Name: John Oliver Literally Blows Up 2020 in Final Show of the Year: “Get F--ked”
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John Oliver Literally Blows Up 2020 in Final Show of the Year: “Get F--ked”

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Back in 2016, shortly after Donald Trump won the presidential election, John Oliver invited random New Yorkers and a handful of celebrities (including Larry David, Billy Eichner, and Kathy Griffin) to bid farewell to what had been a calamitous year with some basic profanity. “Fuck you, 2016,” Oliver during the season finale for Last Week Tonight before detonating a giant “2016” sign. How much worse could things get anyway?Four years later, Oliver received an answer. “This year has been an absolute parade of misery,” the host said toward the end of Sunday’s Last Week Tonight season finale. Stepping outside of his makeshift studio for the first time since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Oliver again found himself in front of a giant set of numbers to mark the year.“In January alone, Australia was being ravaged by wildfires, Kobe Bryant died, and for a few days, it really seemed like America was about to go to war with Iran. That was all this year,” he added. “And that was before the coronavirus exploded and everything got even worse: mass unemployment, evictions, that video of those celebrities singing ‘Imagine.’ It was really terrible.”After citing the deaths of Chadwick Boseman, John Lewis, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg—plus the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court—Oliver continued, while walking away from the “2020” sign. “This year ruined lives, jobs, concerts, and sanity,” he said. “It also brought a new wave of wrenching videos of police brutality that brought on a national reckoning with race and a ferocious and depressing backlash. And sure the presidential election ended well, but it was grim to live through—and Trump won’t actually leave office until next January.”Noting the year was “absolutely terrible,” Oliver expressed a glimmer of hope that 2021 would improve on the state of things. “But the truth is, what happens next is up to all of us,” he warned. “It’s going to depend on how willing we are to fight, how well we learn from what’s happened, and how much we are able to care about each other. So I don’t know what happens next, but I do know what happens now.”Having found himself at a safe distance from the sign, Oliver pulled out what looked like a detonator. “Let tomorrow be about solutions,” the host said as dramatic music swelled. “Today is about vengeance. Fuck you, 2020. Get fucked.” With that, he pressed a button and the sign exploded in a blaze of glory.Destroying the year in a moment of catharsis wasn’t the only trick Oliver had up his sleeve for the Emmy-winning show’s final episode of 2020. Before the fiery conclusion, Oliver tore into Trump for spreading “pathetic” and “dangerous” conspiracies and lies about his election loss to President-elect Joe Biden.It’s “an appropriate coda to a presidency that has destroyed so many lives—not only of those that he’s attacked, but of those that he’s claimed to protect,” Oliver said of Trump’s online tantrums since his defeat. “So many of us have lost loved ones—either because you can no longer square your love for them with their love for him, or because they fell down a mind-melting rabbit hole of conspiracy theories that he happily perpetuated, or because he let a deadly virus run wild and it fucking killed them.”“And now, as a parting gift to the country, Trump is somehow managing to divide us even further, while also hobbling his successor at the worst possible time, which is absolutely unforgivable,” he added. “And yes, the fact that Trump won’t be president next year is good—it’s really good—but there is a lot of work to do, and at least in the short term, things are going to suck for a while, but we have to try to repair this damage.”The season finale also allowed Oliver to close the loop on one of his long-running bits. Since the start of the year, the host has often in sexually violent nonsequiturs about Adam Driver. “Choke slam me to hell, you nasty shed,” Oliver said in an iterative example of the joke back in May. “Jam your mandible claw down my throat, you irredeemable steer.”“A lot of you might well be wondering where I’m going with this bit,” Oliver said during that same episode. “If you’re anything like my staff, you’re asking questions like, ‘Is this sexual or is it violent?’ And then you’re unsatisfied when the answer comes back, ‘Yes.’ If you’re like my wife, you might be asking, ‘Should I be worried about this?’ with your concern only growing when the answer is, ‘Only if you want to be.’”At the time, Oliver wondered what Driver thought of the perverse gags. “Is he bothered by this continued sexualization? He seems like a fairly private guy who’s generally uncomfortable with attention, making what I’m doing possibly some form of harassment. He might actually have pretty good grounds to have me reprimanded legally,” he said. “To which I say, do it. Slap a restraining order on me your forlorn block. Beg me to stop, you menacing obstacle.”It took six months, but Driver himself finally weighed in on Sunday night. After Oliver again mused about the Star Wars actor crushing his larynx, Driver interrupted the show via FaceTime.“Listen to me: What the fuck are you doing? This bit? This bit, this thing you’ve been doing that’s either sexual or violent,” Driver said as Oliver continued to objectify the star in the background. “This strange, strange bit that for some reason you’ve pulled me into. What is it? When you first started doing it, it was easy for me to shrug it off. But then it kept going on, and on, and on, and on.”“Do you realize, over this past year, what you’ve asked me to do to you?” Driver asked. “‘Collapse on your chest.’ ‘Tie your fingers in a square knot.’ ‘Step on your throat.’ ‘Shatter your knees.’ ‘Pull your heart out through your ear.’ You realize we’re strangers, right? I don’t know you. And now, random people on the internet ‘stan’ us, claiming that you ‘thirsting’ over me is a ‘mood.’ I’m sick of people stopping me on the street and asking me if I’m going to punch a hole in you like a Marriage Story wall.”After getting Oliver to apologize, Driver implored the host to step away from his desk to explore the surrounding area. “Just to be absolutely clear, though, Adam, are you giving me an order?” Oliver asked. When Driver answered in the affirmative, Oliver requested that his guest be a bit more demanding in the approach.“Explore the fucking space, you hollow-boned Mr. Bean cosplayer,” Driver told Oliver, leaning into the bit. “Look around you, you underbaked gingerbread boy.”“Oh God, that feels good,” Oliver said with excitement in his voice.“I hated this,” concluded Driver about the segment and, perhaps, the year itself. “Goodbye.”More Great Stories From Vanity Fair— Borat 2 Spoilers: How Sacha Baron Cohen — Her Activism, and Her New Book— Sex and Texts, Secrets and Lies: How the Blew Up Hollywood— About Her Family’s NXIVM Nightmare— Isn’t Going Anywhere— on Amazon, Hulu, Disney+, and More in November— The Low-Key, Life-Affirming — From the Archive: The — Not a subscriber? to receive full access to VF.com and the complete online archive now. is a contributing writer at Vanity Fair.From the awards race to the box office, with everything in between: get the entertainment industry's must-read newsletter.

Back in 2016, shortly after Donald Trump won the presidential election, John Oliver invited random New Yorkers and a handful of celebrities (including Larry David, Billy Eichner, and Kathy Griffin) to bid farewell to what had been a calamitous year with some basic profanity. “Fuck you, 2016,” Oliver during the season finale for Last Week Tonight before detonating a giant “2016” sign. How much worse could things get anyway?Four years later, Oliver received an answer. “This year has been an absolute parade of misery,” the host said toward the end of Sunday’s Last Week Tonight season finale....

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Christopher Rosen

Vanity Fair is a monthly magazine of popular culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast in the United States.  The first version of Vanity Fair was published from 1913 to 1936. The imprint was revived in 1983 and currently includes five international editions of the magazine. As of 2018, the Editor-in-Chief is Radhika Jones.

John Oliver Literally Blows Up 2020 in Final Show of the Year: “Get F--ked”

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