Last Week Tonight: Civil Forfeiture

I love Kathryn so much. Watch the last 4 minutes of Last Week Tonight: Civil Forfeiture of October 6th. They got the Alex clothing very close. Gosh, I miss Criminal Intent.

This week’s topic on the brilliant Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is civil forfeiture, which “sounds like a Gwyneth Paltrow euphemism for divorce” but is actually the method by which law enforcement can seize people’s property without them being charged with a crime. As has become the expectation, Oliver provided a thorough overview of the situation. He particularly focused on the absurd concept that it’s not the people who are on trial but their stuff. All of this led him to conceive of a hilarious new television show: Law & Order: Civil Asset Forfeiture Unit. Starring real-life Law & Order alumni Jeff Goldblum, Robert John Burke, Kathryn Erbe, and John Fiore, the trailer featured such wonderful absurdities as Kathryn Erbe handcuffing a sofa and Jeff Goldblum playing bad cop while interrogating a pile of money.

Oliver also touched on the protests in Hong Kong (surprisingly polite!), the elections in Brazil (surprisingly crazy!), and the 2022 Winter Olympics (unsurprisingly unpopular!). Turns out, no one wants to host the Winter Olympics except for Kazakhstan and China, so Oliver decided to offer up the Last Week Tonight studio as another option. For some reason, they didn’t make that video available on YouTube (even though it featured the unicorn, the space gecko, and not one but two mini-fridges of Coca-Cola products) but if that changes, we’ll post it here.

In the meantime, here are some of Jeff Goldblum’s outtakes from Law & Order: Civil Asset Forfeiture Unit.