As soon as upon a time, having Justin Timberlake on Saturday Night time Stay would have been an exciting factor. Within the mid-2000s, the pop star emerged as one of many present’s favourite recurring hosts, the type of mega-famous celeb who appeared like he could be down for something, akin to dressing up in a large mascot costume or placing his, ahem, dick in a field.
However the tide has turned on Timberlake. He arrived on SNL this weekend as a musical visitor with an air of desperation. Within the midst of making an attempt to reboot his pop-music profession after 2018’s poorly acquired album Man of the Woods, his persona has additionally undergone a cultural reckoning, particularly in gentle of the revelations about him present in his ex Britney Spears’s memoir, amongst them that she obtained an abortion as a result of he “wasn’t completely satisfied in regards to the being pregnant.” She wrote that Timberlake tried to serenade her together with his guitar whereas she was in ache, after which went on to paint her as “a harlot who’d damaged the center of America’s golden boy” after they broke up. Between that and a reevaluation of his function within the Janet Jackson Tremendous Bowl scandal of 2004, through which he obtained off comparatively scot-free whereas Jackson was pilloried, Timberlake has turn out to be emblematic of an informal mid-2000s white-male cockiness that doesn’t play as properly in 2024.
Timberlake, nevertheless, appeared to wish to use SNL as a strategy to ease again into the general public’s good graces, selling his new album, Every little thing I Thought It Was. And but when he popped out on stage in the course of the host Dakota Johnson’s monologue, he introduced much less confidence and extra eagerness to remind audiences why they used to like him. Johnson cheekily instructed her former co-star from The Social Community that he was simply the musical visitor. “Effectively, in order for you me to be in sketches,” he started to a spherical of cheers, “I’ve hosted earlier than.” He then mouthed the phrases 5 occasions. “Yeah, properly that was 10 years in the past,” Johnson responded in a line that made clear that the writers have been conscious of how retrograde Timberlake now appears.
Johnson continued that she was so completely satisfied he selected her present for his “comeback,” a phrase that appeared to rankle Timberlake. “Is that what we’re calling it?” he requested, earlier than launching right into a lewd joke utilizing one other which means of the phrase come.
The precise host of the night time, Johnson, turned out to be a superb foil for Timberlake. Johnson’s pure deadpan, which has made her a viral sensation, helped her play cool lady to Timberlake’s jittery wannabe in the course of the monologue. Her informal dismissal of him solely additional highlighted Timberlake’s awkwardness. In the meantime, the most effective sketches featured Johnson’s dry supply.
In “Large Dumb Cups,” a parody of the baffling Stanley Cup pattern, she let her personal monotone slide into that of an influencer who was, as she mentioned, “bodily or a minimum of spiritually blonde.” Together with Chloe Fineman and Heidi Gardner, Johnson effortlessly doled out jokes in regards to the absurdity of the jugs with a lightweight vocal fry. Holding her Stanley close to her face, she poured in a bottle of Josh wine, an affordable model that has additionally turn out to be a meme. “Get in there Josh,” she mentioned.
Johnson’s humor carries with it an amusing sourness—she’s the queen bee you wouldn’t wish to cross. That was on full show in the course of the Please Don’t Destroy video through which she expertly dissed the comedy group’s three members. Whereas they tried to rib her again, Johnson all the time got here out on prime, describing them because the “lonelier island,” a reference to Timberlake’s frequent collaborators, Andy Samberg’s comedy trio The Lonely Island.
Nonetheless, Johnson’s energy additionally comes from her self-awareness. When she unleashed nepo-baby costs in opposition to Please Don’t Destroy’s John Higgins and Martin Herlihy, each of whose dad and mom have labored on SNL, she was pressured to acknowledge her personal legacy in Hollywood. The sketch resolved in a “nepo truce,” with all intoning, “a foot within the door and a lot extra.”
Johnson’s eager sense of her personal place within the movie star ecosystem solely put Timberlake’s depleted mojo in better aid when he did find yourself displaying up for a sketch, miscalculating how nostalgia would play. He reunited together with his previous pal Jimmy Fallon, one other celeb who doesn’t have the assist he as soon as did, for an version of “The Barry Gibb Discuss Present,” the long-running bit the place they’ve performed the sibling members of the Bee Gees internet hosting a political speak present.
However of all the sketches to deliver again, “The Barry Gibb Discuss Present” appeared like one other miscalculation. In spite of everything, the brother whom Timberlake performs, Robin Gibb, died in 2012. What was as soon as a cute spoof of ’70s icons now looks as if an exhumation of the lifeless. And that’s in all probability not the type of affiliation Timberlake needs relating to his personal profession.
