«Madame Web» star Dakota Johnson hosted for the second time, and musical guest Justin Timberlake, who has previously hosted five times, joined in the sketches as well.
Even if Dakota Johnson, the star of “Madame Web” and this week’s “Saturday Night Live” guest host, was in on the monologue joke that musical guest and previous five-time host Justin Timberlake was there to upstage her, it must have seemed a lot less funny to her by the end of the show.
It was an episode that felt undernourished on the performance side while being overstuffed with guest stars. They included “Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon, there to bring back “The Barry Gibb Talk Show” sketch with Timberlake; two cast members from “Shark Tank,” Mark Cuban and Barbara Corcoran, for a sketch about a woman (Johnson) debuting a bad T-shirt idea at her book club; and Dave Chappelle, who appeared in no sketches, but could be spotted on stage next to Fallon during the final goodnight at the very end of the show. Like last week’s host, Jacob Elordi, Johnson couldn’t seem to pick up the rhythms of the sketches, losing her place in the cue cards multiple times and breaking character often when cast members fired off funny lines next to her. It wasn’t first-time nerves: She hosted previously in 2015 to promote “50 Shades of Grey.”
The episode also included a sketch about a family having trouble ordering a meal at a restaurant called Buccacino’s, one about an overly enthusiastic Delta airport counter employee (Devon Walker) blocking Johnson’s character from retrieving her lost bag, and a sketch about the Stanley cups craze called “Big Dumb Cups” that had funny lines, but suffered from dropped lines and scattershot performances. Befitting of someone who might be more comfortable off of live television, Johnson shined in two pre-taped pieces, one about a family watching old VHS tapes (more on that in a bit), and a “Please Don’t Destroy” video in which Johnson and the three writers get into a beef and exchange very personal insults.
