As soon as upon a time, having Justin Timberlake on Saturday Night time Reside would have been an exhilarating factor. Within the mid-2000s, the pop star emerged as one of many present’s favourite recurring hosts, the sort of mega-famous celeb who appeared like he could be down for something, similar 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 mild of the revelations about him present in his ex Britney Spears’s memoir, amongst them that she bought an abortion as a result of he “wasn’t comfortable in regards to the being pregnant.” She wrote that Timberlake tried to serenade her along with his guitar whereas she was in ache, after which went on to paint her as “a harlot who’d damaged the guts of America’s golden boy” after they broke up. Between that and a reevaluation of his position within the Janet Jackson Tremendous Bowl scandal of 2004, during which he bought off comparatively scot-free whereas Jackson was pilloried, Timberlake has turn out to be emblematic of an off-the-cuff 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, All the things 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 advised her former co-star from The Social Community that he was simply the musical visitor. “Nicely, 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 instances. “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 comfortable 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 that means of the phrase come.
The precise host of the evening, Johnson, turned out to be an excellent 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 “Massive 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 not less than 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 during 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 high, 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 prices in opposition to Please Don’t Destroy’s John Higgins and Martin Herlihy, each of whose mother and father have labored on SNL, she was compelled 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 higher reduction when he did find yourself exhibiting up for a sketch, miscalculating how nostalgia would play. He reunited along 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 Speak Present,” the long-running bit the place they’ve performed the sibling members of the Bee Gees internet hosting a political discuss present.
However of the entire sketches to carry again, “The Barry Gibb Speak 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 like an exhumation of the lifeless. And that’s most likely not the sort of affiliation Timberlake needs in relation to his personal profession.
