Last night, Stephen Colbert’s Late Show concluded as it perhaps was always meant to: with a joyous rendition of “Hello, Goodbye” that ended with the entire Ed Sullivan Theater getting sucked into a glowing green wormhole. It was a surrealist conclusion that felt like a spiritual callback to the last episode of the host’s previous show, The Colbert Report, in which Colbert’s conservative alter ego literally murdered the Grim Reaper (a.k.a. “Grimmy”), then flew off in a sleigh with his fellow immortals Santa Claus, Abraham Lincoln (who was, for some reason, also a unicorn), and “the one with all the answers,” Alex Trebek. 2014 was a hell of a drug.
Anyway: Joy Press has a thorough rundown of the proceedings that also serves as a eulogy for both Colbert’s long broadcast run and, perhaps, the late-night genre itself. When The Colbert Report ended, Colbert had his Late Show arrival all lined up; his future now is more uncertain, give or take a Lord of the Rings movie. This finale, Press writes, “felt like an extinction event. And not just for one beloved show: for show business itself, as a place where Americans put aside their differences and laughed together.”
