We hate to break it to you, but there's no such thing as the "perfect mom." Sure, the Instagram posts you see on Mother's Day may say otherwise, but Emma Thompson's new Saturday Night Live skit shows that parenthood is really just a long road of barely keeping it together. In the hilarious Mother's Day sketch, Emma receives endless parenting praise from her daughter. Emma dishes out all the familiar phrases, saying things like "Every moment was a joy," but the truth is in the flashbacks. Turns out — *shocker* — she's human! Emma's character did get stressed, yelled at her child, took out the trash half-dressed, and read her daughter's diary. All this, and her daughter (now a mother herself) thinks she's perfect — even when she's flawed.<doc-sep>Just in time for Mother's Day, the world now understands what moms really mean, thanks to "Saturday Night Live." Host Emma Thompson pulled in fellow mothers and "SNL" alums Tina Fey and Amy Poehler to help decode mother in the show's deft opening monologue. Welcome to "Mother Speak 101." For example, when she says all she wants to do on Mother's Day is hang out in the backyard, and maybe get a massage, she means, according to Poehler: "How does one buy weed?" When your mother tells you, "You look tired," what she means, according to Thompson: "You look bad." More 'SNL':What would it take for the GOP to stop supporting Trump? Pete Davidson gives his mom the ultimate gift: Jon Hamm When your mother says she doesn't want to talk about politics, she's really saying, "Please don't ruin Joe Biden for me, he's what I picture," Poehler said. There are regional differences in "Mother Talk." Thompson explained British mothers are a particular breed of cryptic. When a British mum says "splendid," it has many meanings. "I'm sad, I'm happy. How are you? You embarrass me. I'm crazy. You're drunk," Thompson explained. " 'Splendid' is sort of our 'Aloha.' " More:Jonas Brothers go from 'Cool' to 'Burnin' Up' in vibrant 'SNL' return Earlier on 'SNL':Adam Sandler had to fight crying 'like an idiot' performing his Chris Farley tribute<doc-sep>Another season of Saturday Night Live is winding down, and looking back, it’s hard to figure out a particular through line to describe the past year of the show. If there’s one, it’s that the show has finally decided during the second half of Season 44 that simply showing clips of President Donald Trump rather than having Alec Baldwin portray him is the right way to go. Political cold opens tend to dramatize his associates rather than the man himself, instead leaving “Weekend Update” to make the most direct comments about the Trump Presidency. With Emma Thompson hosting, the show opted to forgo American politics as much as possible, focusing instead on Mother’s Day and a host of pop culture-independent premises in the middle of its final three-week run of the season. After the nostalgic highs of last week’s Adam Sandler-hosted installment, this week’s show managed to start extremely strong but ultimately didn’t have quite the firepower to sustain things after “Update.” While it pains me to omit Heidi Gardner’s amazing Bailey Gismert, I can only share three sketches in this space each week. And while Bailey’s love for Pikachu should be celebrated, these are the three segments that everyone will be discussing until Paul Rudd hosts next Saturday’s season finale. Emma Thompson Monologue To paraphrase the famous line Renee Zellweger uttered in Jerry Maguire, “You had me at Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.” Mother’s Day is as celebrated a holiday as Christmas on SNL, with the casts’ actual moms making several prominent appearances in recent seasons early in the annual episode. While only Pete Davidson’s mom appeared onscreen this week during “Weekend Update” (and getting her promised meet-up with Jon Hamm during the final bows), having Fey and Poehler flank Thompson for a rapid-fire “Mother Speak 101” was a delightful way to start the show. Nothing about either the premise or the jokes themselves were particularly original or illuminating, but the pace and precision at which these three passed the verbal baton to one another make the piece sing all the same. One missed hand off would have sent the entire endeavor careening off the side of a cliff, but these three pros make it look easy. Each got a chance to both set up another and then spike home their own respective punchlines, turning the monologue into a Cirque du Soleil comedic juggling act. Thompson’s breakdown of the various meanings of the word “splendid” was a particular highlight, in which she demonstrated how it’s the British equivalent of the word “aloha.” Had the show just been these three doing a three-woman weave all night, it might have been the best episode of the season. Etiquette Lesson As subtle as…well, a slap across the face, this sketch nevertheless