Peggy Lipton'Twin Peaks,' 'Mod Squad' Star Dead at 72
5/12/2019 5:38 AM PDT
Peggy Lipton, a giant TV star who also had a singing career, a super famous husband and a famous daughter is dead.
Lipton lost her battle to cancer and died over the weekend.
Lipton's career began in modeling when she was just a teen, but before her teens ended she started to hit it big in acting. She appeared on "Bewitched'' and "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" when she was only 19, and then ... she became part of a cultural phenomenon -- "The Mod Squad," which aired between '68 and '71.
'Mod Squad' was a huge hit, but she had reservations, saying, "I didn't realize how violent 'Mod Squad' was, adding, "When it was over, I was so happy I couldn't wait."
She transitioned into singing and had a successful career there too.
Lipton tied the knot with Quincy Jones and produced 2 daughters. The marriage lasted from 1974 - 1990.
After getting divorced, she scored another cultural hit, playing Double R Diner owner Norma Jennings on 'Twin Peaks.' She also appeared in the 2017 reboot.
Lipton has many other credits, including "A Dog's Purpose," and "Angie Tribeca.'
One of her daughters, "Parks and Recreation" star Rashida Jones, said, "We feel so lucky for every moment we spent with her."
Kim Kardashian famously—and quite relatably—did not enjoy being pregnant.
"You know, it was really hard for me to get pregnant, so I do feel really blessed that I am pregnant and, at the end of the day, it is a million times worth it," she told E! News in 2015, when son Saint Westwas still on the way.
That being said, "I hate it," Kim added. "You know, pregnancy is not for me…You know I've heard stories forever about how amazing pregnancy is from my mom and Kourtney and that's just not the case for me, and I'm not going to sit here and lie and act like it's the most blissful experience."
Motherhood, however, she could eat up with a spoon and come back for more.
And, Kim added an hour later, "He's also Chicago's twin lol I'm sure he will change a lot but now he looks just like her."
After Saint was born, doctors advised against Kim getting pregnant again, but not for a minute did she give up on the idea of having the big family she'd dreamed of having. So, she researched surrogacy and, despite a few setbacks putting their plans on hold for some months, she and Kanye made it happen.
"Kim always wanted four kids and having two boys and two girls feels perfect," a source told us in January, when they made their plans for baby No. 4 known, just weeks of a year after their third child, Chicago West, was born. "They were very happy with the entire experience the first time and are so grateful to have one more baby."
In turn, this Mother's Day is going to be the most action-packed ever for their sprawling family.
People talk all the time these days about modern families, and few are rewriting the stodgy rules as they go along as much as Kim and her sisters—who have also seen mom Kris Jenner get divorced twice and still manage to steer the ship back into smooth waters. And that ship keeps taking on passengers! Kim, Khloe Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian and Kylie Jenner now have nine kids between them, they're busier than ever and they've never been happier.
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Kylie, who had daughter Stormi Websterin February 2018 and banked her first billion dollars not long afterward, has said that her life irrevocably changed for the better after becoming a mom. Her pregnancy at 19 may have shocked the world, but she didn't bother taking the temperature of the zeitgeist when deciding how to proceed.
What Kylie did do is not share the particulars of her journey with her 134 million Instagram followers until it was over—only then could the narrative fully belong to her.
And while life is as riddled with selfies and social media as ever these days, "the way that I look at things is a lot more positive," the now 21-year-old Kylie Cosmetics mogul told Interview Germany. "I really feel like my life didn't start until I had [my daughter]."
Kourtney said something similar in 2012, when she was pregnant with baby No. 2, telling Parentsthat being a mom is "definitely my favorite role in life. It has changed me and made me realize there is nothing else I would rather do with my time. Being a mom is what life is about. I hope people realize what the priorities in life should be and know not everything has to be perfect."
As in, a reminder to those wondering at the time if she and Scott Disick were going to get married: Mind your own business.
