Over on HBO, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is currently on a winter hiatus, but that doesn’t mean that Oliver is biting his acidic tongue. Instead of net neutrality, social justice or student debts, the former Daily Show correspondent has set his targets on how to properly handle New Year’s Eve for a web-only exclusive. Grab your notepad and check it out.
As the last holiday to top off the yearly festivities, New Year’s Eve is both a chance to end your year in a spectacular fashion while beginning your next year in post-spectacular frazzle-haired fashion. Oliver compares the party-heavy holiday to the death of a pet, saying it’s inevitable but still impossible to predict how awful it will be. And while I don’t have any particular beef with year-ending celebrations, watching Ryan Seacrest or Carson Daly for hours on end is enough to make me want to spend the next year in a soundproof tomb.
So what’s his advice? “Avoid the whole evening.” But if that’s too broad a command, he breaks it down. Don’t go to strip clubs, for one, despite any problems your guy friends may be dealing with. (Exception to that rule: Ebola is airborne and glitter is the only cure.) Make up excuses, which may or may not involve Willem Dafoe’s character in Boondock Saints. (A movie that Oliver thinks is terrible.)
Need another excuse to shoot out of a friend’s party (or perhaps a wake)? Just tell anyone listening that you have a cleanse happening. If anyone asks you any follow-up questions to that, that’s as good a reason as any to start looking for new, less inquisitive friends. But in Oliver’s mind, any lie will work, really, so long as it gets one away from family and friends and keeps things peaceful.
And even though he doesn’t go into it, I have my own bit of advice for New Year’s Eve. Whatever you do, whether it’s a part of a lie or something that you stumble into accidentally, don’t watch the movie New Year’s Eve. You do not want to be alone with this when the ball drops.
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, one of our top shows of 2014, will return to HBO on Sunday, February 8, 2015. Assuming the world doesn’t suddenly start working properly in the meantime. Has that ever happened?