produced the loudest, most sustained laughter of the evening. Leslie Jones has made a name for herself on the show for playing characters with an outspoken, often intimidating presence. But here, she’s taken down peg by peg by an etiquette coach with a penchant for the rules and MMA-esque fighting techniques. Some sketches overwhelm you with comedic ideas, such as this week’s semi-successful but ultimately flat “Chopped” parody. Here, the jokes are few and far between, but completely connect each time. The audience realizes what’s going on the first time Thompson’s coach slaps the tea out of Jones’ hands, and from then on the tension rises as the scene builds to the next escalated burst of violence. Thompson will get the lion’s share of the credit for her cold, calculated performance. But Jones is what makes this really work. Her increased panic at what she’s gotten herself into makes her the heroine of a horror film, with the only goal being survival. I’m looking forward to the season of The Crown in which Thompson appears as this character. The Perfect Mother Back in December, SNL hit a home run with “Best Christmas Ever,” a wonderful ode to the way people romanticize the past in order to omit life’s less-than-perfect moments in favor of a storybook tale. That same concept was applied again this week, with Heidi Gardner’s harried mother marveling at the way her own mother (Thompson) did everything with so much more composure and grace. Of course, the opposite is true, and what ensues are parallel examinations of the daily small traumas that each woman experiences. As with “Best Christmas Ever,” there’s an ultimately sweet message at the core of this chaos. Both mother and daughter flat out lie about their respective experiences to one another, but they don’t do it out of spite or in a passive-aggressive manner. The sketch deconstructs the word “perfect” in its title, transforming it from meaning “without flaws” to “with flaws but all the better for it.” The final card reads: “To All The Moms In The World: To Us You Were Perfect, Even When You Weren’t.” The comedy of SNL is fundamentally ironic, but has worked best in recent years when it wears its emotions on its sleeve. That takes the form of forlorn sketches like “Sad Mouse,” the moral outrage of its #MeToo humor, or its clearly autobiographical sketches like this and “Dyke And Fats.” It started as counterculture in the 1970s, rebelling against the country in an “us vs. them” mentality. But SNL really shines when it’s not just the Not Ready For Prime Time Players against the world, but when they include the audience as members of that exclusive club. By opening its heart, the show swells its ranks. In 2019, that type of inclusion is much needed and greatly appreciated.<doc-sep>
Send this page to someone via email If your mother has ever said all she wants for Mother’s Day is time in the backyard, Emma Thompson, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler want to set the record straight. “When you ask your mother what she wants to do for Mother’s Day and she says: ‘just relax in the backyard, maybe a massage,’ what she’s actually asking is, ‘how does one buy weed? '” the trio joked in a Mother’s Day segment on Saturday Night Live. The gag saw host Thompson joined by Fey and Poehler to share a little bit of “motherspeak 101” to help viewers decipher what their moms are really thinking. READ MORE: Prince Harry, Meghan share new photo of baby Archie on Mother’s Day Thompson, herself a mother of two, brought on the two SNL alumni and fellow parents for the show’s opening monologue. Story continues below advertisement In it, they poked fun at some of the cliches around motherhood including picking a favourite child, book clubs and a particular fondness for wine. WATCH BELOW: Why these mothers, daughters who share the same illnesses appreciate Mother’s Day 1:13 Why these mothers, daughters who share the same illnesses appreciate Mother’s Day Why these mothers, daughters who share the same illnesses appreciate Mother’s Day – May 12, 2019 For example, when moms say things like “I like that shirt,” they noted, what they really mean is more like, “I think I bought you that shirt.” Likewise, comments as simple as “splendid” can take on a whole range of meanings for British mothers. “I’m sad, I’m happy, how are you, you embarrass me, I’m crazy, you’re drunk,” Thompson explained as the uses. “Splendid is sort of our ‘aloha. '” Sometimes though it can still be hard for mothers to express how they really feel. Story continues below advertisement “Conflict can be fraught for mothers,” Thompson added, with Fey and Poehler chiming in that moms sometimes say things like “you’re driving me crazy” or “why do you have to be so stubborn?” But even when they do, the real meaning is simple, they continued. “What she really means is, ‘I love you. '”