Curtis/StarPix/REX/Shutterstock
Kylie envisions giving Stormi a sibling one day, but she's not in any rush—nor are she and Stormy's dad, Travis Scott, in any rush to change the status of their relationship while being partners in everything—including love, parenting and home-ownership—is working out so well for them. (Not to mention, Kylie's got a skincare line on the way first.)
This past January, a source told E! News that Khloe and Kylie loved being pregnant together in 2017 and early 2018, during much of which Kim's surrogate was also expecting Kimye's third child, meaning some epic baby-planning was underway all at once. The sisters even joked about doing it all over again so they'd have yet another round of close-in-age cousins, True, Stormy and Chicago often affectionately being referred to as the "triplets."
That was, incidentally, before all hell broke loose.
Khloe, who also let nothing stand in her way when she felt it was the right time for her to start her own family, had to adjust her aspirations when it came to having more kids with now ex-boyfriend Tristan Thompson. Determined to make it work for True's sake last year, she finally broke it off with the basketball player a few months ago after friends told her he had hooked up with Kylie's now former best friend Jordyn Woods.
When a fan expressed hope via Twitter that Khloe would find a guy who deserved her, she replied, "Baby True made it all worth it. Thank you for your beautiful message."
Another silver lining, particularly for the rest of her family, was that Khloe has permanently relocated back to L.A. after spending a lot of the previous year in Cleveland, where Thompson plays for the Cavaliers.
"I definitely feel like we are more connected now, especially that Khloe's back and we're hanging out with all the babies," Kim told E! News last summer when Khloe was home during the NBA off-season. "All the kids want to hang out. It's just a whole different experience now. It's so much fun."
Instagram/Kourtney Kardashian
While Chicago, Stormy and True are especially close in age, the range for the littlest Kard-Jenner generation goes from 3 days old to 9 years old, the big birthday Mason Disick celebrated in December. And with all the sisters living within 25 miles of each other (only the traffic between Beverly Hills and Calabasas makes it feel longer), all the kids have grown up together.
Kim also told us last July, "I think we're even closer now because Kourtney and I, even if we don't disagree on some parenting tips, we'll discuss them thoroughly and we respect each other's rules, but we pick up the slack for each other too. I know that if Kourtney's out of town, then the kids will sleep at my house and we'll plan these fun things where the kids always feel loved. We're always helping each other out."
Kylie, however, was the one who was up on all the new baby gear, Kim added.
Kourtney, the first of all of them to start a family, has slowly but surely become the seasoned veteran when it comes to modern mothering. She and Scottbroke up in 2015 and, even when the sight of him made her want to scream (or cry, or even laugh sometimes), Kourtney powered through to make life remain as normal as possible for their three kids, Mason, Penelope and Reign.
"I feel like I can show a message, too, of like parents can get along and work together and travel together," she said on Today in February. "And I think it's a good message to show other people."
Last month, the friendly exes made a YouTube video together in which they both acknowledged it hadn't been easy, but, Scott said, "the fact that we've tried and made it work makes life that much better. I couldn't imagine raising three children with somebody I couldn't speak to every day."
Instagram / Kanye West
"The hardest part was when we both started new relationships," Kourtney added. "That caused fights between you and I about introducing the kids. We literally had to go to therapy to be able to, like, communicate together."
Scott replied, "The biggest challenge was just trying to figure out how we separate our relationship as friends and parents and still be on the same page, and what's, I guess, appropriate and what's not and when to be able to talk to each other. In the beginning, you set good [boundaries] and we learned from that and we've gotten to a good place."
Both are lucky that Kourtney's whole family is supportive of the master plan. Some days have felt more supportive than others, but overall... they're on board.
Khloe, too, has seen firsthand her big sister working hard to figure it out, and she has worked on doing the same with Tristan.
Even in the earliest, rawest days of their split, she did her best to be civil, tweeting in March, when someone remarked that all True needed was her mom, "Thank you love! You're so very sweet. But he is a good dad to her. My sweet and special baby True will NEVER be put in the middle of him and I. I can promise that."
In April, she and Tristan were both at True's big backyard 1st birthday party, as were Kylie, Kim and Kourtney and a bunch of True's cousins.
