TV

Tom Gleeson’s ‘Hard Chat’ With Mia Freedman Last Night Is His Most Hilariously Painful One Yet

"Do you ever click on your own clickbait and think 'why am I reading this shit'?"

by Meg Watson  23 July 2015

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The Weekly has been on ABC for a few months now, but most of the discussion of the show tends to exclusively revolve around Charlie Pickering. Is he Australia’s answer to Jon Stewart? Is he just copying John Oliver? Is he funny? Should we care? And, when exactly are he and Waleed Aly going to grease up and fight to the death for whatever title they’re clearly vying for.

The Great Nerd Fight of 2015.

What gets overlooked amidst all this — also partly because you probably get your Weekly fill from whatever filters through Facebook on Thursday mornings — is the show’s other aspects, particularly the work of regular segment hosts Kitty Flanagan and Tom Gleeson. Both familiar faces on Australian TV, Flanagan opts for standalone segments that explore things like Twitter, coffee, and other topics she used to rant about alongside Pickering several years ago on The Project. Gleeson does something a little different.

Each week he sits down with some surprisingly big name guests to ask awkward questions and satirically shit all over their life’s work. A few weeks ago he asked Jacqui Lambie if she was going to beat the shit out of the dictionary to fix marriage equality and suggested she should nab a guy with a huge halal-certified package. More recently, he spoke with famous US psychic John Edwards about Patrick Swayze’s ghost and the fact he’s dead inside.

But last night’s segment with Mamamia‘s Mia Freedman seemed particularly noteworthy with Mumbrella suggesting Gleeson may have been too tough on the controversial publisher/podcast pioneer. In just two minutes, they cover why the website is “named after a shit movie”, the font of perpetual outrage that is online opinion writing, and whether she ever “clicks on [her] own clickbait and thinks ‘why am I reading this shit?'”

The answers, and their generally painful interactions with each other, are even more awkward than you might expect.

Poor Mie.