One night after an Emmy for the show CBS killed, Stephen Colbert made his first return — on Jimmy Kimmel Live
The revenge arc wrote itself, and Stephen Colbert simply showed up to perform it. On Monday, The Late Show — the program CBS canceled while it was the most-watched show in late night — won the Outstanding Variety Series Emmy, part of a seven-trophy haul for its final season.
On Tuesday, Colbert walked onto a late-night stage for the first time since his May farewell. Not a CBS stage, obviously. Jimmy Kimmel's, on ABC, to an audience that greeted him like a returning astronaut.
The happiest canceled man in America
The headline of the whole appearance is that Colbert seems fantastic. When Kimmel asked whether he missed the nightly grind, he didn't even pretend: "I have an opportunity to not think about the news every day," he said, and he took it. He went further with Kimmel's observation that he looked healthier, describing the old routine of metabolizing each day's headlines as no longer having to "drink a cup of poison" every night.
Ten years of professionally swallowing the news cycle, five nights a week, and the man's entire face changed within four months of stopping. Consider this a public health finding.
The two also relived the Emmys, where a photographer herded Colbert, Kimmel, Jon Stewart and John Oliver into one frame and cheerfully dubbed them the "endangered table" — a joke that lands differently when one of the four is already extinct.
The beard died for our sins
This being late night, sentiment was immediately converted into bits:
- Colbert had promised his wife Evie he'd shave his post-show beard if he ever won the top variety Emmy. He won it Monday. So on Tuesday's show he shaved it, himself, on camera, like a man completing a sacred oath.
- He presented Kimmel with his Captain America shield, the Ed Sullivan Theater's most famous prop, in a handoff that felt suspiciously like a torch being passed to the last broadcast guy standing.
- They compared notes on their Emmys smooch, which the cameras missed, robbing the nation.
What the hour pointedly did not contain: bitterness, a CBS takedown, or a monologue about the politics of his cancellation. Kimmel handled the sharp stuff in his own opening; Colbert just came to play, plug his upcoming Lord of the Rings gig, and radiate the specific glow of a man whose former employer has to watch him win awards from the couch.
CBS retired an institution to save money. The institution responded by collecting seven Emmys and doing a victory lap on a rival network, clean-shaven and visibly thriving. Court is adjourned.
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