An Evening with Elon Musk

"An Evening with Elon Musk" is the third episode in the twenty-seventh season of the animated sitcom North Springs. The 388th episode overall, it was written by series creators Don Grayman and Rob Farlane and directed by Grayman. It premiered on TBS on April 28, 2022 and peaked at 3.23 million viewers.

The episode follows Tyler Lyndon as he goes to extreme lengths to get an autograph from billionaire, including impersonating. "An Evening with Elon Musk" lampoons both Musk and Bezos. Meanwhile, Conner Makowski becomes obsessed with Russian culture upon learning about his partial Russian ancestry, only to become the victim of in the wake of the.

"An Evening with Elon Musk" polarized reviewers. It was praised for its commentary on discrimination against ethnic Russians and lampooning billionaires. However, the episode was criticized for unbalancing its main plot and subplot, as well as its unorganized storytelling. A sequel episode, "Elon Musk Buys North Springs", aired on May 5, 2022.

Plot
announces that billionaire will be visiting the town of North Springs. Tyler Lyndon, a known fan of Musk, becomes extremely excited, and tells his friend at the local bar that he will retrieve Musk's autograph. When they ridicule and laugh at him, which leads to Tyler announcing he will go on "an epic quest" to get that autograph. Tyler puts on some "fancy clothes" he had in his closet and shaves his head bald to appear like. He drives all over town in search of Musk, and finds him outside Randy's Bar. Musk actually falls for the disguise, and forces Tyler into his limousine. They go to an airport, where Tyler is quickly put on a plane to. When they get off the plane, Tyler is driven to Musk's mansion in.

Meanwhile at the Makowski family's house, Conner is going through some old documents related to his family, and finds some old papers about a distant Russian relative named Viktor Kishinevsky. After his parents tell him more about Kishinevsky, it is revealed that Makowski has Russian ancestry from his mother's side of the family. Makowski subsequently becomes interested in Russian culture and begins to study it. At school, he becomes open about his ancestry, and describes himself as a "proud Polish/Russian American". Throughout the day, Tater Totts, Makowski's classmate, constantly insults him for being Russian and claims him and "his people" should stop invading Ukraine. The insults drive Makowski crazy, and he rushes out of the school before the day even ends.

Back in Texas, Elon Musk "reminds" Tyler that Bezos and Musk have been dating for a year, and their anniversary is coming up. Musk engages in intercourse with Tyler multiple times throughout the day. That night, Tyler, who is also an infamous homophobe, realizes that he has had sex with another man, and escapes from the mansion. He gets in the limousine and holds the driver at gunpoint, telling him to go back to the airport. He gets on a plane to, and then takes a taxi back to North Springs. Realizing he never retrieved Musk's signature and lacking proper penmanship, Tyler contacts Big Eddie and asks if he can make a fake signature. Big Eddie says he is too busy to make a mock-up because he had just rigged and won the, and he will be moving to a new mansion.

Even after Tyler calls Big Eddie several more times, he has no luck. Out of spite, he pays Stan Mackiewicz forty dollars to steal Big Eddie's motorcycle. Stan steals the bike right in front of Big Eddie, and he chases Stan downtown on his backup motorbike. The chase concludes with Stan jumping off the motorcycle while it is still in motion, and it crashes though a wall and explodes, igniting the remains of the motorcycle. Stan continues to run downtown, and Eddie fails to chase him due to his lack of energy. He goes home and tells Carlota Suarez, about the incident, and they plot a revenge scheme to get back at Stan.

At the end of the episode, Makowski is lying in bed at home wondering what his life would be like if he had not brought up his newfound ethnic and racial ancestry, and begins to get rid of all of anything he has related to Russian culture. He starts to wonder if he and "people like him" are truly to blame for Russia's invasion of Ukraine. He turns on his bedroom TV and sees news reports about being Ukrainophobic and informally insulting Ukrainian president  and begins to feel guilty about his ancestry. The screen fades to black as a teary-eyed Makowski returns to his bed.

Production
"An Evening with Elon Musk" was written by both Don Grayman and Rob Farlane, both of whom intended on including an episode about Elon Musk several seasons earlier, but they had little luck coming up with ideas for episode plots. The two eventually realized that Tyler had not had "an episode to himself" since season eighteen's "I Didn't Start the Fire", and they quickly came up with the idea for an episode about him impersonating Jeff Bezos to meet Elon Musk, as they also thought of a -related episode before switching the focus to the titular co-founder.

The two continued to struggle with the subplot until they started thinking about the episode before this one, "Ukraine and a Grain of Salt", and how it revolved around Russia's invasion of Ukraine. This was when Grayman and Farlane thought the episode could have a subplot about Makowski learning he is Russian, as they had previously conceived several episodes about Russian culture, though none of them made it to the production phase.

Critical reception
OEN's Bryan Causter gave "An Evening with Elon Musk" a 2/5 rating. He praised its premise for being "totally hilarious and a fresh new concept", but criticized the episode itself for "lacking that A-plot, B-plot balance it deserved". Meanwhile, Spencer Rickton with Media Geek gave the episode an overall 4/4 rating, and called it "a breath of fresh air". Noting that the twenty-seventh season had just begun, he stated that the episode "contributes to giving this season a really strong start" and its commentary was "effective and humorous, condemning Russophobia, and encouraging Russian pride".

The episode received an D− rating from eek.net writer Morgan Learen, who said the subplot deserved more focus than the main plot and the ending with Big Eddie and Stan Mackiewicz felt nonsensical and "totally wasted the viewer's time". He also claimed that the episode was just "one  after another and obviously one big setup for some kind of major storyline".