Dakota Johnson hosts ‘SNL,’ but Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon steal the spotlight
The ‘Madame Web’ star returned as host, pitching ‘big dumb cups’ and roasting Please Don’t Destroy.
Huh. That was a weird episode of Saturday Night Live.
What should have been an episode focused on Dakota Johnson (since she was the host) wound up being the capstone to a week of NBC and Jimmy Fallon pushing Justin Timberlake back into the spotlight.
Besides the teasing of an *NSYNC reunion tour that never came to fruition, Justin Timberlake has been laying low, especially in light of recent revelations about his relationship with Britney Spears. It’s been over a decade since Timberlake hosted SNL or was the show’s musical guest, and over that time, the vibe around him has definitely shifted.
Which made it odd to see how hard Fallon was pushing Timberlake on The Tonight Show this past week. If you follow the show on social media, clips of the duo hamming it up as if it were still the early 2010s inundated your feed. I had a hunch that we’d see Fallon pop up in some form during this episode of SNL, but I didn’t expect to see him featured so heavily. In addition to a cringy appearance during Johnson’s monologue, this episode gave us the first new installment of Fallon and Timberlake’s “Barry Gibb Talk Show” since 2013.
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