Maya Rudolph is MOTHER in pitch perfect ballroom-themed 'SNL' musical number
Maya Rudolph returned to Saturday Night Live over the weekend, with an opening Mother's Day monologue that absolutely slayed.
While Mother's Day might be set aside for those who fit the more traditional meaning of the word "mother," SNL decided to match that up with the pop culture definition of the word. Rudolph is a mom, but she's also Mother.
After being enthusiastically informed of this by Bowen Yang and Sarah Sherman mid-monologue, the former cast member shifted into a musical number evocative of the drag ballroom scene.
"We did not come to play with you hoes. We came to slay, bitch," Kenan Thompson says by way of introduction. "Ladies and gentlemen, gays and theys, I give to you Mother, of the House of Rockefeller."
Mixing the meaning of "mother" throughout the number, Rudolph references a number of classic moments from her comedy history, much of which took place during her nine seasons on SNL—all punctuated with the refrain "I'm your Mother."
Maya Rudolph Mother’s Day Monologue - SNL
The opening wasn't the only bit of Rudolph's episode that shouted out the LGBQT+ community.
There was a hilarious (if somewhat depressing) PSA from teachers that included Thompson noting, "I got pieced up by two 12-year-old nonbinary asexuals."
Teacher PSA - SNL
There was also a deep cut parody of a real 1982 coffee commercial starring Lauren Bacall, which NBC notes has enjoyed a new life decades later thanks to lip syncs by drag queens and TikTokers.
Coffee Commercial - SNL
And we certainly can't skip out on mentioning Rudolph's return as Beyoncé, trying once again to make it through an episode of Hot Ones without catastrophe. Spoiler alert: on SNL, handling the heat remains the one thing "Beyoncé" just can't do.
Hot Ones with Beyoncé 2 - SNL