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Nine months after Stephen Colbert announced the cancellation of the long-distance trip Late showheadlined the final episode of the CBS late-night show, with Paul McCartney serving as his final guest after, as Colbert joked, “the Pope’s ‘white whale’ guest, disappointed by the hot dogs served in his dressing room, was canceled.”
At the top of his monologue, the host originally said Late show The team had planned to do a “huge special” for the final episode, but then realized that “every episode is special”.
“The best way to celebrate is to do a regular show and talk about the national conversation,” Colbert said.
With that, the host launched into a news-focused monologue, often interrupted by stars in the audience, including Bryan Cranston, Paul Rudd and Tim Meadows.
Unexpectedly, though, the monologue was noticeably light on politics in a show that has become known for its biting comedy about President Donald Trump and other political figures.
In fact, Trump himself was not mentioned by name in the final Late showincluding in the monologue.
The closest Colbert came to mentioning the president was when he and McCartney were talking, and McCartney recalled how the makeup artists on the Ed Sullivan Show put on so much makeup that they looked “bright orange,” the Beatles star said.
“This is very popular in certain circles,” Colbert said, before joking that “this is where it starts.”
McCartney took the stage shortly after the monologue and part of the monologue Late Show“Meanwhile”‘s featured “News You Missed” segment features stars in the audience who believe they will be Colbert’s final guest, including Ryan Reynolds.
Colbert then began introducing his latest “infallible” guest, the Pope, who he has long said he still very much wants to have on the show. However, a member of Colbert’s crew told The Pope that Pope was refusing to come out of the dressing room because they brought him the wrong snacks.
And with that, the show cut to the outside of the dressing room door, while an arm wrapped in papal robes tossed hot dogs into the foyer, insisting that he would not take the stage.
“Oh, no, the Pope, who was my guest tonight of course, has canceled his attendance,” Colbert said.
Then McCartney came out and said, “What about me?”
“I was just in the area and was running some errands,” the musician said as he presented Colbert with a framed photo of the Beatles performing in concert. The Ed Sullivan Show.
The two settled down for an interview but after a couple of segments of conversation, Colbert stepped away to address the “technical difficulties” that had plagued the show up to that point as the audio and visual presentation continued to malfunction around him.
While walking backstage, he saw a giant “interdimensional wormhole,” as Neil deGrasse Tyson, who made another appearance, told him.
“Two contradictory realities cannot coexist without tearing apart the continuity of time and space,” Tyson said. “For example, if a show was No. 1 in late night but was also cancelled. … Your cancellation could create a rift in the comedy variety talk chain, and if that increases, late-night television could be devastated.”
And with that, Tyson was sucked into the wormhole, but Colbert was soon joined by his fellow late-night hosts — Jon Stewart and the Strike Force Five team of John Oliver, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon — for some sage advice.
“The hole is here; you can’t ignore it,” Stewart said, arguing that the real question is “how you choose to walk through it,” suggesting that Colbert will persevere in the face of the darkness.
Oliver added: “At some point this may come to all our shows.” Colbert concluded that even though it seems like the end, there is no need to despair. As Strike Force Five reported, he didn’t stop presenting after the 2016 election or during the COVID-19 pandemic. So the hosts temporarily banished the wormhole.
But unfortunately when Colbert returned to the stage, the wormhole returned as well, this time at the top of the Ed Sullivan Theater, sucking in the studio, its audience, bandleader Louis Cato, and Colbert himself.
And that was not the end of the wormhole. After Colbert joined Elvis Costello and Jon Batiste for a performance of “Jump Up,” McCartney took the stage with Colbert and his band. Late show The band performed The Beatles’ song “Hello, Goodbye.” McCartney then turns off the lights in the Ed Sullivan Theater and the wormhole sucks the entire building out, leaving only a small replica of himself in a snow globe, playing the song. Late show The theme song on a New York City sidewalk. Colbert’s dog, Benny, sniffed around him while off-camera Colbert could be heard saying, “Come on, Benny.”
The episode opened with Colbert sharing a message to his fans at the Ed Sullivan Theater and at home.
“This has been a fun show for us to bring to you. In fact, we call this show The Joy Machine,” he said. “Because to do this many shows, you have to be a machine. But the thing is, if you choose to do it with joy, it won’t hurt as much when you get your fingers stuck in the gears.”
He praised his employees and their strong bonds, as well as the audience’s support and energy, and linked his relationship with them since the first episode of the series. The Colbert Report In 2005.
Introducing the concept of “honesty” that night, he vowed to “feel the news inside you.” Move to Late ShowColbert said he and his team realized their work was different at CBS.
“We were here to feel the news with you. I don’t know about you but I definitely felt it,” he said. “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 Late Show After the 2025-2026 season.
Although CBS claimed that the cancellation was “purely a financial decision” amid a challenging linear television environment, with parent company Paramount adding that the move was “in no way related to the show’s performance, content, or other matters,” there was widespread speculation about other possible reasons for the series’ end. Late Show.
Colbert had been a prominent critic of President Trump, and just days before the news broke Late showAt the end of the film, Colbert criticized the controversial $16 million settlement by Paramount, CBS’s parent company, of a lawsuit filed by Trump over… 60 minutes An interview with his 2024 rival, former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Over the summer, Trump celebrated the news Late show Cancellation on its Truth Social platform.
“I absolutely love firing Colbert,” the president wrote the day after the cancellation was announced. “His talent was below his ratings. I heard Jimmy Kimmel is next.”
Less than two months after Colbert’s announcement Late show It was cancelled, and the series won an Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show.
In that speech, Colbert said that while he initially intended to do a late-night show about love, he later realized “We were doing a late-night comedy show about loss. And that’s connected to love, because sometimes you don’t really know how much you love something until you feel like you might lose 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 take you down, be Crazy and punchy.” “Higher floor.”
Colbert addressed speculation that there was “another reason” for his exit.
“There’s a reason people think that — apparently the network has already done that once by cutting that $16 million check.” [to the Trump administration]Colbert said Hollywood Reporter In our recent exit interview cover story. “My cancellation reinforced the narrative that CBS already had a bit of a curveball that they had created around themselves, because even their lawyers said there was no reason to cut the check, and then they did and didn’t give any logical reason as to why they changed their mind, and then suddenly they got their broadcast license.”
As for the reports that Late Show He said the company was losing weight That’s $40 million a year, Colbert joked THR This number “came as a surprise.”
Colbert’s next endeavor is to transport J. R. R. Tolkien fan to Middle-earth where he is co-writing the next installment of Lord of the Rings privilege. Beyond that, the host insisted he wanted to remain focused on finishing the match Late Show As much as he could before thinking about other future moves. However, Myers told last January that he and his old collaborators, many of whom work with him at Late ShowWe’ll “do something else together.”
He recently told Colbert THR He started sending scripts right after the film was announced Late Show And that he could see “creating another show” and still have the desire to perform.
“I have to stay in front of the lens, baby,” he joked.
Soon after Late Show However, Colbert and his family, who were all at the Ed Sullivan Theater for his final episode, will be heading to D.C. for his brother’s wedding. He celebrated his son’s graduation from college last Monday as well.
