acknowledge the discourse surrounding his planned Mars trips killing everybody who goes on one. C+

Pearl River Gang - As much as I like seeing three segments in a row where Musk pokes fun at himself, this was a little too clunky and heavy handed for me. If they were going to devote a full non-Update sketch to making fun of Musk to his face, they should've focused on one thing and not tried to cram pretty much every common criticism of Musk into one, unfocused sketch (especially since those were kind of weak ways for him to address his Covid denialism and submarine cave "rescue" controversy which is almost a three year old story by now). Also, the ending being a tribute song for Kyle's character didn't work for me. Just about the only thing that did work for me in this sketch was Beck's "that's not how money works" speech but that was already covered by Musk himself on Update. D+

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. Dan Levy/Phoebe Bridgers (2.6.2021)
11. Elon Musk/Miley Cyrus (5.8.2021)
12. Carey Mulligan/Kid Cudi (4.10.2021)
13. Nick Jonas (2.27.2021)
14. John Krasinski/Machine Gun Kelly (1.30.2021)
15. Chris Rock/Megan Thee Stallion (10.3.20)
16. Adele/H.E.R. (10.24.20)
17. Jason Bateman/Morgan Wallen (12.5.20)
18. Bill Burr/Jack White (10.10.20)

Well, when the bar is this low, it couldn't be hard to clear it. Next week, Keegan Michael-Key becomes the first ever MADTV alum to host SNL! Now, THIS is a qualified host who certainly deserves to be on the show given his vast experience in comedic and dramatic acting! I had figured Keegan would eventually host someday, but pre-Covid I would have thought it would’ve taken him getting a few more dramatic roles (especially a *lead* since he seemed to be getting a lot of supporting roles outside of Key & Peele and that starring in "The Big Sick" is what finally got Kumail Nanjiani his hosting gig) but I heard SNL was struggling to book hosts throughout this season (obviously) and Keegan was available after having just filmed the upcoming Apple TV+ series "Schmigadoon" with Cecily. Now, they're obviously both the leads in that (and it hasn't been released so no one has seen enough of to say just how dramatic or comedic it really is yet) and Lorne might be producing it so I think it's at least safe to say Cecily played a big factor in getting Keegan booked as a host (what is possibly her second to last episode). None of that is a knock on Keegan either. Again, I think he's a great performer and he's definitely the host this show needs right now. His presence is definitely going to make up Elon Musk hosting for me. See you then!