‘Saturday Night Live’ review: Veganville, Nuvabling, Steve Martin, and Justin Timberlake shine

It’s likely that you were waiting for Justin Timberlake’s return to “Saturday Night Live” for some time, and even if you came into this show with pretty high expectations, we have a feeling that you left still feeling like a winner. While you could make a case that the singer largely rested on his laurels and repeated old sketches in various forms, there was enough new things about them to make it work. Plus, sometimes you have to give the people what they want, and we absolutely wanted this.

It literally took a full hour before there was a sketch on the show that was in some ways subpar, but even these were better than a single thing we saw during Justin Bieber or Kevin Hart’s recent shows.

The highlights

Hugo Chavez Memorial – What a unique, strange, and interesting way in which to start the show. It’s hard to actually not get a little emotional when hearing “Candle in the Wind,” but Timberlake found a way to pull if off and make this “tribute” funny while also playing a brilliant version of Elton John.

The Five-Timers Club – Just seeing Steve Martin again made this worthwhile, as he completely killed every single line in here. There were also appearances from Martin Short, Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, Candice Bergen, Alec Baldwin, and Tom Hanks. Even though there were not a ton of belly laughs here, just seeing this group together was well worse the price of admission alone.

The Dating Game – Okay, this was just too great beyond words. Seeing Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake together again was classic, but then somehow adding Aykroyd and Martin’s Festrunk Brothers to the mix, and you may as well start bowing to the comedy gods. There’s so many good lines in here, from a Duck Tales song to a very interesting discussion about a package.

Veganville – Okay, this was the moment where we knew that this was the best show “SNL” has done since Timberlake’s last show. In reprising what is one of our favorite “SNL” sketches of all time in “Liquorville,” the singer came out to do a sketch dressed as a giant block of tofu singing about vegan food. To make it even better, we had a “Harlem Shake” video at the end. Classic, and we didn’t even need another celebrity cameo a la Lady Gaga to love it.

Nuvabling – Okay, this was one of the racier commercials that “SNL” has done, with it being about a birth control for women that is fashionable and effective. It was also uproariously funny.

Weekend Update – The moment that Stefon came out and said that he was a writer on “Smash,” we just couldn’t even write for a few moments. We don’t really know what is better here: the writing, or the fact that Bill Hader literally spends about four minutes trying not to break character. It was a very short and sweet “Weekend Update,” and the only thing that could have really made this better was if we either saw Cecily Strong’s “Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation with a Party” … or Drunk Uncle.

“She’s Got a D$%k” – Not a bad movie trailer for late in the show, and Timberlake and Nasim Pedrad played the romantically comedy angle wonderfully.

The drunken infomercial – This is not the first time that “SNL” has closed the show with this, but it’s so absurd and so well-performed (thanks, Vanessa Beyer!) that we can’t stop watching.

The lowlights

The Tales of Sober Caligula – There was some good humor here, but it seemed like once Timberlake’s Caligula admitted that he needed help for his addictions, we couldn’t help but think that the fall of his empire should have happened sooner.

Cajun Justice – We’ve just never really liked this sketch, mostly because we don’t really know anyone in Maine who is actually like this. It’s basically Jason Sudeikis ranting on for a few minutes about this and that. On a different note, why didn’t the show usher out the crazy LSU fan who kept trying to interrupt the sketch in the audience?

What did you think about Timberlake’s show, and did you love it through and through as much as we did? Be sure to vote in the poll below, and you can see what Timberlake did to support his fans before the show over here.

Photo: NBC