And despite the heartbreak, taking care of her daughter has still made life feel better than ever.
"I am so utterly obsessed with her," Khloe told People last month. "This first year has been amazing. And I really feel like I was meant to do this."
Kim technically has the most traditional set-up of all of them, having been married to Kanye West since 2014, but there are certainly a few things about their lifestyle—jetting all over the world, eldest daughter North Westcovering Vogue Kids at 21 months old, occasional meetings at the White House, going to the Met Gala three days before becoming parents of four—that aren't particularly normal.
And Kim is only adding more to her plate: she's independently studying to become a lawyer, with an eye on taking the bar exam in 2022, and it was just reported that she was quietly giving money to the 90 Days of Freedom Campaign, which has helped get 17 inmates released from federal prison over the past three months.
Being on Keeping Up With the Kardashians for more than 11 years and being intertwined with her fans via social media for as long, it hasn't always been easy for her to tune out some of the more hurtful noise—but in recent years, since having kids and discovering this passion for legal justice that's been simmering beneath the surface, she just doesn't have time for the drama anymore.
Defying people's expectations is fun, though.
Now, Kim told Vogue recently, "I love to be put in a situation where I can have a conversation with someone who might not be inclined to think much of me, because I can guarantee they will have a different opinion and understand what's important to me after they've met me."
And despite her most unusual of paths—to fame, to love, to the law—she had the most understandable of concerns before deciding to have a family of her own.
"Before I had kids, I remember just thinking like, Wow, [my parents] had it so together. Am I ready?" Kim wrote in an essay last year for Wealthsimple, But you're never ready. I say that to all my friends. Me in my 30s, Kanye was in his 30s, and I'm like, If we're not ready now... I mean, this is pathetic. So we're going for it. And it just happened — I was so freaked out. I was like, I thought my life was over. I was just so not a parent. I literally thought my life was over."
It pays to have a son (and roommate) like "Saturday Night Live" star Pete Davidson.
Davidson brought his mother Amy into his "Weekend Update" routine, calling her "the greatest roommate in the world." The actor recently bought a $1.3 million house in Staten Island, N.Y., for his mother, which they have shared since his break-up with Ariana Grande
But Davidson did one better on the eve before Mother's Day — he hooked his single mother up with Jon Hamm.
When asked by "Weekend Update" host Colin Jost what he had planned for the holiday, Davidson replied, "What do you mean? I put her on TV. This is it. Jon Hamm could be single and watching."
Amy Davidson admitted, "I'd also settle for James Spader."
'SNL' cold open: Frightened GOP leaders cannot stop their support of Trump
'SNL' Mother's Day: Tina Fey, Amy Poehler return to help Emma Thompson explain 'Mother Speak'
But she didn't have to settle. Hamm was watching and nearby.
As the cast was shown onstage saying farewell at show's end, a bearded Hamm appeared embracing Amy.
The two were pictured backstage embracing and were featured on the "SNL" Twitter page with the caption, "Pete's mom and her Mother's Day gift."
Tina Fey, Emma Thompson, Amy PoehlerScreenshot: Saturday Night Live
“I fight her the whole way, but she does it.”
“I’m not an actor, I’m a [wannabe goofball sketch comedy] star. (And also a great actor.”
For Emma Thompson enthusiasts out there, the British acting legend’s first Saturday Night Live hosting gig could have just ended after the monologue. Sharing the stage on the traditional SNL Mother’s Day show with fellow formidably funny women Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, the trio sailed through a tutorial in mom speak like the famous mothers with nothing left to prove that they assuredly are. (Amy did slip in a plug for Wine Country, her likeably shaky directorial debut.) The Mother’s Day show can traffic in preciousness (see below), but this was pretty much the finest type of adorable, with Emma, Tina, and Amy all chiming in with some, one intuits, well-earned comic wisdom about hearing your mom’s actual meaning come your Sunday visit this year. Tina and Amy got to bust out their Philly and Boston mom accents, respectively, while Thompson (after thanking “husband of 16 years” Kenan Thompson), revealed that, for British moms, an all-encompassing “splendid” is their version of “aloha.” If your thought in watching these three do their thing was to wish you could just hang out and listen to them shooting the bull over glasses of wine, then who could blame you.
