Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and Sean Spicer sad faces
At this point, the HBO series is currently still in its hiatus, which almost equates at this point to them uncovering and figuring out some new and exciting forms of torture. After all, there was no new episode of the show last week, or the week before. This is the longest hiatus that we’ve been on ever since the start of the season earlier this year, and while there may be a specific reason for it (the writers have to unwind at some point), it’s still painful — especially in terms of all the news stories we’ve missed out on a chance to see Oliver address on a weekly basis in his signature style.
If there is one subject that we feel absolutely has to be picked up when the show does return to the air, it’s getting a chance to see something about the end of Sean Spicer. The Spicer era of the Donald Trump Administration is already at this point the stuff of legend. It spawned one of the most infamous Saturday Night Live impressions in recent memory, but then also a wide array of memorable segments in which he either said something controversial or shut down reporters. He’s emblematic of the relationship between the President and the press, and that is something that Oliver looks at closely.
The irony here is that at this point a week ago, we had a super-hard time imagining that any story was going to supplant in terms of significance what we ended up seeing with Donald Trump Jr. That’s the thing about this administration; one way or another, whether it be positive or negative, they keep finding ways to surprise us.
Here’s our prediction for what is actually going to happen
We imagine that the first ten or so minutes of next week’s episode is going to be spent with Oliver running down all of the insanity that has transpired since he was last around to document some of the news of the week for us. We feel for him since trying to fit all of that in is probably not going to be an easy task … but then again, we really don’t feel for him. It’s his job to do it, and he’s amazing at said job. He’ll figure it out. He wouldn’t want our sympathy!
In reality, we actually don’t want Oliver devoting his entire show to Spicer or anything else, even if we think in theory that we do. To quote the Rolling Stones, you can’t always get what you want — getting a show that is ten minutes about Spicer/Trump Jr. and other stuff before rolling into a surprising segment is probably what we need. This show needs to continue to shine a light on some of the other subjects that are out there that matter, ones that are often forgotten by the press. Otherwise, we’ll remain in the dark.
While you wait for Last Week Tonight to return, let us know what segments you want to see in the comments! (Photo: HBO.)