Saturday Night Live review: Jessica Chastain highlights

Jessica Chastain hosted this weekend’s edition of Saturday Night Live, and entering tonight’s episode it was hard to know precisely how she was going to fare. She is a first-time host, and to go along with it she also is best known as a dramatic actress. This is not the sort of stuff she does on a regular basis; yet, entering the show we had a feeling that she was going to be game for a lot of crazy stuff.

For her opening monologue, though, we saw Chastain play it fairly safe — she performed a song, which is what many hosts do who often don’t get a chance to sing in their real life. The subject matter was appropriate (the one-year anniversary of the Women’s March), but she, Kate McKinnon, and Cecily Strong were out of sync to the point that we couldn’t really understand what they were saying. It was memorable, but not entirely funny just because so many of the jokes (such as Leslie Jones coming in and being brash) were ones we have seen on the show before.

Refresh this article for more updates throughout the night!

Related – Read our thoughts on the cold open

Car Hunk – It’s the annual Bachelor spoof! If you’ve seen this before on other seasons, it’s basically the same sketch you’ve seen in the past. It’s most based on the writing and what the performers can do with the little material that they have. There were a couple of great jokes in here — mostly from Aidy Bryant — and there were a couple of references to the actual season, including someone who loves taxidermy and also someone with short hair.

Fresh Prince of Bel Air – This was a very dark version of the classic theme song. We understand the appeal of doing this, but in our mind it really didn’t work. It just wasn’t funny, and it took away from some of the love we had from the original. It may just be us, but we don’t really love seeing beloved characters from childhood being killed.

Google Talks – Basically, this was meant to be some sort of intellectual group conversation that was interrupted by a guy who was dressed like Bart Simpson and made everything about him. This was a great joke for about ten seconds, but the sketch went virtually nowhere after this.

At this point, we’re starting to get worried about the rest of the show.

Does it even matter anymore? – Basically, Chastain played a game-shot host here who started to slowly lose it over the fact that Trump can do anything with zero consequences. While most of the jokes here were pretty predictable the performance of Chastain really sold this for us. She was funny, irreverent, and this sketch got funnier as it went along just because things got progressively darker as it went along. Also, the twist — Jessica was actually just playing herself and this was all a device to allow her to vent.

Music – Check out our take on Troye Sivan here.

Weekend Update – Obviously, the government shutdown was a major part of what Michael Che and Colin Jost talked about tonight. So was a certain Stormy and Ronny Jackson, who were mentioned earlier in the show, as well.

In terms of correspondents this week we actually got an appearance from “Stormy” (Cecily Strong) along with Prince William and Harry, who mostly just trolled each other rather than talking about Donald Trump. This was almost as funny as their Don Jr. and Eric Trump. Also, Kate McKinnon decided that she was going to play Robert Mueller.

HQ2 search – If you haven’t heard the next, Amazon is looking to build a second headquarters — and cities are fighting hard for all of the opportunities that could come up as a result of that. There were various delegations that came in, including Boston, Atlanta, Newark, and Miami. Unfortunately, this sketch didn’t really have an ending beyond just seeing these cities.

Taco orders – The basis of this sketch was fairly simple: We saw two women have a lengthy debate over whether or not they were going to order tacos and understanding the buy-one / get-one rules. Ultimately, it turned out that they were surgeons. That was the twist. Not a lot of a twist.

Chad returns – It’s basically the same sketch we’ve seen about three or four times already. Chad is hit on by an older man or woman and he completely doesn’t care. For such an apathetic guy, doesn’t Chad have a lot of suitors?

What do you think about the Jessica Chastain episode of Saturday Night Live? Share in the comments below right now!

Also, you can like CarterMatt on Facebook if you do want some other news when it comes to SNL whenever you want. (Photo: NBC.)