9 months after Stephen Colbert announced the cancellation of the long-running Late Show, he presided over the ultimate episode of the CBS late night time present, with Paul McCartney serving as his ultimate visitor after, Colbert joked, his “white whale” visitor of the pope “canceled,” disillusioned with the recent canines supplied in his dressing room.
On the prime of his monologue, the host mentioned initially the Late Present staff had deliberate to do a “huge special” for the ultimate episode, however then they realized that “every episode is special.”
“The best way to celebrate is to do a normal show and talk about the national conversation,” Colbert mentioned.
With that, the host launched right into a news-focused monologue, steadily interrupted by star cameos from the viewers, together with from Bryan Cranston, Paul Rudd and Tim Meadows.
Unexpectedly, although the monologue was remarkably gentle on politics for a present that’s turn into recognized for its reducing comedy about President Donald Trump and different political figures.
The truth is, Trump himself wasn’t even talked about by title within the ultimate Late Present, together with within the monologue.
The closest Colbert got here to mentioning the president was when he and McCartney have been speaking and McCartney recalled how the make-up artists on the Ed Sullivan Present put a lot make-up on that they regarded “bright orange,” the Beatles star mentioned.
“That’s very popular in certain circles,” Colbert mentioned, earlier than joking “that’s where it started.”
McCartney took the stage after a working bit all through the monologue and an installment of The Late Show‘s signature “news you missed” segment, “Meanwhile,” of stars in the audience thinking they’d be Colbert’s ultimate visitor, together with Ryan Reynolds.
Colbert then started to introduce his “infallible” ultimate visitor, the pope, who he’s lengthy mentioned he was nonetheless determined to have on the present. Nevertheless, Colbert was advised by certainly one of his crewmembers, the pope was refusing to come back out of his dressing room as a result of they received him the flawed snacks.
With that, the present reduce to the skin of a dressing room door as an arm draped in papal vestments threw scorching canines out into the hallway, insisting he wouldn’t take the stage.
“Oh no, the pope, who was definitely my guest tonight, has canceled,” Colbert mentioned.
McCartney then walked out, saying, “What about me?”
“I was just in the area and I was doing some errands,” the musician mentioned as he gifted Colbert with a framed picture of the Beatles acting on The Ed Sullivan Present.
The 2 settled in for an interview however after a few segments of dialog, Colbert stepped away to deal with the “technical difficulties” plaguing the present up till that time because the sound and visible show round him saved glitching.
As he walked backstage, he noticed a large “interdimensional wormhole,” as he was knowledgeable by Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who confirmed up in one more cameo.
“Two contradictory realities cannot co-exist without rupturing the space-time continuum,” Tyson mentioned. “For instance, if a show is No. 1 in late night but also gets canceled. … Your cancellation created a rift in the comedy-variety talk continuum, and if it grows all of late night television could be destroyed.”
With that, Tyson was swallowed up within the wormhole, however Colbert was quickly joined by his fellow late night time hosts — Jon Stewart and the Strike Drive 5 staff of John Oliver, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon — for some sage recommendation.
“The hole’s here; you can’t ignore it,” Stewart mentioned, arguing that the true query is “how you choose to walk through it,” suggesting that Colbert persevere within the face of darkness.
Oliver added, “Sometime this may come for all of our shows.” However although it appears to be like like the top, there’s no must despair, Colbert concluded. Because the Strike Drive 5 staff reminded him, he didn’t cease doing his present after the 2016 election or throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. So the hosts quickly banished the wormhole.
However alas when Colbert returned to the stage, so did the wormhole, this time on the prime of the Ed Sullivan theater, sucking up the studio, his viewers, band chief Louis Cato and Colbert himself.
