John Oliver is perfectly cool with our enormous national debt, but not so much with “America’s hottest little slut” Ronald Reagan. That’ll make (some) sense in context. Also on Sunday, Oliver used the national debt crisis to explain why it makes perfect sense that Regé-Jean Page will not be in “Bridgerton” Season 2.
Or wait, did his use Regé-Jean Page’s upcoming absence from the Netflix hit, which shook casual fans to the core, to explain the national debt situation?
Either way.
For the first 15 minutes of the above video, the HBO “Last Week Tonight” host attempted to earnestly break down the $28 trillion we, as a country, owe. Oliver went through each of the U.S. presidents from the late 1980s until now, ranking them by just how much damage they each did.
You can probably guess which side of the ledger George W. Bush and Donald J. Trump ended up on.
He then went all Dr. Seuss on Ted Cruz. Not a president, but still a problem, Oliver argued.
But we know why you’re actually here. It’s for the “Bridgerton” hottie.
Oliver stole John Stossel’s melodramatic debt-adjacent riot footage to show how upset everyone is that Page is not scheduled to appear on Season 2 of “Bridgerton.”
Here’s the deal though: Even Oliver knows Page was not supposed to star on the second season of the soapy streaming drama.
Let him explain via the video above.
Netflix revealed Friday that Page will not reprise in his fan-favorite role of Simon Basset, the Duke of Hastings, for Season 2 of “Bridgerton.” While this came as a shock to many fans, Page was prepared for the show’s shift in focus from Simon and Daphne (Phoebe Dynevor) to her brother Anthony (Jonathan Bailey), which mirrors the plot in the Julia Quinn romance novels on which the series is based.
“It’s a one-season arc. It’s going to have a beginning, middle, end – give us a year,” Page, who had only signed on and been contracted for the first season of “Bridgerton,” told Variety Friday of his early conversations with Rhimes and other producers about joining the show in the role of Simon. “[I thought] ‘That’s interesting,’ because then it felt like a limited series. I get to come in, I get to contribute my bit and then the Bridgerton family rolls on.”
Page added: “One of the things that is different about this [romance] genre is that the audience knows the arc completes. They come in knowing that, so you can tie people in emotional knots because they have that reassurance that we’re going to come out and we’re going to have the marriage and the baby.”
Though Page is not appearing on Season 2, Dynevor will continue on “Bridgerton” in her role as Daphne, remaining a vital part of the series, and Page’s Simon will also continue to live on within the “Bridgerton” world as Daphne’s husband, an individual with knowledge of production tells TheWrap. The door is also open for Page to return to potential future seasons.
“Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” which airs Sundays at 11 p.m., is produced for HBO by Avalon and Sixteen String Jack Productions; executive produced by John Oliver, Tim Carvell, Liz Stanton, Jon Thoday and James Taylor; directed by Paul Pennolino and Christopher Werner.