"I was thinking that I'm an asshole, really"

So here's my theory on the whole Mel Gibson/Ricky Gervais thing at the Golden Globes tonight. This was Gibson's attempt to publicly "mea culpa" his way back into the industry's good graces. There, honestly, is no better way to get everyone back on your side than to be seen as the punching bag for one of the best and sharpest wits, on national television. And to be skewered as never before, and to have a brave (?) and seemingly game (?) attitude about it. I mean, he had to have known that Gervais would take the starch out of him in a horrendous manner. And he still showed up, and probably agreed to letting Gervais do the introduction.
In my mind, the whole situation harkens back to Hugh Grant visiting The Tonight Show with Jay Leno after his incident with the sublimely named Divine Brown in a car in Hollywood. Everyone remembers Leno looking at Grant and asking him, with all candidness, "What were you thinking?" And Grant made his apologies, and took responsibility for his actions, and then everyone in the industry "forgave" him, and he's still working today.
As for Gibson, his comments and actions offended a whole lot more people, for sure. And he's been exiled for years, right? He's done a couple things here and there, but nothing that a significant number of people have gone to see, except maybe Machete Kills and The Expendables 3. (You see what I mean there?) And he's really kept a low profile ever since his run in with the law.
So then there's tonight, where he allows himself to be eviscerated ... again ... with no movie to promote or project in the pipeline. I can't help but wonder that's there's some ulterior motive to him showing up there tonight. And my best guess is to have Gervais ask him, basically, "What were you thinking?"