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For Thompson, a career as British thespian standard-bearer (and Oscar nomination shoo-in) has always walked hand-in-hand with her roots as a giant, knockabout comedian/goofball. Apart from starting out at the Cambridge Footlights, doing revue sketches alongside a pair of guys named Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry, Thompson also had her very own (short-lived) sketch series back in the 80s, and has peppered her Shakespeare-and-corsets filmography with intermittent forays into invariably delightful silliness. (Do yourself a favor and seek out 1989's The Tall Guy, where she and Jeff Goldblum make a startlingly silly and sexy couple.) So hosting SNL proved to be something of a doddle, with the game and effortlessly professional Thompson showing that she could do this sort of thing anytime she wants, should she want.
Coming out for the monologue in pinstriped trousers and sporty trainers (no word if they’re the same sneakers she wore to her recent Damehood ceremony), Thompson was clearly ready for the rush and bustle of the quick change. A singing teapot, a blowsy 1950s Hollywood dame, a prim-and-proper (and violent) royal etiquette expert, a TV judge, A TV cooking judge, a TV therapist, Maggie Smith—Thompson ably donned each role in turn with aplomb, even if the sketches themselves often paled in comparison to her trouper’s commitment. Again, Emma Thompson can do most anything, so standing out amongst a raft of medium-decent sketches wasn’t anything she’d break a sweat over.
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Best/Worst Sketch Of The Night
Staying with sweat, while no sketch tonight suffered from obvious flop-sweats, none were especially great, either. As a dark horse pick, I’ll take more idea-driven sketches like the Kate McKinnon’s talk show Tracy any time. Nobody’s more critical on SNL use of the talk show/game show crutch than I am, but this one successfully subverted the tired-looking “my daughter is out of control” premise more cleverly than most. Ego Nwodim got one of her best roles of the season as the rebellious teen daughter whose “You don’t know me!” catchphrase is repeatedly rebutted by audience members (and Emma Thompson’s therapist) nailing pretty much every insight into her thought processes and teen travails. Better than that alone is the way the sketch avoids simply twanging on the “millennials, am I right?” string by making each successive good audience guess affectingly sympathetic to the brash girl’s plight. She’s in search of good teachers to inspire her. She, too, has a hard time sticking to a cardio regimen (an thinks CrossFit is a little cultish). Plus, there’s a gently escalating absurdity to the bit, as Thompson reveals that her “Doctor” title comes from fronting a funk band, and that her locket-sharing BFF relationship with the girl came after Nwodim’s Rae Rae hit Thompson’s car in a parking lot, and that she’s still looking for insurance information.
Higher concept sketches brought varied results. I’m all for letting Emma Thompson smack someone around for the yucks, and the royal etiquette sketch saw her basically (and realistically) beating the shit out of Leslie Jones. The unlikely duo played well off of each other, as Jones’ American Markle relative (in England for the royal christening) is disabused of any notion that a Mary Poppins-esque prim Englishwoman can’t segue seamlessly from a little instructional ditty about stirring tea into a (genuinely shocking) full-hand slap of the offending teacup right out of Jones’ hand and across the room. The incorporation of an—eek!—commoner (who’s also American, and black, to boot) into the royal clan has highlighted all manner of uneasy racial undercurrents (an straight-up royal bigots), but the sketch is mainly a study in contrasting comic and acting styles as much as cultural ones. Leslie puts her comic broadness to fine use, as she discovers that her American brashness is no match for the steely, stately brutality of Thompson’s quick-handed stickler. And Thompson faces down her uncouth charge with an outwardly proper decorum that hides a short fuse and a gangster’s intimidation tactics. (“What, what, what—you’ll do what?,” Thompson asks the affronted Jones, leaning in just close enough to be bloody terrifying.) It’s a one-joke sketch, but Thompson and Jones tell it well.
