Whenever “Last Week Tonight” takes a week off, we feel the loss – especially whenJohn Oliver tries to make up for his absence with web exclusives like this one about April Fools’ Day. But, as it turns out, Oliver wasn’t on vacation last week – he was actually in Moscow tracking down Edward Snowden and conducting a comprehensive interview, which he then surprised viewers with during the second half of his main story segment on government surveillance.
Around 13:40 of the half-hour-long segment, Oliver made his big reveal: There was no new show last week because he flew to Russia in order to interview Snowden. And there’s footage of him strolling around Red Square looking petrified upon coming across some Russian soldiers to prove it.
“Yes, last week, I spent 48 paranoid hours in Moscow,” said Oliver in a voice-over. “Arguably the last place on earth where you can find an overweight Joseph Stalin impersonator arguing with an unconvincing fake Lenin.”
Tension is built up by the fact that Snowden was an hour late to the interview, and “LWT” showed clips of Oliver getting impatient and wondering if the meet-up was actually going to happen. But, eventually, Snowden showed: “Edward f—ing Snowden!” narrated Oliver. “The most famous hero and/or traitor in recent history.”
There’s plenty of humor throughout the interview, but it’s also very informative. Oliver does grill Snowden – whom he couldn’t get to admit that he didn’t read all of the documents he released to journalists two years ago. “I have evaluated all of the documents that are in the archive,” said Snowden. “I do understand what I turned over.”
Oliver admits that the government surveillance question is a difficult conversation for people to have, because it is very hard to understand. So to make it easier, the last section of the interview was focused around having Snowden explain the government surveillance issue using concept of d—k pics.
Oliver to Snowden: “This is the most visible line in the sand for most people: Can they see my d—k?”
Probably the funniest moment came when, as Oliver wrapped up the interview, Snowden stated for the record that, on principle, he doesn’t think people should stop sending d—k pics to each other: “You shouldn’t change your behavior because a government agency somewhere is doing the wrong thing. If we sacrifice our values because we’re afraid, we don’t care about those values very much.”
But Oliver had the best reaction of all to that statement: “That is a pretty inspiring answer to the question, ‘Hey, why don’t you just send me a picture of your d—k?’ Because I love America, that’s why.”
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