I sincerely don't understand why they recasted Sophie. What, they'll call in Sarah MIchelle Gellar, Anne Hathaway, and Natalie Portman to each voice a one-off line in Moonshine River, but they replace Drew Barrymore when they finally bring back her character after over a decade? Did she couldn't/wouldn't come back for the role? Or did the producers just wanted to have an excuse to have an Orange is the New Black actress on their show?
Anyway, all three stories were incredibly rushed. The best story was Lovejoy's for at least having decent pacing and a good ending, but I don't understand why they brought back the Parson, he's one of the most boring recurring characters they've introduced in the HD era, and now we meet his even more boring boss. For the other plots, Sophie being raised as a Christian was pretty much pointless, since it didn't seem to go anywhere and there was no conflict with her dad being Jewish. Marge just randomly being in the doorway and inviting the two over was just a very forced scene to move on the plot along. And why does Sophie suddenly stay with the Simpsons after she rejects Krusty? She barely knows them and she's not related to them, why is she suddenly living with them and acting like their her family? Why doesn't she just go back with her mom for Christmas? In fact, where is her mom? It's never explained where she is during all this. It's all very distracting, and it just comes off as a very bizarre, forced attempt to insert the Simpsons into a plot which they had no business in being, especially since they pretty much did nothing in it. Krusty converting to Christianity seems to have nothing do with Sophie being Christian, just that he's now a wholesome father figure. And for some reason, Krusty wants to be baptized in the freezing water? Also, why does Sideshow Bob want Krusty dead here too, I thought the two of them made up during the Scully era. But then Krusty's dad shows up as Olaf, and then after one good speech, everything is resolved, and I guess Krusty (and maybe Sophie too?) is back to being Jewish. Also, what was up with the scene where Krusty meets his "first agent" in his dream, didn't we get a whole episode where we found out his first agent was Joan Rivers? And what happened to Sophie's violin that she loved so much? But at least the opening shot of them skating together and laughing was a pretty adorable father-daughter bonding moment,
The Maggie sub-plot was fine and pretty good but we didn't need to have Homer and Marge keep beating the viewers over the head with how their unintentionally making the doll sound scary. And really, why doesn't Marge notice how scared Maggie is? I could buy Homer not noticing it, but Marge? I guess now even Marge is an incompetent parent oblivious to her child's fears, just to make the story "work". Outside of having Jack Frost show up so they can make an outdated reference to Rise of the Guardians, the dream scene was actually pretty well done and was really cute. And then Maggie just chops up the doll at the end. That's it. That sub-plot comes literally to a screeching halt. It's a really cute sub-plot, but it really just comes off as filler to pad out the episode too.
Some of the jokes here were pretty good (Sideshow Mel wanting to say something, Apu saying his statue could be a Pixar character), and some bad (Sideshow Mel discovering his wife left him). The animation was pretty good though, especially for Krusty's reaction in the hospital to finding out Sophie is Christian.