Throughout the hour, the show appeared to be plagued by some sort of glitch. At one point, Colbert apologized to McCartney and wandered backstage to investigate, only to discover a giant interdimensional wormhole — along with good friend (and famed astrophysicist) Neil deGrasse Tyson, conveniently on hand to explain why it had opened with less than 15 minutes remaining in Colbert’s final show.
“It’s gradually swallowing up all matter and antimatter around it,” Tyson explained. “You see, the fabric of the universe is underpinned by an immutable set of physical laws. Two contradictory realities cannot coexist without rupturing the space-time continuum. For instance, if a show is number one in late night and it also gets canceled.”
“They canceled ‘Gutfeld’?!?” Colbert exclaimed.
Alas, they had canceled him.
“Your cancellation has created a rift in the comedy-variety talk continuum,” Tyson continued, “and if it grows, all of late-night television could be destroyed.”
Tyson was ultimately sucked into the wormhole, leaving Colbert in desperate need of a wise mentor figure. Instead, he got Jon Stewart, there to read a statement on behalf of their corporate overlords: “Paramount strongly believes in covering both sides of any black hole that is swallowing everything we know and love, and the coverage must also include the positive aspects of the insatiable emptiness.” (Heh!)
Stewart ultimately deduced that Colbert had but two choices: He could either walk into the hole kicking and screaming, or do what he’s done for the past 30 years whenever confronted with darkness — stare it down and laugh. Stewart then departed to get his “72 hours of beauty sleep” ahead of Monday’s episode of “The Daily Show.” (Oh, and at one point, Andy Cohen was sucked into the hole. We needn’t try explaining that part.)
Afterward, Colbert’s fellow Strike Force Five members — Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, John Oliver, and “Handsome Jimmy” Fallon — appeared to tell Colbert how much he’d be missed… and how Americans would soon be deprived of one middle-aged white man making jokes about the news. (“The news… why? What’s going on?” Fallon deadpanned, leaning into his reputation as late night’s least political host.)
Colbert wondered why his fellow hosts weren’t also being consumed by their own black holes, prompting Kimmel to note that one opened at his show last year, but disappeared “after about three days.”
“At some point, this may come for all of our shows,” Oliver added. “But Stephen, what’s important to remember is that tonight, it is gonna eat you.”
And he wasn’t wrong. When Colbert returned to the stage to continue performing for the audience, the entire Ed Sullivan Theater was swallowed by the black hole, sending the show to commercial and seemingly ending the elaborate pre-taped sketch.
This story originally appeared on TVLine
