Jimmy Kimmel's Mike Lindell Interview Was Truly Weird Television

Mike Lindell appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Wednesday night. It was... interesting. And entertaining in the patented Trump World train-wreck way. It's worth watching if you want to see a person with no real connection to reality both be in on, and the butt of, the joke. No matter how you approach the show, you should leave feeling Kimmel could have done more.

It was part comedy show, part interview, part intervention. Kimmel had a rapport with Lindell that showed. Kimmel made plenty of jokes, but also spoke honestly with Lindell and tried to explain reality to him. Not that it mattered. Lindell, who had nothing to gain by appearing, is convinced that there was election fraud. The fact that no one takes him seriously is besides the point. He thinks he's saving Democracy. If real, actual fraud existed and he had evidence, Trump would have taken it and made it public and still be in the White House.

To Lindell's credit(?), he says that if the roles were reversed and he thought Biden had been the one cheated out of the presidency, he would be doing the same thing. Unfortunately, that only goes to show how delusional he is. Even if he believes that and thinks he's helping.

After a monologue interrupted by Fake Lindell, Kimmel spent a segment talking to Justin Theroux who was covered in pillows and asking about Lindell.

Kimmel should have scrapped everything else and just done an interview with Lindell for an entire hour. Yeah, the Fake Mike Lindell is a fine late night television character, but what was the point? To try to drive home to Lindell that everyone thinks he is a joke?

For Kimmel it was a missed opportunity. The ratings will tell whether it was ultimately worth it for him or not, but the actual show was a huge disappointment compared to what it could have been.

Why waste time on a bit when you've got the real geniune article backstage sitting around? As good as the bit is, it's not the real thing, which is what makes the character funny in the first palce.

Kimmel could have just talked to Lindell for the sixty minutes. Mostly because he had the advantage of tape delay and the ability to keep him on topic. The only thing weirder than interviewing Lindell is cutting to Tom Jones for a musical performance. When will anyone have this chance again? To get Lindell to speak honestly and coherently, even if his reality is pure fantasy? After this it's back to weird broken streams and unchecked conspiracy theories while he tries his best to screen calls from Bart Simpson.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter. Kimmel got his viewers on ABC and YouTube. Lindell will go down in history as a sad and amusing footnote on a dark period of American history. No one will care or remember this a week from now anyway. Basically, Eat Arby's.