Adam Driver cemented his status as one of the all-time great Saturday Night Live hosts this week.
During his fourth hosting stint, accompanied by musical guest Olivia Rodrigo, the Oscar-nominated star of Marriage Story and the upcoming Ferrari kicked things off with an opening monologue behind the piano, wherein the actor serenaded Santa (and demonstrated some truly impressive ivory-twinkling skills) while mocking Tesla Cybertruck buyers and his own eggnog fixation.
His go-for-broke turn didn’t end there. Driver came back for a hilarious sketch featuring Jacob (Driver) and Daniel (Bowen Yang) as a gay couple on a couples’ ski trip in a log cabin. Donning comfy sweaters and seated in a circle by the fire, one hetero couple brags about how they’re “not pregnant yet but trying for another one,” prompting Yang and Driver to jointly exclaim, “We’re trying to have a baby too!”
But no, they’re not trying to adopt or get a surrogate. They’re just going to… try — leaving all the other couples befuddled by exactly how they can get pregnant together.
“So, are you two just straight-up having sex?” another couple asks them.
No, not exactly, replies Yang’s Daniel.
“Because to us, for now, what feels good, for now, is trying, for us,” offers Driver’s Jacob, adding, “Well, funny enough, I had a dream where my son came out of my ass — which didn’t make any sense!”
Another impressive Christmas-themed sketch saw Driver play Keith, the childhood friend of Jake (Mikey Day), who’s been M.I.A. for the past 15 years. When Jake reaches out to Keith via text, we see that his old pal still looks like he’s trapped in a state of arrested development with a middle-part haircut and a flannel shirt, sitting on the couch next to a tiny, spare Christmas tree.
When Jake suggests spots they can potentially meet up, Keith keeps texting him, “Is it more than 1,000 feet from a school?” Jake thinks he’s joking, but Keith most certainly is not.
“Most of my friends cut ties after all that stuff went down last year,” he writes, adding, “The Netflix doc made it seem worse than it was.”
It turns out that Keith is the subject of a Netflix docuseries called The Man With 600 Kids about a janitor who secretly switched out hundreds of sperm samples with his own. He also laments how he lost his “best friend” last year — which turns out to be an assault rifle — because of “things he said online.”
Driver was the standout in a sketch about elderly TikTok prank victims as Walter, a 70-year-old military veteran who’s mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.
“I served my country. I deserve respect. I don’t deserve being dunked on by children at Walmart — cut to TikTok video of Driver’s Walter being dunked on by kids at Walmart and yelling, “I’m trying to buy a picture frame for my wife! I have 81 confirmed kills!” (No one can scream like this man.)
The second-best sketch of the night involved a Christmas casserole party hosted by Mark (Driver, sporting a hilarious mustache) and his wife (Heidi Gardner). When Carl (Andrew Dismukes) arrives, the guest and host — both of whom love saying “beep beep” to get by someone — find themselves locked in a “beep beep”-off over who can first place their platter on the table.
“Nah, nah, nah. I don’t think you understand. See, I’m a little car right now, and I’m honking at you with my little horn: beep-beep,” says Mark.
When Carl claims he’s in an even smaller, Stuart Little-sized car that makes a tinier beep-beep, Mark replies, “Oh, I see. So you want to die tonight?” Driver’s deadpan delivery is perfection.
The night’s pièce de resistance, however, was “Airline Baby,” a sketch with Driver as a chaotic monster baby with a giant head and tiny body/arms seated on a Delta plane next to his apologetic mom, played by the talented Sarah Sherman.
Driver’s 11-month-old baby grimaces, smashes an iPad (aka “the Peppa Pig device”), and, when asked by the flight attendant what he wants to drink, replies, “Who is that woman?! She’s not my mother! Now I’m feeling confused and uncomfortable, and frankly, I miss the womb!” before crying and screaming hysterically.
When Sherman’s mother gives Driver’s baby his bottle, he spits out all the milk. When she starts playing a game where she shows and then puts his teddy bear behind her back, asking him where “Pookie Bear” has gone, he shrieks, “Ah, no! Christ, he’s gone! You killed him, you bitch!”
Driver’s fierce commitment to the bit was incredible, nailing every baby mannerism and wail. He’s the rare SNL host who doesn’t mail in a single line, let alone sketch, and is open to doing just about anything. Tonight, he sang and played piano, one-half of a gay couple, a sex criminal, a senile 70-year-old military veteran, a mustachioed Christmas-dinner menace, and a whiny baby. Talk about range.
What a night. What a host. Please come back soon.