Photo: The Daily Show via YouTube
Stephen Colbert had his funniest “I’m looking for a new gig after May” joke this week, and I don’t think it will ever be topped. It happened when he was talking to CNN national-security analyst Brett McGurk about who will be the next supreme leader of Iran. That’s it, end the show now. Nothing will ever be funnier than volunteering to become the Ayatollah Colbert.
The other thing I wanted to shout out before we get into the ranking was the banger week WWHL had. The Traitors star Maura Higgins received her Birkin live on air, and Rob Rausch even seemed to be having fun. He’s not been the most enthusiastic performer during this press tour, but at WWHL, he let his hair down. He should do Winter House. Same goes for gold medalist Alyssa Liu, serving as the bartender, who kiki’d like crazy with Andy Cohen. Rausch and Liu are new to fame, and WWHL seems like a great place to dip one’s toes into that life. Every late-night show does something the best. Here’s who else excelled this week.
There’s a reason this is Late Night’s signature segment. Seth Meyers was extra-emotive on Thursday night’s “A Closer Look,” perhaps because Kristi Noem got the ax. I guffawed at the image of a Trump voter watching the show on an ER TV because their tattoo got “so infected.” And he’s right, what is the deal with gas-station TVs? We’re just looking at our phones anyway. The additional screen is superfluous.
There’s something so beautiful and pure about insult comedy — once you decide what’s mockable, steering back to that topic over and over again is one of life’s great pursuits. The long walk to a “that’s what your mom said” or, in this case, to Bomani Jones mocking Kash Patel’s cross-eyed mug. Everything wound up circling back to Patel’s eyes. The breadth of topics Jones steered to Kash Patel was as wide as, well, Patel’s field of vision. (Cuz of the cross-eyes, you see.)
Jimmy Fallon has only ever done Broadway in one of those Simon Rich–devised pieces, but he should think about actually hoofin’ in some show. Not only did he serenade Stephen Colbert this week, but he led 76 trombones in the big parade. Well, a portion of a high-school marching band in singing “Happy Birthday” to Eva Mendes. But that’s kind of the same thing. One thing The Tonight Show does better than any other late-night show (and certainly can’t be replicated by video podcasts) is bombast. If Ryan Gosling wants to get a marching band to wish his lady a very happy birthday, Fallon and the gang are going to accommodate that request — with gusto.
Take a friggin’ hike, “cellar door,” the most beautiful phrase in English is now “the half-eaten one didn’t seem alive to me.” Thanks, Steve Carell. Carell and Stephen Colbert were reminiscing on the grody backstage area of Chicago’s Second City theater. Both old friends had fond memories of rats. It’s nice to know that no matter the squalor one finds oneself in, there’s a good chance you will feel nostalgic for it one day. Apparently, the carpet was so encrusted with gunk it looked like concrete. I don’t even know how that happens.
What a fucking get to book It Was Just an Accident director Jafar Panahi this week. If Panahi’s interview had been a joyless commiseration-fest, that would have been more than acceptable. But Panahi refuses to believe what he does is extraordinary, and so he has jokes about it. The way his interpreter, Sheida Dayani, drops a causal “I’m sorry if I messed up the mood of your show,” after talking about how many people have been shot en masse in Iran, should be studied at the Paley Center for future generations. Panahi’s main talking point for the rest of the interview was that everyday resistance is no big whoop. Furthermore, the only way a resistance can keep going is if everyone contributes small whoops where they can. No focus-pulling heroes to the revolution, but rather enemies to the Establishment at every turn. It’s a message Americans desperately need. So it helps that it was funny, too.