Stephen Colbert Says Goodbye to ‘The Late Show’ With a Gaggle of Celebrities (& a Wormhole)

After 11 years as emcee, Stephen Colbert hosted the very last episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert on Thursday (May 21) night, following CBS’s abrupt cancellation of the program that was handed down to him by former host David Letterman. The show’s axing has been a point of controversy since it was first announced last year, as many saw the move as politically driven, given Donald Trump‘s distaste for the show and CBS’s parent company’s (Paramount) desire for Trump’s administration to approve of a merger (with Skydance, which ultimately happened).

For his part, Colbert has declined to directly accuse the network of axing the iconic talk show for political reasons, but plenty around him have done all the talking (including Letterman and Colbert’s own penultimate show guest, Bruce Springsteen). So how did the Emmy-winning host of The Late Show say goodbye to viewers once and for all?

Well, he started first by sharing a message to CBS affiliates across the country which some of them shared ahead of the airing. In it, he said, “Hello, CBS affiliates. Stephen Colbert here. And I just wanted to express my gratitude for your supporting The Late Show these last 11 years. Having your broadcast as a lead-in has been a huge help, whether you were covering a moose that broke into a local coffee shop or a deer that broke into a local coffee shop. So thank you. Also, you’re going to want to tune in at 11:35 for tonight’s final episode because I’m going to break into a local coffee shop.”

Then, when the earlier-taped episode began, Colbert delivered an opening monologue for the ages. Instead of walking out with audience fanfare, he addressed audiences directly.

“We have done over 1,800 of these shows. And most nights, I come out here, and I talk to the audience beforehand, and tonight, I thought I’d talk to the audience in here and the audience out there at home. This show… has been a joy for us to do for you. In fact, we call this show ‘The Joy Machine.’ All right, Louis [Cato] stole it from us, and we are currently in litigation right now. You better lawyer up, buddy,” he joked to his band leader.

“We call it the joy machine because to do this many shows it has to be a machine, but the thing is, if you choose to do with joy, it doesn’t hurt as much when your fingers get caught in the gears, and I cannot adequately explain to you what the people who work here have done for each other, and how we mean to each other. So, I will just say, I will just say to them, you are all the great Achilles whom we knew. Now, on night one of The Colbert Report, back in the day, I said, ‘Anyone can read the news to you. I promised to feel the news at you,’ and I realized pretty soon in this job that our job over here was different. We were here to feel the news with you, and I don’t know about you, but I sure have felt it.”

Colbert then continued, “I just want to let all y’all know, in here and out there, how important you’ve been to what we have done. The energy that you’ve given us, we sincerely need that to have done the best possible for you for the last seven years…. We love doing the show for you, but what we really love is doing the show with you…  Now, I’ll say to you what I’ve said to every audience for the last 11 years, and I have meant it every time. Have a good show. Thanks for being here, and let’s do it, y’all.”

Shortly thereafter, he welcomed his first previously unannounced celebrity guest: Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston, who showed up in the crowd with a show hat and asked if he could be Colbert’s last A-list guest. Sadly, he was denied that honor, as Colbert cited an even bigger guest in the tank.

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The second cameo came from Paul Rudd, who interrupted Colbert’s humorous news read to offer bananas as a “retirement” gift for Colbert and was incensed to learn that he, too, was not the prized appearance of the evening.

That’s when Tim Meadows decided to join in on the fun, too. Like the others, he feigned hope of being the final act and storming off in a fit of banana-stealing rage.

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After the first commercial break, he thanked his band and those who helped conduct the penultimate episode’s “Colbert Questionert” before reprising his “Meanwhile” segment, in which he possibly implicated his parent network in a lawsuit by using Peanuts music with a finger to his chin.

That’s when Colbert noticed a third famous audience member, Tig Notaro, who didn’t have any ambitions of being interviewed and claimed to not even know it was the last show.

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After that, it was Ryan Reynolds who popped up with full annoyance over not being the “very special guest” of the evening but was mollified by the chance to celebrate band member Corey Bernhardt.

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After the second commercial break, Colbert was poised to introduce his big guest, Pope Leo XIV, whom he previously deemed a dream guest. However, a bad choice of snacks left him clinging to his dressing room. Colbert was satisfied, though, with the arrival of Sir Paul McCartney to the stage, “the perfect final guest.”

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McCartney, who said he was simply “in the area” and “doing errands,” came equipped with a gift, too: a photo of the Beatles performing in the Ed Sullivan Theater decades before. Two of Colbert’s sisters were particularly thrilled to see him.

“It’s always fantastic to come back here,” McCartney said before joking of the screaming fanfare that accompanied his arrival, “Like you say, I always remember the girls in the back of the balcony.”

McCartney then reminisced about his prior time in the theater, saying that when he got his makeup put on in the dressing room, “it was very orange.” To that Colbert joked, “So that’s where it started. Thanks a lot.” McCartney also remembered that his first impression of America was that it was the home of the music he most loved and “the land of the free.” “Still is, hopefully,” McCartney then said.

After a slight glitch in the backdrop, Colbert talked with McCartney about his new album, his memories of youth, and his ritualistic “cheese and pickle” performance sandwich with a margarita. Colbert then invited him to reflect on being portrayed by Paul Mescal in the upcoming Beatles biopic, and McCartney contended that he’s “cuter” than the actor bringing him to screen life next.

When the show returned for the third segment of McCartney’s interview, it was interrupted with a second glitch, and that’s when Colbert paused the chat to investigate, then finding Neil DeGrasse Tyson backstage. The acclaimed scientist then explained why a wormhole had opened up: It disturbed the universe that a number-one show was canceled.

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Jon Stewart was the next to jump onto the scene to offer some wise words, saying, “The hole’s here, you can’t ignore it. The only choice you have now is how you choose to walk through it. You can go in kicking and screaming that one, or you can do what you’ve done for the past 30 years when faced with something dark, stare it down, and you can laugh.”

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After Andy Cohen was sucked into the wormhole without getting to say anything, the rest of the “Strike Force Five” — John Oliver, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, and Seth Meyers — all came to send him off.

Kimmel in particular had a mic-drop moment when he said that he, too, had experienced a wormhole moment on his own show, but it “went away after about three days” — a reference, of course, to his own brush with near-cancellation.

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Colbert then joined the Late Show band leaders, new and old, including Jon Batiste, for a festive rendition of “Jump Up” by Elvis Costello. After that, Paul McCartney took the stage to perform the Beatles’ classic “Hello, Goodbye,” with the same artists and Colbert himself singing right along.

After that, Colbert’s wife, other family members, Late Show staffers, and others flooded the stage for one final hurrah before Colbert let McCartney turn out the lights before the entire building was sucked into the wormhole and thrown into a snow globe.

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With that, it’s the end of The Late Show.