At His Last Review Lazar Was Told That His Reports
It'south a rare man who gets to attend his ain funeral. It's an even luckier man who gets to cheat his ain death, dust his prints off the murder weapon, read his own eulogy, and rise to live once more in another form.
That'due south what Stephen Colbert did Thursday night with "Stephen Colbert," in a prove that sent his bloviating host character — 1 of the greatest sustained performances in popular civilisation, Boob tube or otherwise — off into Goggle box eternity. And his last Colbert Report was both a sweet catastrophe and a perfect summation of the show's spirit — smart and surreal, sly and sincere. The finale nodded to the massive creation that Colbert wrought over nine years, and — equally he flew off with Santa, a unicorn Abraham Lincoln, and Alex Trebek — promised something different to come.
Colbert began his last Written report by riffing on what popular-culture commentators have been riffing on all week, his bear witness'south legacy, though tongue-in-cheek. "I did something much harder than change the world," he said. "Folks, I samed the globe. Some other Bush governor is running for the White House. People on TV are defending torture. We are sending troops into Republic of iraq." When the Report began in 2005, he said, "I promised you a revolution, and I delivered. Because technically, one revolution is 360 degrees right back to where we were."
But Colbert revolutionized much more than that in betwixt. A quick rundown of some of his greatest stunts over the years — the Rally for Sanity and/or Fear, the SuperPAC — was the closest he got to breaking-graphic symbol sentiment: "Y'all, the Nation, did all that. I simply got paid for it."
Then, following a bizarre setup in which i last "Cheating Death With Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, DFA" ended with his killing Grimmy and becoming immortal, Colbert launched into a grand, punchy sing-along of "We'll See Over again," with a celebrity bandage of dozens that demands DVR rewinding but included, in part: Randy Newman, Willie Nelson, Bryan Cranston, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Tom Brokaw, Big Bird, Keith Olbermann, Katie Couric, Gloria Steinem, Samantha Power, Michael Stipe, James Franco, Charlie Rose, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Patrick Stewart, Christiane Amanpour, Arianna Huffington, Alan Alda, George Lucas, Henry Kissinger, Vince Gilligan (all the same chained in Colbert'due south basement after the Breaking Bad finale), soldiers in Afghanistan, Esteban Colberto, Nib Clinton, an astronaut, JJ Abrams and Smaug.
Read more Why Stephen Colbert Is Signing Off at the Perfect Time
The all-star sendoff is a staple of talk-show finales, but this one seemed to say something here nearly the vast world that Colbert created with the Report. The prove itself was not the sum total of the production that Colbert has put since 2005. It was merely the flagship product of a larger performance that extended to the Internet, to public rallies, to political campaigns, and even to space.
Past transforming himself into a character, and taking his performance far across the thirty minutes of the testify, Colbert was applied science a way to satirize a subject area — the media and political culture — that had moved almost beyond satire. It started with 1 big idea: that in American discourse, gut feeling and team affiliation had replaced reason (indeed, had labeled reason itself a kind of contemptible bad faith). The Report debuted simply subsequently a Bush adviser speaking to reporter Ron Suskind dismissed, in pre-satirized terms, the "reality-based customs."
So Colbert created not just a evidence simply a massive work of performance art set in the reality-liberated community. It opened with non simply a hilarious routine, but what felt similar a summary of the era, in which Colbert introduced the concept of "truthiness." The nation, he said, was divided between "those who think with their head and those who know with their center."
It was funny, information technology was perceptive, and you might await that to fuel a show for, what, half a yr? That Colbert was able to exist "Stephen Colbert" at such a high level for some ix years was the 56-game-hitting-streak of American one-act, a feat we may not see equalled again. He kept it upwardly in office by taking the show on the route. He brought his act to the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, got Doritos to sponsor his favorite-son run in the 2008 South Carolina primary, and — in what was probably his high-water marking — in 2011 went through the process of founding a real SuperPAC. It was simultaneously an epic piece of work of performance-art satire and 18-carat public-service education.
Read more than v Times Stephen Colbert Inverse the World
Earlier the finale, Colbert was already in the process of letting go of "himself"; on Wednesday'south bear witness, he held a grand sale of Report memorabilia, unloading a copy of his correspondents' dinner speech to a crying baby, selling a canteen of "Ass Juice" to a lucky deal hunter. He seemed at peace, and why shouldn't he exist? He's going on to something new, taking over for David Letterman at CBS. And while that'due south generated much interest in what Colbert will do as himself, I'm not too concerned.
Because truth exist told, 1 of the undersung aspects of the Study was how he infused his satire with his bodily character, from his geeky enthusiasm for Tolkien to his sincere passion for ideas and ideals. If you expected him to give us a taste of what we'll come across from him on CBS, though, you'll have to wait until later next year. Except for a post-credits sequence of him cutting up with Jon Stewart during a 2010 taping, he maintained his rock-solid professional facade.
Only the plaintive strains of "The netherlands, 1945" by Neutral Milk Hotel — a favorite band of the honest-to-God Colbert — clued us in to the bittersweetness of this see-you-later. Correct upwardly to the end, Stephen Colbert did non intermission character. But the residual of us tin can be forgiven if we broke down a little, proverb adieu to America's greatest, most genuine phony.
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Source: https://time.com/3641534/colbert-report-final-episode-review/
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