There are a lot of reasons why Alec Baldwin doesn’t play Trump on Saturday Night Live every week. For one, there’s the issue of Trump fatigue—his portrayal is so accurate and somehow simultaneously over-the-top that the show runs the risk of giving viewers as much fatigue over fake Trump as they’ve already got regarding real Trump. Beyond that, Baldwin isn’t a full-time cast member with the show, and he’s got a busy life, raising a family, acting in movies, developing new projects, and hosting a game show—ABC’s revival of the ‘70s booze-soaked classic Match Game. But there’s no way that the show can’t do some kind of Trump-based content each week. After all, they do topical comedy, and Trump does something stupid and/outrageous almost every single day.
That’s pretty much the gist of the sad, defeated, existential fake game show from last night’s Jessica Chastain-hosted episode of SNL. Chastain played the host of “What Even Matters Anymore.” The object of the game: “I tell you something our president did or said, and you have to tell me: Does it even matter anymore?” For example, she asks “The president refers to African countries as ‘poo-poo holes’ and says all Haitians have AIDS. Does it even matter anymore?” A contestant played by Kate McKinnon says, “That’s really bad. That has to matter, yes.” “Actually, it does not matter,” Chastain’s host responds. “Zero consequences and everyone just moves on.”
And so it goes. Well, not really, because the actors break the fourth wall, and it’s revealed that creating the fake talk show is a way for “Jessica Chastain” to cope with the Trump presidency. It’s dark, bizarre, and one of the best SNL sketches of the year.