On the other hand, this week’s big musical number is no “Diner Lobster,” but a Beauty And The Beast parody that suffers from some slack pacing and a muddled central premise. Thompson is a gamer, dressing up as Mrs. Potts and singing along to Belle and the Beast’s seemingly idyllic ballroom dance. But the interruption of the Beast’s anthropomorphized gym equipment is a turn that doesn’t pay off (the film is said to be partly funded by Disney and a gay hookup app?), even if Kenan and Melissa Villaseñor find their way through their lyric in fine form. And here’s to Emma Thompson for crooning about her affair with Beck Bennett’s Beast with her dignity unruffled, even if the line “Dong goes in the spout, baby cup comes out” isn’t exactly Ashman-Menken. My biggest laugh was Cecily Strong’s disillusioned Belle storming out with the line, “I can’t believe I fell for my kidnapper, again!”
The Chopped filmed sketch (see: game show crutch) wasn’t especially promising, although that the contest between harried would-be chefs Jones and Villaseñor kept dropping ever more absurd details was a nice surprise. Jokes about the mandated ingredients including a satchel-full of loose sugar and a five-pound horse penis were matched by the chefs’ resulting loony dishes (a kitten on a hamburger bun, a talking “raw” steak that uses the c-word, a salad dressed in a tuxedo), and the wordplay gag about Alex Moffat’s judge about being served with divorce papers rather than a meal. Like the Don Cheadle baking show sketch, it’s the oddball weirdness that elevates the joke. Nothing side-splitting, but anytime that SNL indulges a writer’s penchant for inventive silliness, it’s a welcome ingredient in the traditional recipe.
Thompson, Kate McKinnon, and Aidy Bryant threw some absurdity at the wall in the Judge Court sketch, too, to mildly amusing result. The joke that the three TV judges are all iced coffee-swilling best pals who graduated last in their class at law school allows the three very funny women a chance to go big, brassy, and buffoonish. The three dispense hasty justice according to rules only they know (“That is too young, you’re going to jail,” one pronounces on a 30-year-old landlord in a rent dispute), and overshare strange details of their codependent lives (Thompson saved Aidy’s life once through some uncomfortably intimate mouth-to-not-mouth), and nonsensical catchphrases. (“Ding-dong, bitch.”) It’s fine, but, with those three being teed up with such over-the-top characters to play, the sketch should have really taken off more than it did.
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Weekend Update update
Che and Jost snapped off a handful of good lines each, which is a solid showing, as far as Update goes these days. For Jost, the harshest was a joke about Georgia’s draconian, soon-to-be-ruled-nonsense abortion restrictions, where he claimed that Georgia was celebrating Mother’s Day by making motherhood mandatory. Second place (in laughs and harshness) goes to his line about the creepy new Facebook “secret crush” feature, which, he claims, will be the basis for a future Dateline episode called “The Facebook Murders.”
Che, referring to revelations about Donald Trump’s calamitous business practices over the years, noted that Trump’s failed airline lasted “33 years less than Spirit,” for Christ’s sake. He also found a sharp angle on a seemingly innocuous item about the most popular American baby names (Emma and Liam) by illustrating with the sentence, “As in ‘No, we will not be vaccinating Emma and Liam this year.’” Decent jokes, crisply delivered. If there’s a criticism to be leveled, it’s my longstanding one that Update’s potential potency as SNL’s satirical showpiece deflates rather than builds as the piece goes on. With a social and political landscape so fraught and frankly ludicrous, there’s a superfluity of material out there that Jost and Che generally only skim.
Mother’s Day saw Pete Davidson bring out his actual mom, Amy, for a sweet, short visit. Davidson’s position as SNL’s own in-house tabloid target has been questionably exploited by the show, but this was about as innocuously endearing as it’s been, as the oft-reported fact of the troubled Davidson living with his mother (he bought them a house) saw Davidson making jokes about getting caught masturbating, and the fact that his mom’s appearance on national TV counts as his Mother’s Day gift. Plus, it was genuinely funny when Jon Hamm—referred to by Pete as his mom’s fantasy—showed up later in the goodnights, an uncommented-upon little extension of the joke that made me smile, anyway.
