Any show that features a mom getting booted from her infant’s playgroup because she challenged another mom’s cutting sanctimommy-ness and follows it up with the brutal destruction of a baby stroller that is supposed to be easy to close has got my attention. And affection.
It was during this Up All Night episode — where Maya Rudolph‘s character Ava did not annoy me — when I started to believe that this show has what it takes to stick around for a while.
As with most of its episodes, its premise sounds familiar: New parents feel like aliens when they enter the truly weird playgroup culture, which some adults take way too seriously, so seriously that they are apt to “correct” other parents’ peek-a-boo techniques. Then the new parents meet super-competitive peers who want to make something out of the fact that their kid is crawling while yours isn’t, therefore their kid is apparently headed for Mensa, while yours is destined to sponge off you for the next 30 years because she’s already “behind.”
But in this telling of the confused newbie parent tale, the dad, Chris, actually loved bringing his daughter to her playgroup and regarded Mr. Bob, the PhD of peek-a-boo, as some kind of guru. Meanwhile, Reagan — who would leave work and race over to join Chris and Amy at the playgroup — thinks the people there are nuts, particularly after an at-home mom lashed out at her, suggesting that Reagan cared more about her career than her daughter.
The scene where Reagan decided to “bring it” to the playgroup and show the other parents how she could kick the class’ behind, was brilliant in its absurdity, demonstrating that in some places like this, the babies are practically props as the main action is between the adults, not the children, even though the adults have no first names and are referred to as “Amy’s Mom” and “Amy’s Dad.” In this context, it was not surprise to see Reagan assertively offer up her own little verse to tack onto the end of the “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and then take on “Kayla’s Mom” after the woman blamed Amy’s lack of crawling on Reagan’s career.
Pitch. Perfect.
This send-up of the so-called “mommy wars” — the supposed tension between at-home moms and those who work outside the home — was right on the mark. The cherry on the sundae was the bonding scene where Reagan and Kayla’s Mom beat the heck out of Kayla’s stroller that just wouldn’t shut. After the beat-down, the two former foes agreed to have drinks together some time.
Even Ava’s story was good this week, as she had to come to terms with the fact that Reagan’s attentions are now divided because she has more people and things vying for her attention than she used to. Ava’s passive aggressive response to feeling as though Amy had replaced her — another story that’s been told for decades about what happens to a friendship when one person has a baby and the other doesn’t — wasn’t over-the-top and was played with comic aplomb, though I could’ve done without that showy final scene of Ava singing with the Bangles cover band.
Clacked by Meredith O'Brien 
on Oct 13, 2011 @ 12:39 EST5EDT
