[9.5/10] Full disclosure -- Oliver is preaching to the choir for me here, and that makes it harder for me to be critical. But I still think he gives a strong and arguably empathetic account for why it's practically indefensible to want to keep confederate monuments up. Maybe there's countervailing points that Oliver didn't really address, but he lays out a very effective case for why glorifying people is different than remembering and that monuments are much more about one and the other. While some of the facts -- like when the confederate monuments went up and the statements from confederate leaders about slavery -- were things I already knew, the way Oliver framed everything did a nice at laying out the argument point-by-point. Most of all, I liked his final retort about Robert E. Lee not even believing in Confederate monuments, and the way he connected it to his own feelings about Jimmy Saville. Plus, the replacement statues, culminating in a delightful appearance by Stephen Colbert was an outstanding and silly bit to close things with.
That said, the opening was solid, but pretty much just a drive-by of the news of the week without the unifying theme or POV the show can usually muster. And I must be 10 years old because the "and now dicks" interstitial with various newscasters inadvertently drawing penises on telestrators was quite amusing.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2017-10-11T00:41:41Z
[9.5/10] Full disclosure -- Oliver is preaching to the choir for me here, and that makes it harder for me to be critical. But I still think he gives a strong and arguably empathetic account for why it's practically indefensible to want to keep confederate monuments up. Maybe there's countervailing points that Oliver didn't really address, but he lays out a very effective case for why glorifying people is different than remembering and that monuments are much more about one and the other. While some of the facts -- like when the confederate monuments went up and the statements from confederate leaders about slavery -- were things I already knew, the way Oliver framed everything did a nice at laying out the argument point-by-point. Most of all, I liked his final retort about Robert E. Lee not even believing in Confederate monuments, and the way he connected it to his own feelings about Jimmy Saville. Plus, the replacement statues, culminating in a delightful appearance by Stephen Colbert was an outstanding and silly bit to close things with.
That said, the opening was solid, but pretty much just a drive-by of the news of the week without the unifying theme or POV the show can usually muster. And I must be 10 years old because the "and now dicks" interstitial with various newscasters inadvertently drawing penises on telestrators was quite amusing.
Overall, an outstanding episode.