And Heidi Gardner brought back her teen movie reviewer Bailey Gismert for another round of uptalk and expertly adolescent awkwardness. As with all Update characters, Bailey’s schtick doesn’t change with the movies she (barely) judges, so it’s all about Gardner, who continues to demonstrate that she’s the best character actress on the show at this point. Like with her beleaguered Goop representative character, Gardner makes Bailey’s privileged yet unworldly angst surprisingly layered, finding a real—if silly—person inside the details of her life. Her tearful protests to Che about her tough life (spirit club, brushing her horse) culminates in the exquisitely detailed, breathless anecdote of a classmate whose bleacher mishap (she “fell through a crack!”) means that, while the unfortunate girl didn’t die, “she’s, like, not going to college.”
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“What do you call that act?” “The Californians!”—Recurring sketch report
Reusing the template from a Matt Damon-Cecily Strong Christmas parenting sketch, “The Perfect Mother” shows the discrepancy between well-meaning holiday platitudes and the messy reality of actual child-rearing. Thompson and Heidi Gardner have a nice chemistry as daughter (and new mom) and mother, whose Hallmark commercial-grade whitewashing sentimentality about their mutual motherly admiration is interspersed with quick flashback flashes of crayon-eating, TV-wrecking, projectile-vomiting, impossibly horrific diaper changes, and other real-life joys of motherhood. Like the Christmas version, the joke’s a simple one, carried along by a pair of fine, lived-in performances, and ending with a pleasant little snap of an ending. If there’s room for absurdity on SNL, there’s room for some well-executed sentimentality as well.
Cinema Classics gave Thompson and McKinnon an opportunity to ham it up, something I’ll sign on for every time. Still, speaking of crutches, SNL can’t get enough of explaining a sketch’s premise, huh? With Kenan’s ever-amusing and digressive host Reese De’What explaining that the night’s throwback feature, Always Be Sisters, suffered its ignominious failure thanks to both lead actresses demanding that they be given the last word in any scene, the sketch sees McKinnon’s high-strung actress saying at one point, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re trying to get the last word in.” Yes, that’s the joke. We got that the first time. And from how McKinnon and Thompson’s actresses keep doing exactly that all through their scene. Seeing two very funny actresses goof around within such a premise is undeniably fun stuff that would spark a little brighter if someone hadn’t decided to slow things down for the slowest and least perceptive viewer possible. Still, McKinnon and Thompson find inventively silly ways to keep prolonging the scene, culminating, at various time, with them trying to call cut on the movie, and spouting random strings of nonsense (“Fart, foreskin, tarantulasaurus rex”) to keep the other one from stealing the show.
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“It was my understanding there would be no math”—Political comedy report
Hey, the politics cold open is back, after a head-fake and a week off. And while it’s nice to see that SNL—again, a show that prides itself on its political satire—can find something to joke about in this ongoing constitutional crisis of a ludcrous shitshow, the Meet The Press sketch pointed up the show’s shortcomings, even when it deigns to dig into the political world. For one thing, there’s a serious dearth of impressionists on SNL these days. It’s funny (and apparently infuriating to Donald Trump) to see Kate McKinnon don the combovers and fat suits as every other male member of the current Republican Party and White House staff, but, here, she’s not doing loudmouthed lickspittle Lindsey Graham (R-SC), so much as doing a nondescript southern accent in a man’s suit. Same goes for Beck Bennett’s jowly, predictably turtle-esque Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Kyle Mooney’s host Chuck Todd (unaffiliated, with bangs). That’s not itself a crippling fact—Will Ferrell sounded precisely unlike George W. Bush—but the writing would have to fill the comic gap, and it doesn’t.
