As the 11th season of Last Week Tonight comes to a close, host John Oliver took a moment to reflect on what he called a “genuinely bad” 2024 and shared his hopes for a brighter 2025.
On Sunday’s episode of his HBO show, Oliver revisited some of the lighter moments from the season, including a stunt where he convinced a bakery to create a cake shaped like a bear in his likeness. However, he also lamented that much of the season was dominated by heavy topics, saying he was “forced to spend eight different main stories covering issues surrounding the election, forgoing much more interesting ones that we wanted to tackle.”
One of those missed opportunities, Oliver joked, was a story about actor Liev Schreiber dropping a massive jar of vodka sauce at a Whole Foods self-checkout, which he highlighted via a post from someone on X (formerly Twitter). “We had 23 minutes on that planned,” Oliver quipped, “but I had to scrap it for an episode on all the ways Trump would fight the election results if he lost, which, of course, he did not.”
Looking ahead to 2025, Oliver shared his wishlist for the new year. “In 2025, I’d like Elon Musk to jump so high he never comes back down,” he said. “I’d like to go just one day without hearing about the Wicked movie. And I’d like the final Mission: Impossible film to end with Tom Cruise taking off his face mask to reveal Shelly Miscavige,” referring to the wife of Scientology leader David Miscavige, who hasn’t been seen in public since 2007. “That would be an amazing twist,” he added.
Oliver also encouraged the world to “keep being weird in fun ways,” urging people to continue making terrible statues, holding bizarre contests, and auctioning off strange items. “Just be yourselves, and we’ll find something we can work with,” he said.
Still, Oliver acknowledged that 2025 will likely bring its share of challenges. “I’m expecting to cover some terrible shit next year, and it’s going to be exhausting,” he admitted. “All we can really hope for are little pockets of time between new horrors and calamities. And maybe the goal should be to savor those minutes of calm as best we can. When chaos becomes the norm, we need to appreciate every second we’ve managed to go without a fresh affront to humanity.”
To illustrate this point, the show cut to an oversized “Days Without Incident” electronic display, with Oliver stepping up to a large red “reset” button. He predicted it would get plenty of use in the new year, joking about potential news alerts that might require a reset: “Rudy Giuliani Appointed to the Supreme Court,” “Secretary of State Turns Out to Be Putin in a Fake Mustache,” “America Out of Helium,” and “All Aquariums Indefinitely Closed to the Public.”
The last example, he joked, would likely lead to a confusing follow-up alert: “Please Stay Inside; The Sky Is Full of Sharks Now.” Oliver laughed, “Ohhhh, I get it. The helium from before. I’m not sure what the exact chain of events was, but the sky’s full of sharks now. It’s very bad. It makes sense. And, boom, we’ve got ourselves a big old reset.”
Despite the grim humor, Oliver ended the episode on a hopeful note, promising viewers that the show will return for its 12th season in February. “The point here is we will be here for you next year to talk about the bad moments and, hopefully, the moments of joy in between,” he concluded.