First Show of Stephen Colbert’s Last Week Is His Worst One Yet

When I still lived with people who weren’t my wife (and, eventually, my children), I gathered together with my roommates early one night to watch Stephen Colbert’s Late Show debut. I say early because I was consistently bartending at Broadway theaters at the time, had gotten home around 10:30, and wouldn’t be going to bed for another five hours at least. Seeing that man kick off his first week was how I kicked off my night. Last night, when he started his last week of shows, I tuned in live.

That doesn’t get to happen that often. I’m usually turning on a sci-fi show from the 70s (hello, Space 1999) to lull me to sleep when 11:30 rolls around. Last night, I broke off my usual date with Martin Landau, spent an hour with Stephen Colbert, and had a pretty wonderful time. The soon-to-be former late-night host started his final week with a Worst of The Late Show special, and it was genuinely one of the sweetest things I have seen on late-night.

While most of the discussion around Colbert’s cancellation has been about the man himself, it’s important to remember that he isn’t the only one who will be without a job this week. He certainly remembered that, because this first show of the week took a more casual turn as Colbert ate dinner in front of an audience of his employees and went through a bunch of ideas they’d come up with for the show but never used. It was emotional, delightful, and casual as can be. It was a celebration of making things with folks and how, sometimes, that can go awry.

One of my favorite moments was allowing late-night legend and Colbert’s head writer, Brian Stack, to dust off a character named Shrieking Joe. He was a parody of Kid Rock and Ted Nugent, and went over incredible poorly in the past. Colbert couuld literally show graphs of the ratings tanking when Joe popped onscreen. And even with that introduction, Stack is as dialed in as ever, delivering a hilarious sketch performance and reminding us just how silly this show could get.

This whole episode felt like being invited into a final dress rehearsal. It was incredibly sweet, and speaks to why Colbert will be missed so much. It’s not just that he’s funny and smart. The man is clearly a mensch. A jerk wouldn’t devote a whole show to lavishing praise on his employees while highlighting hilrious blunders they made together. And that is the real juice of this first of the last episodes. It’s about togetherness, and that is absolutely beautiful.