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In fact, the only real bright spot in the sketch came from Cecily Strong, who does do an exceptionally well-realized impression of her target, in this case, Maine Republican Susan Collins. Perhaps it’s thanks to the fact that I’ve had to listen to Collins’ on the evening news ever since she was elected to office in my home state, but Strong’s Collins is uncanny in both her quavering delivery and her even less stable stances on the issues the supposed “moderate Republican” has abandoned repeatedly in deferring to the worst and cruelest actions of Donald Trump and her party. Graham and McConnell have made their complete lack of principles so nakedly apparent is a joke so clear by this point as to be beyond parody, but Strong’s Collins, in her to-camera singsong, makes the Maine Senator’s complete capitulation to political expediency come across as especially and acutely dishonorable. The sketch wheezes along with Todd posing silly hypothetical worst-case scenarios to see just how far Trump’s sycophantic minions will go to cover for him (everything up to marrying Fox News boogeywoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as it turns out), but Strong’s makes Collins’ performative show of spine (she promises to send “a strongly worded email straight to my drafts folder”) land with some real bite to it.
I am hip to the musics of today
According to their bio, the Disney-bred Jonas Brothers have reunited (as a singing concern) after a six-year breakup over creative differences. Gotta be tough, being brothers and all, but one wonders what startling voyages of discovery had to be completed to return to a lucrative career of catchily forgettable boy band pop. Festooned with enough balloons to fill a theme park parade, the brothers’ stage show was the sort of packaged performance whose peppy hooks might or might not have all been performed live, should anyone care enough to check. That the brothers played “Sucker” directly after NBC ran a commercial for a reality show featuring the Jonas Brothers and the guy who co-wrote “Sucker” was an eye-roller, too. The boys also popped up in the Judge Court sketch, being professionally adorable, and here’s to Emma Thompson for pretending to be bowled over with squealing glee each time she introduced the band.
Most/Least Valuable Not Ready For Prime Time Player
Well, Pete’s mom isn’t actually in the cast, so let’s give the Mother’s Day show honor to Ego Nwodim, Heidi Gardner, and Cecily Strong, both of whom took their showcase pieces and ran with them.
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Chris Redd is too interesting a performer to be languishing like he’s been of late.
“What the hell is that thing?”—The Ten-To-Oneland Report
In the second dose of old movie-parody of the night, the TCM continuity bloopers show Wait A Second, That Shouldn’t Be There! got exhausting pretty quick. For one thing, the Game Of Thronescoffee cup thing has rolled along. I know it’s only a once a week chance for SNL to chime in on the hot, already irrelevant Twitter hashtag of the moment, but the jokes have been made. Especially since this sketch is both one-joke, and loaded with enough product placement to satisfy Lorne Michaels stated product integration goals. (It doesn’t help things that most of the onscreen anachronisms play more like intentional placement than accidental goofs.) There’s a [national fast food chain’s] meal deal box in the background of the Roots remake. And, wait, Shakespeare in Love didn’t have an errant [prominently displayed brand of snack chip] bag in it! At least Thompson got to trot out a passable Maggie Smith (drinking out a beer helmet and ordering from [national pizza chain]) on Downton Abbey. (And, in the one solid line, Kyle Mooney’s host claims that no one on the Shakespeare set noticed the gaffes because now-pariah producer Harvey Weinstein was masturbating into a potted plant just offscreen.) It’s marginally cute, but the sketch plays like a last-ditch strategy to clear the promised ad buys before next week’s finale than anything resembling a ten-to-one sketch.
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Stray observations
Strong’s Susan Collins, speculating on her response should Trump divorce his wife and marry Stormy Daniels: “ I would show up to the wedding but not before I mumbled a strong rebuke into my Lean Cuisine.”
Thompson, Fey, and Poehler’s mom translations: “Can we not talk about politics” equals “Don’t ruin Joe Biden for me, he’s what I picture.” And “Son, you know I love you just the way you are,” translates to “I am bored of waiting for you to tell me you’re gay. Just do it, so I can buy rainbow stuff!”
Jost claims that Mitch McConnell always has the look of “always watching a man slowly drown.” Which is a better shot than the whole turtle thing.
Che, after reporting that most of the World Champion Red Sox’ black players(and Puerto Rican manager Alex Cora) refused to come to the White House, joked that Trump’s response was a terse “Perfect.”
Next week: Season finale, with four-timer Paul Rudd, and musical guest DJ Khaled.
