Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Prison Health Care

October 2, 2023 12:43 AM - Season 10, Episode 11

This week... the writer's strike is over, and it was successful! The show's been off for five months, and a number of things happened during that time (see inside). And Now: Local News Is Very Excited About What Week It Is (Fat Bear Week). Main story is about the woeful health care in US prisons, a shameful condition often belittled by the media. Yep, Last Week Tonight is back! (On Youtube, 19 minutes) And Now: Fall Is Here, And So Is Something Else (Pumpkin Spice Lattes).

Things John Oliver specifically mentioned happened while the show was gone:
* Sen. John Kennedy reads from "Gender Queer"
* The Supreme Court effectively bans affirmative action
* Trump was indicted multiple times
* Lauren Boebert was kicked out of the musical for Beetlejuice for being loud, refusing to stop vaping around a pregant woman, and being fondled in the audience
* Democratic New Jersey Congressman Robert Menendez faces corruption charges for accepting bribes
* Mike Lindell continues to face lawsuits about the claims he made about voting machines
* The coronation of King Charles
* Erdogan narrowly wins reelection in Turkey
* That business with Wagner Group and Yevgeny Prigozhin almost staging a coup in Russia, which ended within 36 hours, and then Prigozhin died in a plane crash
* A sun bear in China causes controversy for looking exactly like someone in a bear suit
* Moderators of subreddits protested Reddit's policy change around apps by devoting their subs to photos of John Oliver
* In movies, Barbenheimer and Sound of Freedom
* Boston Cop Slide memes
* The destruction of the Titan submersible
* A police raid of a Kansas newspaper
* Wildfires in Maui
* Brawl in Montgomery, Alabama
* Fall Out Boy released a new version of We Didn't Start The Fire

Sen. John Kennedy reads from "Gender Queer: "I got a new strap-on harness today. I can't wait to put it on. It will fit my favorite dildo perfectly, it's going to look so hot. I can't wait to have your cock in my mouth. I'm going to give you the blowjob of your life, then I want you in side of me."

F.37: "Laboria Majora," WRITERS STRIKE

posted by JHarris (13 comments total)

Sen. John Kennedy is reading from Gender Queer and using it as a cudgel against school libraries and lifestyles outside the gender binary. Maybe "smut" is an unfair characterisation here?
posted by Molesome at 7:39 AM on October 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

Ah, you're right in that case. I frankly didn't know what he was saying, and trying to search for it brought up speeches by President Kennedy so I was unsuccessful in finding out what he was talking about that way.
posted by JHarris at 11:15 AM on October 2, 2023

We could maybe change it to:

* Sen. John Kennedy reads from "Gender Queer"

I'll flag so the mods can see it, maybe they'll help out.
posted by JHarris at 11:21 AM on October 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

Yeah, LWT missed an opportunity to give the full context here. They're usually better than this.
posted by Molesome at 11:45 AM on October 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

They did have five months of stories to squeeze in there. They didn't even mention Elon Musk, and the joke opportunities there are gigantic. Maybe they're saving that for a full episode....
posted by JHarris at 1:34 PM on October 2, 2023

I was totally taken aback by how quickly this was aired. I honestly thought it would be next week at the earliest, so it was a wonderful surprise. I laughed at the way he kept going back to Boebert getting kicked out of Beetlejuice.
posted by kitten kaboodle at 5:17 PM on October 2, 2023 [3 favorites]

The late night talk show mill resumes tonight on the networks, too! They must have been raring to go.
posted by JHarris at 7:09 PM on October 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

I bet they all have lists of things they've been dying to discuss. I can't WAIT for tonight's "A Closer Look."

This was good too, though I do second the "wait, y'all have been off five months and you're talking about prison health care?" urge. Maybe that was in the hopper when they shut down, I suppose. I think I expected all razzing on Trump as the first big subject matter tonight.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:09 PM on October 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

I heard that Seth Meyers was planning a whole show of A Closer Look! Maybe tonight?
posted by JHarris at 11:23 PM on October 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

I was totally taken aback by how quickly this was aired.

Yeah, it sounded to me like the audience was much smaller than usual. Some of the jokes were really good and should have got a bigger laugh, but it sounded like hardly anyone was in the room.
posted by johnxlibris at 7:21 AM on October 3, 2023

A Closer Look, max version.
posted by jenfullmoon at 12:10 PM on October 3, 2023 [3 favorites]

There we go jenfullmoon, to answer your question - it's what they had on deck
posted by Molesome at 6:08 AM on October 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

It's been a long five months without all the news satire. John Seth & Steve are back, but still missing that Daily Show goodness.
posted by Marticus at 9:24 PM on October 4, 2023 [1 favorite]