Perhaps no single reaction Friday night to the conclusion of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation rivaled that of MSNBC’s Hardball host Chris Matthews, who was apoplectic, inconsolable, and irate at the notion the Mueller team will not offer any further indictments in hopes of criminal charges concerning Russian collusion. And even his most adored guests couldn’t avoid his scorn.

Somewhere along the way, it never occurred to MSNBC that maybe a call should have been placed to Barack Obama to help calm Matthews down. Maybe that would have helped.

It was clear that Matthews was having a hard time when this was how he started the show (click “expand”):

The investigation is over and according to a senior DOJ official there will be no further indictments. That means no charges against the President, his children or associates after all those meetings with the Russians. Not only that but the Special Counsel completely his report and signed off on it without ever directly interviewing the President of the United States about collusion or obstruction of justice. After two years of looking into President Trump, his campaign the Kremlin's unprecedented interference in the 2016 election, Special Counsel Mueller has delivered his findings to the Justice Department and today at 5:00 p.m., word came from the Justice Department that notified congress that the Russian probe is officially over, leaving the fate of Mueller’s report in the hands of Attorney General William Barr.

Ruh-roh. Things only got worse when he wondered to NBC News correspondent Ken Dilanian: “How can the President be pointed to as leading collusion with Russia, aiding a Russian conspiracy to interfere with our election if none of his henchman, none of his children, none of his associates have been indicted?”

Dilanian noted that the President couldn’t be indicted and while some of their actions concerning Russian interactions were “all very bad but it's not crimes.”

Having likely lost his fuse hours ago, Matthews offered a sarcastic reply about trying to build a collusion case for those like Mueller that “missed the boat” and decided that “all these dots...don’t connect.”

Dilanian admirably responded without snapping (click “expand”):

That's the conclusion in front of us, Chris. I mean, all that stuff was suggested. It didn't prove anything. In fact, the Trump Tower meeting, my reporting tells me, was a bust. They didn't actually hand over incriminating information. What it showed is that Don trump Jr. was willing to accept help. But we saw no evidence that they accepted help, you know, hacked emails or sort of analytical stuff from all that sort of stuff. It never panned out, Chris.

Dilanian wasn’t out the woods yet as New York Times writer Michael Schmidt joined Matthews’s thunderdome (click “expand”):

[W]hy was there never an interrogation of this President? We were told by weeks by experts you cannot deal with an obstruction of justice charge or an instigation without getting to motive. You do not get the motive until you hear from the person himself who's being targeted, a subject of the investigation. How can let Trump off the hook? So far tonight — so far tonight we have no reason to believe Trump is going to be charged by rhetoric in the document itself, in the Mueller report, that he will not be charged with obstruction or of collusion without ever having to sit down with the Special Counsel Mueller and answer his damn questions. How can that happen? (....) Michael Schmidt, you’re reporting on those two questions. Why no indictment of the people around the President for collusion if there is collusion if Mueller believes there was no collusion? And secondly, who no interview? Why no questioning of the President...His job is to go to the collusion question. That's why he got paid all these months. That’s why he had this huge team. They were to look into the collusion matter. He can't pass that off to someone else, can he?

The Atlantic’s Natasha Bertrand was up next and, unlike the others, she was disappointed like Matthews was. Matthews wanted to know from her why Mueller would “dump this at 5:00, close of business on a Friday” because “[t]hat's when you dump stuff you're not proud of” to “sneak something through the media.”

“Where's the collusion report? Where’s the obstruction report? And how come you never interviewed the big guy ever,” he screeched.

“But you’re absolutely right. I mean, the fact that Mueller is not recommending further indictments here is a surprise. But at the same time, we don't know what the report says,” Bertrand in part responded.

MSNBC legal analyst Paul Butler was last in the opening panel to go under the microscope and Matthews was still breathing fire (click “expand”):

MATTHEWS: Let me go to Paul Butler who knows this stuff. Paul, you and I’ve talked. You’ve been instructing me on this about the nature of a possible RICO charge, the President overseeing a number of his henchman, his people, his kids all involved with the Russians. My question to you is how come nobody's been indicted and if not, because we’re told by a DOJ official on background there’s not going to be indictments in this report, how can we say the President was a ringleader of something that nobody did wrong with? (....) MATTHEWS: How could the President be responsible for high crimes and misdemeanors if none of his people are responsible for breaking the law? BUTLER: So, the other part of the Justice Department policies is unless they're confident they could get a jury to convict, they don't bring charges. That's higher than the legal standard of probable cause. So, it may be that they think that there’s sufficient evidence to charge people with crimes, but if they don’t think they can get the conviction, they wouldn’t prosecute and that information and analysis would also be contained — MATTHEWS: In a D.C. jury? Come on, Paul. A D.C. jury wouldn't convict in these sets of circumstances, with all this information about meetings with the Russians and what it would look like to an average, commonsense juror and you didn’t think they thought they could get a conviction?

Later, when Matthews asked Schmidt if he could still “build a case....for collusion against the President,” Schmidt admitted that he wasn’t sure he could but “what you're forgetting about is the issue of obstruction.”

In the first of four interviews with House Democrats, Matthews told Congressman Joaquin Castro (TX) that he wanted his take on “this somewhat unsatisfactory bit of news being out tonight.” Considering how the previous 21 minutes of the show went, that’s putting it mildly.

By the 24-minute mark, Matthews was losing steam, using fewer words to describe his disappointment: “I am a bit unsettled by the fact that all this investigation has yielded so far no indictments about collusion.”

It’s safe to say that would have behooved anyone who came into contact with Matthews after the show to just avoid him. Because someone was in need of a safe space.

To see the relevant transcript from MSNBC’s Hardball on March 22, click “expand.”