Peggy Lipton, the actress and singer known for her roles in “The Mod Squad” and “Twin Peaks,” and the mother of Rashida Jones, has died at 72 of cancer.
Lipton won a Golden Globe and was Emmy-nominated four times for her role as flower child Julie Barnes in “The Mod Squad,” in which she starred from 1968 to 1973.
She became a fashion icon for her hippie outfits on the show, which featured three hip undercover cops, “One black, one white, one blonde,” as the marketing campaign described.
The show was one of the first to feature a multiracial cast, and one of the first to depict the growing counter-culture movement.
Lipton married music producer Quincy Jones in 1974; they divorced in 1989.
After a long break to raise their two daughters, she returned to acting on David Lynch’s original “Twin Peaks” series, playing Norma Jennings, the owner of the Double R Diner.
Lipton's death from cancer was announced in a statement from her daughters, Kidada and Rashida Jones, who said she "made her journey peacefully with her daughters and nieces by her side."
Lipton came to stardom playing undercover police officer Julie Barnes in the series "Mod Squad," which ran from 1968 to 1973.
That role earned her four Golden Globe nominations and one win for Best TV Actress in a drama.
She also starred as Norma Jennings on the television series "Twin Peaks."
Lipton was married to renowned music producer Quincy Jones from 1974 to 1990. The couple share daughters Kidada Jones and Rashida Jones, who is known for her roles on the comedy series "The Office" and "Parks and Recreation."
"Peggy was, and will always be our beacon of light, both in this world and beyond. She will always be a part of us," the daughters shared.
Crazy Rich Asians star Constance Wu offered an apology — and an explanation — on Saturday for her slew of angry tweets and comments a day earlier about the renewal of her TV show Fresh Off The Boat.
"I love FOTB," she wrote in a statement. "I was temporarily upset yesterday not bc I hate the show but bc its renewal meant I had to give up another project that I was really passionate about. So my dismayed social media replies were more about that other project and not about FOTB."
Wu had shocked fans of the ABC sitcom with a series of messages on social media after the show was renewed for a sixth season.
"So upset right now that I’m literally crying. Ugh. Fuck," she wrote in one message.
"Fucking hell," she wrote in another.
After a fan responded, “Congrats on your renewal! Great news :),” Wu replied bluntly, “No it’s not."
When Fresh Off the Boat’s official Instagram account posted a photo of the cast with news of the reneweal, Wu also commented “Dislike” on the photo.
Some fans speculated that Wu was angry she would be required to return to TV after the blockbuster success of Crazy Rich Asians, while others dubbed her remarks insensitive to struggling actors, as well as the rest of the Fresh Off The Boat cast and crew.
Representatives for ABC and 20th Century Fox, which produces the show, told BuzzFeed News they had no comment on Wu's words.
The actor tried to clarify herself late Friday, tweeting that she had had "a rough day" and was "ill timed w/the news of the show."
But in her statement on Saturday, she admitted that her public anger was to do with the show's renewal meaning she would have give up another unnamed project "that would have challenged [her] as an artist."
She described her work on Fresh Off The Boat as "fun and easy and pleasant," but said she's driven to "artistic challenges/difficulties over success/happiness."
Wu said she regretted and was sorry that her words were insensitive to actors who could only dream of starring in a network comedy.
"My words and ill-timing were insensitive to those who are struggling, especially insensitive considering the fact that I used to be in that struggle too," she wrote. "I do regret that ad it wasn't nice and I am sorry for that."
She credited Fresh Off The Boat with affording her career options, but conceded to having mixed feelings about the show's return.
"People can hold conflicting feelings in their hearts — that conflict is a part of being human," she wrote. "So I can both love the show/cast/crew but at the same time be disappointed that I lost the other unrelated job."
She ended her statement with what appeared to be a muddled reference to the #MeToo movement, applying the slogan "believe women" as she urged fans to believe that she was telling the truth about her feelings.
Peggy Lipton, a giant TV star who also had a singing career, a super famous husband and a famous daughter is dead.
