This very Petraeus-centric episode opened with the general’s biographer and alleged mistress Paula Broadwell (played by Cecily Strong) reading excerpts from the book she recently penned. Except in this sketch, naturally, it got the Fifty Shades of Grey treatment. As Broadwell delivers her sexually explicit reading, the crowd slowly trickles out, leaving just one, grinning, totally rapt listener (Fred Armisen).
Like C-SPAN and book readings, the sketch straddled the line between dry and, well, dull. But Strong’s commitment to her deadpan delivery of the racy, ridiculous excerpts kept the skit afloat. (See: “Like most people, my feelings about erotic asphyxiation have always been somewhat complicated.”)