Saturday Night Live alum Maya Rudolph returned to have some rip-roaring fun (there were a number of jokes about farting and pants pooping), and Vampire Weekend also made a return to the show to play spirited songs from their latest album, Only God Was Above Us. Here's everything that happened on a lean SNL this week.
The Cold Open
The cast of SNL paid tribute to their actual mothers ahead of Mother's Day. Each mom appeared and got a punchline to deliver, which was sweet, fun, and funny.
The Monologue
SNL hall-of-famer Maya Rudolph was doing her monologue when Bowen Yang and Sarah Sherman stopped by to inform her that she was Mother of the House of Rockefeller, which led to a Madonna-esque live action music video. By the end, it really was a homage to "Vogue," and was both amusing and impressive.
Hot Ones: Beyoncé Knowles-Carter
Mikey Day reprised his spot-on Sean Evans, host of the Fear Factor-y chicken-eating interview show Hot Ones, for a return engagement by Maya Rudolph's Beyoncé, who, again, had a very low tolerance for hot wings. Rudolph as Beyoncé is always a marvel and, in spice suffering, her intense rage at Evans and her scatological predicament was especially funny.
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The pdd boys were in a restaurant with their dates when their phones were investigated by those same dates. It turned out the boys all had been checking out the account of some weird woman played by Rudolph, and she was so disturbing that attempts to hide phones got extremely deranged. Good stuff.
Y'all Won
In an address to students, teachers announced that they'd given up because their students all defeated them — and their spirits — in various ways, which was well done.
British Cavemen
A Nat Geo series uncovered the likely behaviour of cave people who were located in England. This consisted of cast members acting and sounding vaguely British, which was surprisingly good.
Can You Pick Me Up?
In this remote, Rudolph played the mom of a young girl named Kallie who frequently attended sleepovers but always wanted her parents to pick her up early without revealing the real reason for her departure. This led to a fun array of excuses by Rudolph and her husband, played by Kenan Thompson.
Vampire Weekend
A rather large, nine-member iteration of Vampire Weekend blasted through the frenetic "Gen-X Cops," which had cool guitar parts and was pretty neat, though the drums sounded kinda flat and box-y.
The more subdued "Capricorn" was mostly led by a string section, though its unexpected noise rock section made it a bit more fascinating. The drums still sounded pretty bad.
Weekend Update
Colin Jost began Update discussing Stormy Daniels's testimony at the Trump hush money trial, which Michael Che joined in on. Che then made a crack about Jost's antisemitic country club.
Jost introduced us to RFK Jr.'s brain worm, which was played by a very unhinged and funny Sarah Sherman.
Che made a joke about women needing to vacuum, while Jost suggested a generation of babies might be "pussies." Che made light of a scissor attack on a cruise ship. Jost made a Marvel movies joke at his own expense, while Che dug smartly into Drake. Heidi Gardner played a Woman Who Says She's Not Mad who had a huge issue with Jost. She was so so angry at Jost and then also at Che. Just a remarkable physical and emotional performance by Gardner here.
Dawn Farraway
Rudolph played a once-esteemed actress starring in a Tip Top Coffee commercial, but she was pretentious and not good at acting in commercials. Full of fart jokes and a wild affectation by Rudolph, this was both random and juvenile.
National Nurses Week
Various cast members played nurses who discussed their professions to celebrate National Nurses Week. The comedic lynchpins were Rudolph and Ego Nwodim, playing Jamaican nurses lamenting their task of taking care of a racist, horny old white man, which was okay.
Lanzetti Lawn Care
In this ad, Rudolph and Mikey Day played the owners of a landscaping company, who promised that no wife would dare have an affair with any of their staff. The men were all nerdy social outcasts, and the couple were dysfunctional, which was quite funny.
Cut for Time: T.T. and Mario New Album / Didn't Make it Past Dress Rehearsal?