The One Where Chris Christie Showed Up

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Sorry, Jeremy Renner, but New Jersey Governor Chris Christie stole the spotlight from you on last night's Saturday Night Live. That's no knock on you. We just can't resist the fleece jokes. 

So, yeah. That was the big thing coming out of last night's SNL. Chris Christie, everyone! He showed up on Weekend Update to trade lines with Seth Meyers, and he wasn't terrible. Christie sent out a special thank you to his wife, "for putting up with a husband who has smelled like a wet fleece for the past three weeks." 

"You have been wearing that fleece a lot," Meyers said.

To which Christie responded: "Well, yeah, it's basically fused to my skin at this point." 

We're a sucker for a good fleece joke. He also had zingers about mayors not heeding his warnings to evacuate ("when you ignore me, it makes you look like a real Seth Meyers"), and storm reporters ("we don't need you to tell us there's a hurricane, we have windows!"), and closed his appearance with -- what else? -- a Springsteen quote.

When one reporter tried argue it wasn't a Springsteen quote on Twitter, Christie set her straight: 

@margbrennan I was quoting Atlantic City, not Jersey Girl. Bruce wrote Atlantic City-- it is off the Nebraska album! C'mon!

— Governor Christie (@GovChristie) November 18, 2012

Mitt Romney said doing SNL "wasn't Presidential," which works out great for Christie. He isn't officially running for President yet. Everyone knows thinks would bet their life on it, though.

If we could change one thing about this, it would be to give Bobby Moynihan some screen time with the Gov. he's done such a good job impersonating. Stupid, smirky Seth Meyers hogs all the fun. 

And there was absolutely no mention of Petraeus affair on last night's episode. Surprising, right? Because it's a lie. There were two sketches about the Petraeus affair, really. The cold open was a riff on Broadwell reading her biography and it sounding like an embedded (no pun intended) war reporter's version of 50 Shades of Grey.

It was a fine sketch, but the strongest of the two Petraeus sketches was definitely the one with Jason Sudeikis doing his Wolf Blitzer impression. Renner shines here as some sort of middle-aged white boy trying too hard. (For Big Brother fans, he's basically doing a spot-on Mike Boogie impression.)

One of the funniest sketches on the Live comedy show was a pre-recored one about a two day Mexican standoff. Host Jeremy Renner, Taran Killam and Bobby Moynihan are tough guys who something something a hard drive something something money. They follow each other for two days through reading books to Renner's daughter, eating a family dinner, and sleeping together. Renner does well with material he's used to here. Looking stern while holding guns is what Jeremy Renner was put on this earth to do, so it makes sense for them to take advantage of that. Killam is pretty and serviceable here as the third man, but it's Moynihan's bespectacled sentimental hitman that wins the sketch here. If he doesn't get cast in the next Tarantino movie (preferably with the same sunglasses) then there's something seriously wrong with the world. 

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.