Updated May 21, 2026 at 8:19 AM CDT
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert ends its run on Thursday night. Our critic-at-large, Eric Deggans, will be posting his takes on the last episodes right here.
Wednesday May 20, 2026
In his final run of episodes, Stephen Colbert has insisted on avoiding a lot of anger and insults over the surprise cancellation by CBS of The Late Show. But at the end of Wednesday's show, rock star Bruce Springsteen punched through all of that reticence to deliver a sharp rebuke before launching into his powerful anti-ICE anthem, "Streets of Minneapolis."
"You're the first guy in America who's lost his show because we've got a president who can't take a joke," Springsteen said wryly, criticizing David Ellison, CEO of CBS's parent company Paramount, and his billionaire father, Larry Ellison, a longtime Trump ally. (CBS has said the cancellation was "purely a financial decision.")
"These are small-minded people," the singer added, playing alone with an acoustic guitar and harmonica strapped around his neck. "They have no idea what the freedoms of this beautiful country are supposed to be about."
Springsteen's passion and bold statements – lyrics to the song include the references to "King Trump's private army" and "Trump's federal thugs" – stood in sharp contrast to the rest of the episode, which was filled with a cavalcade of Colbert's celebrity friends jumping behind his desk to turn the tables and ask him queries from his recurring 15-question "Colbert Questionert."
Announced by former CBS Evening News co-anchor John Dickerson – another broadcaster let go by the Ellison regime at Paramount – well-known figures like Billy Crystal, Josh Brolin, Tiffany Haddish, a very pregnant Aubrey Plaza and even Colbert's wife, Evie McGee Colbert, came onstage. They asked questions like, "What is your favorite action movie? ("Raiders of the Lost Ark"), "Apples or oranges?" ("You can't put peanut butter on an orange.") And "Window or aisle?" ("I have the bladder of a baby chipmunk…so aisle.")
It was a cheeky way to bring out a conga line of celebrities who clearly like and have history with Colbert. But fitting everything in the episode's allotted time required editing so choppy, there was little chance to see Colbert really connect with any of his guests. In the end, I sympathized with Ben Stiller when he cracked, "Could you give me an interesting answer now?"
There was more emotion earlier in the episode, when Colbert revealed a donation of more than $2.4 million collected for José Andrés' World Central Kitchen, prompting the chef to exclaim, "People of America…he is the best of us."
More than anything, for me, the run of episodes this week leading to Colbert's finale Thursday night felt like the host was holding back a bit too much (even though he managed a few cutting jokes in the monologue about Trump's cellphone). It was as if, in his effort to take the high road and avoid criticizing CBS or spend much time channeling anger over his departure, Colbert constantly deflected the kind of emotions his audience was desperate to express – feelings Springsteen conjured with a few tart lines before his performance.
Here's hoping on Thursday's final show, Colbert finds a way to help his audience process one more tough situation – giving them permission to finally and fully get mad and sad about seeing a performer they love yanked off the air too soon.
Tuesday May 19, 2026
On Tuesday's Late Show, host Stephen Colbert marked his third-to-last episode on CBS by welcoming his former boss, Daily Show host Jon Stewart, by noting they first worked together nearly 30 years ago when Colbert was a correspondent on Stewart's program.
During his visit, the two also realized they had something else in common: They've both had shows ended by Paramount. Colbert's Late Show will end Thursday, canceled by Paramount-owned CBS, and Stewart hosted a self-titled talk show syndicated by Paramount in the mid-1990s that also got canceled.
"The term back then was s---canned," Stewart quipped Tuesday night.
Stewart quoted his final guest on that long ago show, late night legend David Letterman, as telling him, "Don't confuse cancellation with failure…But in this case [with Stewart's show], it is also a failure."
Stewart also rolled out a couple of motorized recliner chairs, allowing the two men to bask in a serenade from R&B singer Andra Day, who belted out her 2015 hit "Rise Up."
After an interview with famed director Steven Spielberg, the episode's signature musical moment came a bit later when former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne sang a version of the band's 1983 hit "Burning Down the House," backed by his renowned troupe of musicians playing wireless instruments and clad in blue jumpsuits.
Colbert donned his own jumpsuit and joined in, creating the kind of participatory music experience that he has often done well – dancing with the kind of abandon that can only come when you know your job is going to end in two more nights.
Monday May 18, 2026
Most TV shows wrapping up after more than 10 years in the game would start off their finale week with an avalanche of clips capturing the most impactful moments from the program's long run.
But The Late Show with Stephen Colbert is no ordinary program.
So Colbert kicked off the show's last four episodes Monday, with a "best of the worst of" episode, featuring a bunch of comedy bits so awful they mostly never aired at all. Which was really a sideways strategy for paying tribute to the show's staff – who packed into the seats at the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York for this cavalcade of awful, shouting out comments on stuff like video clips featuring a fake ad for "erotic body gravy" that Colbert originally declined to air because the good-looking actors featured in it just looked like "soft core gravy porn."
Words cannot describe how right Colbert was then.
There was more: A Graphics Graveyard bit featuring a never-aired image proclaiming Hillary Clinton the 45th president (they had hoped to use it during live election coverage in 2016 – sad trombone sound here). A middling field piece featuring Colbert and a staffer buddy surprising a perplexed woman living in the apartment where they once stayed in Chicago. And longtime staffer Brian Stack playing Shrieking Joe, a Kid Rock parody so abrasive that ratings took a nosedive whenever he was on – a trend I don't expect to end with Monday's episode.
It all unfolded in a way that left this critic feeling like he crashed the show's last office party – watching lots of mildly funny material that probably hits a lot harder when you know the office drama behind making it.
As the show counts down its final nights, Colbert has tried hard to deflect anger, sadness or lionizing of his work. So I can see how an episode like this might have felt like a saucy way to redirect the inevitable nostalgia. But Monday's episode didn't give fans much to celebrate, beyond the obvious camaraderie the staff enjoys, even now.
In the end, as David Letterman's former bandleader Paul Shaffer joined Colbert, the band, a bunch of dancers and one of his writers to sing a fish-themed parody of Shaffer's 1982 disco pop classic "It's Raining Men" – by the way, it's not hard at all to believe that Colbert's writers rejected this bit four times since 2011 – it all felt like a bit of a missed opportunity.
Here's hoping the next three episodes give fans what they really want – a chance to celebrate the final hours of one of late night's best satirists.
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