SNL Recap: Elon Musk Was The Most Cringey Host Of SNL In Years

Every once in awhile, Lorne Michaels likes to pivot away from the comedian/actor/musician/sports star host template that Saturday Night Live has used for the last 46 years, and throw in a wild card who generates headlines and maybe lures in a different audience to the late night comedy institution. Think Rudy Giuliani, Steve Forbes, and Donald Trump. Having an episode totally bomb is an acceptable outcome if people are talking about it, but in Michaels' eyes, being boring and forgettable is the worst SNL sin. And in that light, this weekend's SNL — hosted by Elon Musk, a billionaire — was probably a win for Michaels, despite being one of the worst episodes I've seen in years.

You'd have to go back to Trump's dreadful episode in the fall of 2015 for the last time the SNL comedy engine failed so spectacularly. For much of the night, it felt like a rich dude had gotten his make-a-wish dream to come true, to all of our detriments. But hey, it had the show's third-highest ratings of the season.

There was stiff competition for most cringe-worthy moment of the night: Was it when Musk put on some sort of...accent?...and delivered stilted slang in Gen Z Hospital? Was it the embarrassing 10-to-1 sketch in which Musk got to deliver a thinly-veiled defense of some of his real world controversies? Was it his punchline-deflating delivery which ruined an otherwise solid Post-Quarantine Conversation sketch? Was it the godawful Weekend Update plug for dogecoin which literally brought down the value of the cryptocurrency? Or was it when Musk and his wife Grimes cosplayed on national TV as Wario and Princess Peach in a sketch so awful you could hear the many SNL castmember moms in the audience wincing in solidarity with their kids?

I really don't want this to be all negative. There are a lot of people who work very hard to put on SNL every week. I appreciate the fact that the show can pull off great directing, costuming, set work and funny moments in such a condensed amount of time and high-pressure atmosphere, no matter who is hosting. This episode was a reminder that hosting a live comedy show is really hard, and you can't just pluck any billionaire off the street and think they can do the job at hand.

There were high points: Murdur Durur was the one shining sketch of the night, a hilarious sendup of Mare Of Easttown with a dose of 30 Rock's "Rural Juror"-style humor (and very little Musk). Ego Nwodim was fantastic during Weekend Update as new character A Weary Mother In Her Darkest Hour, and I always enjoy Kyle Mooney's roided-out take on Baby Yoda. And the cold open was as sweet and sincere as one would hope from an SNL Mother's Day episode.

So in that spirit, I'll try to find something nice to say about each sketch down below.

First up is the aforementioned Mother’s Day Message Cold Open, in which Miley Cyrus sang her godmother Dolly Parton's song "Light of a Clear Blue Morning" while most of the cast got to bring their moms onstage. It was very wholesome, and I am happy for all of them.

Then we had Musk's Monologue, in which he joked about OJ Simpson, erroneously claimed to be the first SNL host with Asperger's (Dan Aykroyd!), and generally sounded like Dr. Evil at his first open mic night. But hey, his mom seems like a very nice, supportive person.

Hmm...something nice to say...Gen Z Hospital was under five minutes long.

Post-Quarantine Conversation was a solid pre-taped sketch about the inevitable awkwardness of socializing after the pandemic. The SNL cast members in the sketch (Kate McKinnon, Beck Bennett, Heidi Gardner, Ego Nwodim, Chris Redd) were fantastic, but Redd had one of the funniest line readings of the entire show toward the end.

The always-great Chloe Fineman was the center of the very energetic Ooli Show, but Melissa Villaseñor stole the sketch with her Björk impression.

If you only watch one sketch this week, make it Murdur Durdur. Don't worry about the rest.

As I mentioned up above, Weekend Update had two great guests and one awful one. I can't praise Nwodim and the writers enough for her emotional, haggard monologue as A Weary Mother in Her Darkest Hour on Disney's Reopening, and I love that Mooney's Baby Yoda character has continued to develop with every appearance into the worst possible outcome for a YouTube/TikTok star. And then there was Musk as Financial Expert Lloyd Ostertag—in case it wasn't clear before, I hated this, but at least one YouTube commenter called it one of "the greatest snl clips in the last decade" and "somewhat intelligent."

Here's Wario, maybe the worst SNL sketch of the season.

Pete Davidson's recurring Chad character is one of the colonists at Musk's Space X Mars habitat in Chad on Mars, and while this character has never done anything for me, Davidson plays him well:

Instead of watching the 10-to-1 sketch Cowboy Standoff, I recommend you watch this much better SNL Mother's Day sketch from 2018, The Day You Were Born.

In addition to her cold open appearance, Miley Cyrus performed "Without You" with someone stylistically named The Kid LAROI, and "Plastic Hearts."

There were no cut-for-time sketches, so that's that. If this week's episode has you questioning why you still watch SNL, here's something to really look forward to: sketch comedy legend Keegan-Michael Key will make his hosting debut next week with musical guest Olivia Rodrigo.