Another week, another 34,989 sexual assault and harassment stories in the news (that’s an official number). On Saturday night, Saturday Night Live tackled the highly icky report that Alabama Republican senatorial candidate Roy Moore engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a minor with the man whose seat he’s filling: Jeff Sessions. 
 
 This week's cold open started with a sensible Vice President Mike Pence (Beck Bennett) counseling Judge Moore (Mikey Day) on the best course of action. His counsel: Stepping aside isn’t the worst thing in the world, if you look at it the right way. 
 
 SEE ALSO: So many politicians gave the same terrible response to the Roy Moore abuse allegations 
 
 "Don’t think of it as ending your campaign, think of it as going to conversion therapy to turn yourself into someone who’s no longer a candidate," Bennett’s Pence said. 
 
 As soon as the VP left the room, out popped current attorney general and former Alabama senator Jeff Sessions (Kate McKinnon) from the cupboard, where we can just assume Keebler elves live when they’re in town from the forest. 
 
 “I was just doing what I always do – cooking up nightmares for children,” McKinnon explained. 
 
 Sessions went on to implore Moore to back out of the race. He may be racist and homophobic, but creeping on 14-year-old girls is a step too far for the AG. 
 
 "I’m usually the creepiest one in the room, but I look at you and I’m like, ‘Oh my God.'" McKinnon's Sessions added: "I’m Alabama but you, you sir are too Alabama." 
 
 SNL then doubled down on its "Jeff Sessions is an urban marsupial" theme, as a distraught Sessions sought counsel from his stuffed possum father. 
 
 Seriously. 
 
 "Have I both fostered and benefitted from a culture of systemic oppression?" McKinnon’s Sessions asked. 
 
 But alas, there would be no such reckoning, neither on SNL or in real life. Not tonight. 

 NBC 
 
 This week’s Saturday Night Live opened with a look at the Alabama senate race, in which good, God-fearing Republicans are supporting Roy Moore, a man who was already wildly unqualified before news broke that he allegedly groped a 14-year-old when he was in his 30s. It’s not exactly the funniest premise for comedy, but then it’s not exactly the funniest premise for an Alabama senate race, either. Mikey Day and Beck Bennett get a couple of laughs out of the subject, but once they land the obligatory conversion therapy joke, there’s not much here but the fact that conservative Alabamans, having already sent a man who boasted about sexual assault to the White House, are now enthusiastically signing up for a marriage of convenience with an alleged child molester. Which will be pretty funny the next time an evangelical tries to tell the country anything about morality, but right now, it’s just depressing. 
 
 You know what is funny, though? Kate McKinnon playing Jeff Sessions as the mischievous Keebler elf of white supremacy. From the moment the diminutive attorney general makes his surprise entrance, this skit takes off. Mikey Day’s Roy Moore is a better foil for McKinnon than Baldwin’s Donald Trump, because—and this is astonishing, but true—a cowboy-hat-wearing, teenage-girl-chasing bible-thumper is way less over-the-top than the president. Day gets to play straight man in a way Baldwin can’t, and McKinnon rises to the occasion with some of that sweet, sweet Sessions crazy: 
 
 But, on Saturday Night Live as in life, all the really good stuff happens when Roy Moore is out of the room. In this case, after kicking Moore out with a hearty “I’m Alabama, but you, ysir, are too Alabama,” Sessions has a heart-to-heart wth his father, to whom he bears a distinct family resemblance. Moore’s actions are so reprehensible that McKinnon’s Jeff Sessions almost manages to connect a few dots before his dad talks him down: 
 
 But there’s so many men out there acting like monsters—Mr. Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, the President. Daddy, has this been happening forever? Have I both fostered and benefited from a culture of systemic oppression? No? Well, that’s a relief! I love you, Daddy!
– As the sexual misconduct allegations roil the Alabama Senate race, Saturday Night Live waded right in with a sketch portraying candidate Roy Moore meeting with VP Mike Pence (Beck Bennett). Pence's advice: Get out. "Don’t think of it as ending your campaign, think of it as going to conversion therapy to turn yourself into someone who’s no longer a candidate," he said. But as Pence takes his leave, Kate McKinnon as Jeff Sessions pops out of the cupboard, which as Mashable notes, is "where we can just assume Keebler elves live when they’re in town from the forest." "Now, Roy, you’ve been doing some controversial stuff—wave a gun around on stage, tell folks Muslims shouldn’t be allowed in Congress and that 9/11 was God’s punishment for sodomy—I love it! You check a lot of boxes for me, Roy!" she chortles, before admonishing him that admitting to dating 16-year-olds might be a bridge too far. Moore responds that he's just kidding, and Sessions breathes a sigh of relief—but not for long. "No, 'kidding' is the term I use for dating young ladies," Moore clarifies. Sessions then throws Moore out, saying, "I'm Alabama, but you, sir, are too Alabama!" Catch the sketch's end, which Slate notes includes a swipe at Louis CK, and other show highlights in the gallery.