And that wasn’t the top of the wormhole. After Colbert joined Elvis Costello and Jon Batiste for a efficiency of “Jump Up,” McCartney took the stage with Colbert and the Late Present band to carry out the Beatles’ “Hello, Goodbye.” Then, McCartney turned off the lights on the Ed Sullivan Theater and the wormhole sucked up the entire constructing, leaving only a small duplicate of it in a snow globe, taking part in the Late Present theme music, on the New York Metropolis sidewalk. Colbert’s canine, Benny, sniffed round it as Colbert could possibly be heard off digital camera saying, “Come on, Benny.”
The episode opened with Colbert sharing a message to his viewers each within the Ed Sullivan Theater and at house.
“This show has been a joy for us to do for you. In fact, we call this show the joy machine,” he mentioned. “Because to do this many shows, it has to be a machine. But the thing is if you choose to do it with joy, it doesn’t hurt as much when your fingers get caught in the gears.”
He praised his staffers and their sturdy bonds in addition to the assist and power of the viewers, connecting his relationship with all of them the best way again to the primary episode of The Colbert Report in 2005.
Introducing the idea of “truthiness” that night time, he vowed to “feel the news at you.” Transferring over to The Late Present, Colbert mentioned he and his staff realized their job was completely different on CBS.
“We were here to feel the news with you. I don’t know about you but I sure have felt it,” he mentioned. “We love doing this show for you, but what we really love is doing this show with you.”
In July, Colbert announced that CBS had decided to cancel The Late Present after its 2025-2026 season.
Regardless of CBS’ declare that the cancellation was a “purely financial decision” amid a difficult linear TV setting, with guardian firm Paramount including that the transfer was “not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters,” there’s been widespread hypothesis about doable different causes for the top of The Late Present.
Colbert has been a outstanding critic of President Trump and, simply days earlier than information broke of the Late Present‘s end, Colbert criticized CBS parent company Paramount’s controversial $16 million settlement of a lawsuit filed by Trump over a 60 Minutes interview together with his 2024 election opponent, former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Over the summer time, Trump celebrated the information of the Late Present cancellation on his Fact Social platform.
“I absolutely love that Colbert got fired,” the president wrote the day after the cancellation was introduced. “His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next.”
Lower than two months after Colbert introduced the Late Present was being canceled, the sequence received the most effective discuss present Emmy.
In that speech, Colbert mentioned that whereas he had initially got down to make a late night time present about love, he later realized “we were doing a late night comedy show about loss. That’s related to love, because sometimes you only truly know how much you love something when you get a sense you might be losing it. Ten years later, in September 2025, my friends, I have never loved my country more desperately. God bless America. Stay strong, be brave, and if the elevator tries to bring you down, go crazy and punch a higher floor.”
And Colbert has addressed the hypothesis of there being an “another reason” for his exit.
“There is a reason why people believe that — the network had clearly already done it once by cutting that $16 million check [to the Trump administration],” Colbert advised The Hollywood Reporter in a recent exit interview cover story. “Me being canceled reinforced a narrative that CBS already had a nimbus of knee-bending that they had created around themselves, because even their lawyers said there was no reason to cut the check, and then they did and gave no rationale for why they changed their minds, and then suddenly they got their broadcast license.”
As for the stories that The Late Present was shedding $40 million a yr, which Colbert has joked about, he told THR that determine “came as a surprise.”
Colbert’s subsequent endeavor is taking the avid J.R.R. Tolkien fan to Center-earth as he co-writes an upcoming installment of the Lord of the Rings franchise. Past that, the host has insisted he needed to stay centered on ending out The Late Present to the most effective of his capability earlier than he thought of different future strikes. Nonetheless, he told Meyers in January that he and his longtime collaborators, lots of whom work with him at The Late Present, will “do something else together.”
And Colbert recently told THR he started fielding scripts instantly after he introduced the top of The Late Present and that he may see “creating another show” and nonetheless has the need to carry out.
“Got to stay in front of the lens, baby,” he joked.
Shortly after The Late Present wraps, although, Colbert and his household, all of whom have been on the Ed Sullivan Theater for his ultimate episode, will head all the way down to D.C. for his brother’s wedding ceremony. He celebrated his son’s faculty commencement this previous Monday as properly.
