No Last Week Tonight again, but that’s
because of the Emmys this past week.
Kinda hard to record a show when you’re so busy bringing home gold! Congrats to the show on its wins for
Outstanding Variety Talk Series and Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series –
both were well-deserved, and I heartily enjoyed both of John’s speeches (along
with host Stephen Colbert’s bit commiserating with Jimmy Kimmel
afterwards.) It admittedly boggles my
mind to see The Daily Show get pretty
much zero love (though its online “Between the Scenes” segments did win a
Creative Arts Emmy beforehand,) but even though I would’ve nominated that show
for both categories, I’d have still given the trophies to John and co. for some
truly excellent work. This show fires on
all cylinders pretty much all the time, and the dedication really shows! And hey – with Game of Thrones ineligible for awards this year, someone had to
carry the HBO banner!
Monday, September 18 – Nice Emmys
excitement at the beginning, although, among the big wins for Black folks, I
wish they’d mentioned Riz Ahmed too, since he’s the first Asian man to win an
Emmy in any acting category ever.
Glad they covered the awful interpreter for Hurricane Irma (as soon as I
saw the bright yellow shirt and the blank expression, I knew it was gonna be
bad.) Because this is our world now,
there was another story on Trump tweets, this time on him calling Kim Jong-un
“Rocket Man” and retweeting a doctored GIF of him hitting Hillary Clinton with
a golf ball; I enjoyed Trevor’s proposition that Trump can pander to his base
with immature GIFs as long as he keeps working with Democrats on policy. Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin got a
profile – I loved Trevor wondering how often he’s had to explain to Trump that
he doesn’t really know Batman. Rapper Gucci Mane was the guest, talking about
his new book and album.
Tuesday, September 19 – Amusing observation
that a story about Donald Trump Jr. dropping his Secret Service detail included
lots of counterintuitive details about his whereabouts. Excellent story on Trump’s speech at the UN general assembly. The jarring dissonance
between the disparate “you do you” and “you do what we tell you” themes was
absolutely bizarre, but Trump’s threat to “destroy North Korea” had me
shaking. Regardless of whether or not
he’d actually do it, the fact that he can boldly claim he will with no thought
to the millions of people that live there (not to mention the surrounding
region) is chilling. Desi had a good
field piece on a Trump-supporting golf course owner who realized the wall would
cut across his course. His dedication to
working against his own self-interest was mind-boggling. The guest, Olivia Munn, talked martial arts
and LEGO representation in the media.
Wednesday, September 20 – I liked the opening
blurb on the offers not pouring in
for Sean Spicer, complete with a montage of him failing to speak words. The big focus of the night, though, was on
the new healthcare bill. Trevor’s
impression of Lindsey Graham pumping himself up was hilarious, and he did a
great job driving home the damning point of the bill: that the GOP is trying to rush it through,
not because they believe in it, but because they’re hard-pressed to pass something and don’t want to need any
Democratic votes to do it (which they would if it doesn’t pass by month’s
end.) Lewis also did a piece on it –
after demonstrating that the GOP leadership don’t understand how health insurance works, he tore into millennials for thinking they’re “invincible” and
not buying insurance, driving premiums up.
Guest Ellen Pao discussed her experiences with sexism in the tech
industry and what’s needed for real change.
Thursday, September 21 – Funny opening with
the Melania Trump billboard about learning English – I especially liked the
crack that it would be even more apt with a picture of Trump. The latest on the Russia investigation, with
the FBI raiding Paul Manafort’s house in the middle of the night. Trevor had some good jokes on the raid, and
he segued into a great bit about people on the Trump team being awful liars –
he made good use of a clip of Manafort terribly denying any Russia connection,
and he did an awesome impression of Sean Spicer having “all the tells.” Roy talked about Toys R Us filing for
bankruptcy, mostly riffing silly ideas on how the store could win back his
business as a parent over online retailers.
Bill Gates was the guest; he had great things to say about his charity
and, despite everything, the positive progress of the world. He also gave Trevor some tips about how to
convince a billionaire to give him all their money.
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