Stephen Colbert has a habit of keeping his promises — even the ones that sound like punchlines.
On the final night of The Late Show, Colbert cracked a throwaway joke in his monologue: that his first show, technically, was a 2015 public access appearance on Only in Monroe in Monroe, Michigan, and that “show business being what it is these days, that’s probably where you’ll see me next.” The audience laughed. The credits rolled. Eleven years of late night came to a close.
Twenty-four hours later, at 11:35pm Friday, viewers of Monroe Public Access Cable Television got a surprise.
The episode was everything you’d hope for: local hot dog shop drama, a chili dog taste test with Jack White (Michigan represent), helium shots with the show’s original hosts Michelle Baumann and Kaye Lani Rae Rafko Wilson, a Steve Buscemi pizza commercial for a place he knows nothing about except that it shares his name, and Jeff Daniels — Chelsea, Michigan resident and Colbert’s very first Colbert Report guest — making a sandwich and helping deliver one last Community Calendar.
It ended the way it had to: Daniels, White, and Colbert destroying the Only in Monroe set, with Eminem dropping in for a cameo.
The whole thing is a perfect coda. Colbert built one of the most memorable late-night runs in recent memory, and he bookended it not with a glitzy network send-off but with a no-budget public access show in a mid-sized Michigan city. The joke became the tribute. The throwaway line became the plan.
Monroe got the last show. That’s kind of beautiful.