Saturday Night Live Recap: Chris Rock Stars in a Christmas Miracle

Ho-ho-holy crap, it’s already Christmas, huh?

Even though there’s still one more Saturday Night Live on the way before the big day, this week’s episode came bursting with holiday cheer. Fortunately, it’s a miracle of yuletide lunacy. Watching along feels like getting Gatorade-dumped with spiked eggnog.

While a lot of sketches in Christmas episodes tend to seem like they’re auditioning to be the next seasonal classic — resurfacing in annual Christmas specials throughout perpetuity — this batch feels different. Many of these gems use an element of the holidays as a mere jumping-off point before plunging down some other rabbit hole. For every sketch like Your Office Christmas Party, which seems destined to appear in future specials, there’s one like Sexual Harassment Charlie, which takes place the day after an office Christmas party but could have followed any arbitrary work function. What binds them all together is a freewheeling looseness, leading to a welcome surplus of unpredictable moments.

Leading the charge is host Chris Rock. With the 50th season of it all, a lot of former cast members have already dropped by for cameos this year, but Rock is the first one to actually host. (As a former writer, John Mulaney doesn’t count as a cast member, though by now, it sort of feels like he should.) Although he’s been exponentially more successful in his stand-up career than as a sketch comedian, Rock’s acting performances throughout this episode are every bit as sparkling as the stand-up in his topical monologue — in a way that eclipses his previous trio of hosting stints. It’s the platonic ideal of both a Rock episode and a Christmas episode, even though the actual Christmas episode is still technically not until next weekend. (Let’s hope that one goes just as hard.)

Here are the highlights:

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace Cold Open

The ongoing saga of an assassinated UnitedHealthcare CEO has by now taken up so much oxygen in office Slacks, all forms of media, and also your holiday party, its presence in this Saturday Night Live cold open was practically inevitable. Still, the format it comes in is rather inspired. Combustible pundit Nancy Grace has long languished in YouTube irrelevancy, but her hyper-sensational show makes a fitting vehicle for this white-hot topic. Sarah Sherman is a wise choice to inherit the role created by Ana Gasteyer and perfected by Amy Poehler. Her accent is appropriately all over the map, with mispronunciations galore, but where Sherman really cooks is in the sudden explosive outbursts. (The one about being haunted by Jon-Benet Ramsey’s ghost is a highlight.) Although the sketch over-indexes on our obsession with alleged shooter Luigi Mangione’s looks (“Dave Franco’s face with Eugene Levy’s eyebrows”) rather than the meaning of his actions, perhaps the writers just correctly expect that we’re all burned out on that discourse at this point. Well, either that or they correctly figured that Chris Rock would cover it in his monologue.

Mall Santas

The idea of a Black Santa has long confounded right-wing influencers like Megyn Kelly. What this sketch brilliantly suggests is that, when confronted with the idea in non-hypothetical terms, it’s also a problem for your average white couple. Rock plays the master of ceremonies at Santa’s Village like Rod Serling introducing a morality-play episode of The Twilight Zone. He luxuriates in the discomfort of parents having to choose between a “regular” Santa (James Austin Johnson) and the one who might create a photo that Grandma puts out in the garage instead of on her fridge (Devon Walker.) Rock’s delivery is delicious, savoring every pause that helps emphasize the choice each parent must make. The MVP here, however, is Chloe Fineman, the self-identifying woke liberal who is a little too pleased with herself for choosing the “Blanta.”

Simpsons Christmas Gift

All great episodes of The Simpsons start one way before taking a wild swerve. (Think: the candy convention that leads into the sexual harassment episode, “Homer Bad Man”.) This Simpsons-themed sketch does the same. Beginning with the familiar sketch premise of a Secret Santa gift swap, things promptly go off the rails when Rock’s character receives a Simpsified portrait of himself. There are hints early on of the madness to come — for instance, Heidi Gardner playing a wheelchair-bound woman whose last name is “Wheels.” Still, the demented descent into the cast collectively narrating Rock’s Simpsons fan-fiction is epically nonsensical.

Weekend Update: A Bald Man on a U.K. Court Harassment Ruling

Andrew Dismukes is often confined to supporting roles, so it’s always nice when he gets a big solo spotlight and goes all the way off. In the desk piece on Update, he plays a bald man weighing in on the recent U.K. judicial decision to cast ridiculing a bald man as discrimination. Though well-coifed in real life, a bald-capped Dismukes hilariously channels the hairless community’s deep wellspring of grievance and makes the most of it.

Gallbladder Surgery

Talk about a surprise entrance. Adam Sandler’s cameo comes not only late into this episode but late into the sketch itself — even though he’s technically been in it for the entire time. As soon as he appears from under a hospital sheet, a sketch that had previously focused on Sarah Sherman’s basket case hospital intern takes a turn for the bloody and the meta. Both literally and figuratively, it’s kind of a mess. But in the best way.

Cut for Time

• Kirby — the racist, misogynist automobile at the center of the Grandpa’s Magic Car sketch — splits the difference between Disney’s Herbie and Stephen King’s Christine throughout, giving the King-like ending more punch.

• This episode wasn’t the first appearance of Sexual Harassment Charlie, who is essentially just the “Hello, human resources?!” meme in sketch form, but with the power dynamic as its target instead of handsomeness. Kenan Thompson previously played the character in a James Franco episode in 2017 and a Scarlett Johansson episode in 2019.

• This edition of Weekend Update articulated perfectly that the Netflix movie, Emilia Pérez, does indeed seem like it originated with Colin Jost asking ChatGPT “to make my grandpa’s head explode.”

• Jane Wickline’s new song for Weekend Update explores the unique conundrum of Sabrina Carpenter, who cannot seem to incur the same queerbaiting allegations as her peers, despite all efforts. An incisively observed bop!

• On Rock’s last outing as host, Bowen Yang brought his Chinese trade official character Chen Bao to the Update desk to comment on a possible TikTok ban. Now, TikTok is again on the verge of being banned, once more begging the question: are we caught in a time loop?

• Of course, Sarah Sherman has a prominent role in the sketch with the Sandler cameo; he’s a fan of hers, having cast her in last year’s You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah.

• A surprisingly sprawling cohort of non-cast members populates the Office Christmas Party sketch — an incredible venue for Monster Truck Rally Ad voice — and they all acquit themselves admirably.

• The night’s final sketch, about a blind date, was arguably the weakest of the episode, and even that one ended with the fun and unexpected appearance of a pedicab on set.