Saturday Night Live: Emma Thompson / Jonas Brothers
May 12, 2019 3:57 PM - Season 44, Episode 20 - Subscribe

Mother's Day

  • Cold Open: Meet The Press - Kyle Mooney, Beck Bennett, Cecily Strong, Kate McKinnon
  • Monologue - Emma Thompson, Kenan Thompson, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler
  • Royal Etiquette - Heidi Gardner, Beck Bennett, Leslie Jones, Emma Thompson
  • The Perfect Mother - Heidi Gardner, Mikey Day, Emma Thompson
  • Cinema Classics - Kenan Thompson, Kate McKinnon, Emma Thompson
  • Chopped - Emma Thompson, Melissa Villaseñor, Leslie Jones, Aidy Bryant, Beck Bennett, Alex Moffatt
  • Judge Court - Kate McKinnon, Emma Thompson, Aidy Bryant, Heidi Gardner, Melissa Villaseñor, Chris Redd, Alex Moffatt, Jonas Brothers
  • Jonas Brothers - Sucker
  • Weekend Update - Michael Che, Colin Jost
    • Bailey Gismert - Heidi Gardner
    • Pete Davidson - Pete Davidson, Amy Davidson
  • Beauty and the Beast - Emma Thompson, Cecily Strong, Beck Bennett, Kenan Thompson, Melissa Villaseñor, Kyle Mooney, Pete Davidson, Mikey Day
  • Tracy - Kate McKinnon, Kenan Thompson, Ego Nwodim, Chris Redd, Cecily Strong, Heidi Gardner, Emma Thompson
  • Jonas Brothers - Cool > Burning Up
  • Wait a Second, That Shouldn't Be There! - Kyle Mooney, Ego Nwodim, Kenan Thompson, Mikey Day, Kate McKinnon, Alex Moffatt, Cecily Strong, Emma Thompson, Chris Redd
posted by rhizome (14 comments total)
 
The Jonas Brothers are still a going concern, hunh?
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 4:25 PM on May 12, 2019


Why are they having theses big group "mono"logues? Failure of writing staff, distrust of brillant veteran actors, corporate focus groups?
posted by sammyo at 5:18 PM on May 12, 2019 [2 favorites]


The real question is when was the last time a monologue was just the host doing it alone?
posted by Fukiyama at 5:21 PM on May 12, 2019 [1 favorite]


Okay, so, Emma Thompson has a background in sketch comedy. So I was looking forward to this.

....Does anyone else also think she should have been given way better material?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:23 PM on May 12, 2019 [1 favorite]


I got so excited when I saw Emma Thompson was hosting, and I thought, "As long as they give her decent material this'll be great," and then... I watched the show. I didn't hate it, but I also didn't get any good laughs out of it (unless you count Colin Jost's line about Georgia making Mother's Day mandatory, which was almost too painful to be actually funny). So, yeah, EmpressCallipygos.

I suppose I can at least look forward to next week's show, which is to be hosted by Paul Rudd.
posted by orange swan at 7:27 PM on May 12, 2019 [3 favorites]


So they had a Cinema Classics sketch and a TCM sketch in the same show?
posted by ckape at 8:22 PM on May 12, 2019 [1 favorite]


The real question is when was the last time a monologue was just the host doing it alone?

John Mulaney or Idris Elba, I think.
posted by Etrigan at 8:26 PM on May 12, 2019 [2 favorites]


No Parade of Mothers! Boo. I thought this episode was super uneven. I like Thomson but... I would not really have led the show with a proper British woman assasulting an African American woman. Maybe one of those things that seemed funnier on paper? Because after that bit I was like "Fuck this episode" and did not really waver from that point even though some of the bits were funny enough. Perfect Mother didn't have the nice wrap-up that some of those bits do. I was mostly like "Oh hey the yelling parents in that car? I am the kid in the backseat" Those cinema bits are never my thing and there were two? The last Chopped bit they did was funny, this one was not. Beauty and the Beast was sketcho and the only piece I liked was Judge Court just because it was stupid and didn't seem to punch down (or literally at) anyone.
posted by jessamyn at 9:23 AM on May 13, 2019


I was trying to figure out who that guy was in the post-show melée. Jon Hamm? Made me wonder if there was a piece that got cut featuring him.
posted by emelenjr at 1:33 PM on May 13, 2019 [1 favorite]


Was absolutely Jon Hamm and I assume it had something to do with the Pete's Mom bit in the news?
posted by jessamyn at 1:37 PM on May 13, 2019 [1 favorite]


I can't find it now, but I saw something saying Hamm just kind of hangs out there sometimes.
posted by rhizome at 4:11 PM on May 13, 2019 [2 favorites]


Etrigan:
No doubt it's not that uncommon, but back when i watched the show on a regular basis, one of the reasons why I stopped watching was the definite trend towards making the monologue some kind of ensemble act, especially the ones that ended up as musical numbers. That gold old real fast and it seemed like every time I caught an episode, they were still doing stuff like that.
posted by Fukiyama at 10:53 AM on May 14, 2019 [1 favorite]


one of the reasons why I stopped watching was the definite trend towards making the monologue some kind of ensemble act, especially the ones that ended up as musical numbers.

I'm old enough to remember when it seemed like 90 percent of the monologues ended up as Q&A sessions with the audience (like the guy from GoT did recently). Which is to say, SNL is like Mad magazine: Everyone thinks the best season was when they personally started watching, and everyone only remembers the good things from that season anyway.

I honestly wasn't really trying to refute your idea that a lot of the "monologues" aren't really like that anymore -- I was kinda surprised when Idris Elba seemed to be the actual answer, because non-standups almost never do solo monologues, even if they're just getting a little help. Tom Hanks gets help with the monologues, and 90 percent of Americans would cheerfully just watch Tom Hanks wordlessly trying on a corduroy jacket at Brooks Brothers.
posted by Etrigan at 11:02 AM on May 14, 2019 [3 favorites]


I thought it was a solid episode. Really enjoyed Chopped. Aidy Bryant nailed Alex Guarnascelli's mannerisms. The whole randomness of the sketch just made me LOL.

"She served me divorce papers..." "She just served me a live kitten on a bun."
posted by hydra77 at 4:37 PM on May 14, 2019 [2 favorites]


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