John Oliver follows Game of Thrones with a grisly explainer on the horrors of lethal injection

With just three episode left of "the greatest lead-in modern television history," Game of Thrones, "I'm burning one of them on lethal injections," John Oliver said on Sunday's Last Week Tonight. "And the reason I'm doing that is it's a subject that doesn't come up very much, because, frankly, no one wants it to." From his description of lethal injections, it wouldn't be out of place on Game of Thrones.

Oliver conceded that there are sharp — sometimes odd — differences in opinion on the death penalty, and he explained why he believes it shouldn't exist, using a NSFW example. But "let's say you support the death penalty — there's still the question of how you do it," he said. "Lethal injection came into vogue because it was seen as a humane and painless method," at least compared with "the horrors inflicted by the electric chair." It isn't.

First, doctors refused to help design the lethal three-drug cocktail, and they won't help administer it, for pretty obvious reasons, Oliver said. "Hippocrates didn't say: 'First, do no harm. Second, do some harm.'" He also explained why the first drug really matters, why states are now using a woefully inadequate alternative — Midazolam — and why the main expert witness on Midazolam isn't an expert.

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Lethal injection is botched so often — Oliver described one case — that two death row inmates in Tennessee opted for the electric chair last year. "So incredibly, in our desire to find a more humane method, we've ended up letting amateurs both invent and administer a form of unpredictable torture," he said. "The fundamental fact to remember about lethal injection is it is a show; it is designed not to minimize the pain of people being executed, but to maximize the comfort of those who want to support the death penalty without confronting the reality of it." He ended back with his NSFW example and a grim punch line. Watch below. Peter Weber

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