Kate McKinnon’s Ms. Rafferty character has become a must watch sketch with each appearance at this point. We’ve only seen her twice before, but each time the result has been someone breaking with laughter and a memorable sketch full of prune chutes and coot coots. Ryan Gosling nearly fell apart in the first appearance of Rafferty and encounter with the B-team of alien abducters. Then Brie Larson had a near-death experience with McKinnon, but didn’t break in the process. The same couldn’t be said for McKninnon, falling victim to her own craziness.
This time around and in honor of Christmas, our group is being abducted by Santa and taken to his workshop. Everybody but Ms. Rafferty, of course. She gets kidnapped by Santa’s Germanic goat pal, forced to join a team of sled dogs, and then work in the reindeer stables. Instead of a haunted dog knocker or evening on the roof of a Long John Silver’s, McKinnon gets her own secret admirer named Shart out of this ordeal. He looks like Gollum, smells like hard-boiled eggs, and seems keen on Ms. Rafferty.
Nobody breaks this time, which is a bit of a feat I’d say but also a little bit of a disappointment. Sometimes a good break enhances a sketch to a memorable point and in this case, it makes me want to rank this one the lowest out of the three sketches. I’d still take it over another Target Lady sketch.
(Via Saturday Night Live)