Apple cider vinegar Is Pilates for you? 'Ambient gaslighting' 'Main character energy'
TV
John Oliver

John Oliver's 'Last Week' is back this week

Gary Levin
USA TODAY
John Oliver returns to HBO Feb. 14 with a third season of 'Last Week Tonight.'

NEW YORK — John Oliver returns Sunday for a third season of HBO's Last Week Tonight, and after landing an interview with fugitive Edward Snowden and forming his own church, it will be a tall order to top the second.

Oliver, 38, has been on a three-month break, and he returns (11 p.m. ET/PT) for the 30-episode season as a new dad: Son Hudson, his first, was born last fall to his wife, Kate Norley, an Iraq War veteran and Army medic he met in 2008 while working at The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.

He says he didn't miss covering the "massively overblown" pre-primary political circus and prefers to spend time on what has become the trademark of Last Week: Extensively researched deep-dive segments into sometimes arcane subjects such as the Indian election, the dysfunctional TSA and net neutrality that have done as much to inform as they have to entertain. His staff of researchers and writers now spends about three weeks on each topic.

But Oliver remains perplexed (as his old boss was) when viewers consider as journalism Last Week’s forays into the absurdities of politics and other matters.

“If you’re dealing with exasperation or surprise, it’s very easy to take that sentiment and turn it into a joke,” he says. “You’re always trying to get to a joke, otherwise you’re headed to a dead end.  It’s odd, because it’s so clear to me what lane we’re in. The inclination to project motive on us or make us something that we’re not, I find it slightly strange.”

His favorite segments include one on mascots for Japanese government agencies — “there’s nothing that’s not fun about over-sugared psychedelic dreams” — and the Snowden interview, a “massive,” months-long project he was able to spring as a surprise on viewers after a secret meeting in a Moscow hotel. (“As it happened, finding a hotel directly outside the old KGB building was not ideal.”)

John Oliver surveys viewer contributions to the "church" he started in an episode of HBO's 'Last Week Tonight.'

For the church segment late last season, Oliver found a perfectly legal way to become a pastor of Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption, with pretend-wife Rachel Dratch in tow, and encourage viewers to send $70,000, mostly in tax-free dollar bills later donated to charity, and much more, including items he'd rather not have received.

“A lot of thought and misplaced effort was made in writing letters and sending a single dollar bill,” he says. “It was clear how much people enjoyed it by how much they were enjoying the process of getting involved in it.”

And though he's coy about topics for upcoming shows, he says the reaction that sparked will lead to more ways to motivate his audience to act.

"It was fun to prove that something is true by doing it," Oliver says. "I don’t think we want to overuse that technique, but there are a couple of things this year that if they work out will involve that long-form investment in something."

But his ultimate goal is to entertain, rather than — as the Internet is fond of saying — "annihilating" or "eviscerating" his targets.

Says Oliver: "I'm not looking for the level of disembowelment to be the defining characteristic of each week's work."

Featured Weekly Ad