NBC
Previously: “The Office: Middle-Earth”
Cold Open
Ironically, the sketch about torture was the least tortuous cold open of the season. There was some actual bite to the material! Bobby Moynihan and Kyle Mooney play the two psychologists who were named in the CIA torture report, but they’re more than just the evil scumbags who came up with rectum hummus — they also work with Time Warner and invented the grocery store self-check out line. THEY’RE HISTORY’S GREATEST MONSTERS.
Monologue
Martin Freeman’s British, and all British people know each other. Get it?!? Not a particularly memorable monologue, which is hard for me to admit because in theory, Kate McKinnon as Maggie Smith and Taran Killam as Alan Rickman should be delightful. Alas.
Sump’n Claus
I don’t know where this came from, and why the SNL writers didn’t want until next week to tell the story of Sump’n Claus, a fly former elf who got a little too close to Mrs. Claus and now spends his Decembers giving a little “sump’n” to everyone from Justin Bieber and Donald Sterling, but I’m glad it exists. I’ve been singing that damn chorus to myself all morning.
Wedding Objections
Mini Martin Freeman standing beside Leslie Jones: a good sight gag. But to have them play an about-to-be-married couple who only met five days ago, and in that time, she, a hard-fouling WNBA player, turned his penis into a late-stage Jenga tower? Excellent. What could have been an icky premise (“Haha, it’s funny because she’s big and black and he’s tiny and white”) was subverted to be about anything but race, until Kate McKinnon’s old lady character got her turn at the mic. But even that still worked because her delivery of “shut. it. down.” is perfect.