Congrats to Last Week Tonight for rigging an election like a champ. Oliver and company did the type of campaigning (overspending, literally a foreign interest) that Last Week Tonight usually wins Emmys decrying. But the pūteketeke won Aotearoa New Zealand’s Bird of the Century contest this week, in no small thanks to the concerted efforts of John Oliver and HBO. The show decided to put their thumb on the scales of New Zealand’s bird competish. Why? Because the pūteketeke looks crazy, and that must be acknowledged. We all wonder about the future of late night, but it can still shake the halls of power unseat the Kiki as Aotearoa New Zealand’s Biggest, Bestest Bird. But the pūteketeke wasn’t the only unique beast to make an entrance this week. Here’s who else swanned about late night this week.
5. “You Can’t Say That”
The energy between Sutton Stracke and her “long-suffering assistant” (Andy Cohen’s words, not mine) on WWHL is incredible. Sutton reveals that her therapist is also the same one Erika Jayne went to on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, to the gasps of Cohen and Maren Morris alike. “No,” Avi Gabay says forlornly. Why no? “You can’t say that,” he mutters. It seems like pretty acceptable tea to spill, but Gabay seems certain it will ruin his Housewife. When both Stracke and Cohen push back, he gives a completely resigned “Okay,” and it’s theater. No, it’s theatre, with the European spelling.
4. “A Closer Look” Finds a New Fave Getty Image
Late Night With Seth Meyers’s “A Closer Look” segment has been eating out on one still of Rudy Giuliani for years now. Years! Good on them for finding a bit and sticking to it. But now they’ve found an even weirder pic of Ron DeSantis smiling with a partially opened mouth. Sorry, Rudy. There’s a new awkward Republican unraveling before our eyes, and this one allegedly wears lifts. There’s something so wonderful about a reaction image that gets used into the ground. Like how Mike’s Mic uses Olivia Wilde nodding, each use of Ron DeSantis failing to smile embiggens the piece as a whole.
3. Leslie Jones Yelling
Everyone — everyone! — had a bit about Robert Kennedy Jr. exiting an airplane bathroom with the dogs fully on display, but Leslie Jones’s version of The Daily Show did it best. Leslie Jones’s version of The Daily Show did a lot of stuff really well this week, to be frank. (To name a few: a flirty interview with Steve Kornacki, a fun pretaped sketch, the week’s best blazer.) Jones is bringing an energizing new energy to TDS, and that energy could best be summarized as “yelling.” I think she’s my favorite guest host because I understand what she’s bringing to the show and how it would differ from previous iterations. TDS has been quippy for too long; it’s time for someone to just scream wildly into the abyss, okay?
2. Maria Bamford and Stephen Colbert Are the Same Kind of Broken
When Maria Bamford and Stephen Colbert compare childhood dinnertime experiences? That’s praxis. The two youngest-child comics really came to grips with the childhood wounds that thrust them into comedy. At Vulture Festival 2023, Sharon Stone said that her Hamlet would differ from Jerry Saltz’s Hamlet because their parental wounds were different. Everyone has trauma, but everyone’s trauma is unique. But Bamford and Colbert’s traumas are similar enough that they found a gorgeous gorgeous consanguinity. That’s a word coined by Shakespeare, btw.
1. Nathan Fielder Is Keeping It Real
Nathan Fielder was pretty wack this week on Jimmy Kimmel Live! And that’s what we wanted, actually. Maybe some of you sheeple could find this tiny sunglassed vibe “stiff” and “frontin’.” But those people don’t get what acting is. That’s the character, my brother. Fielder created an entirely new persona for late night, seemingly prompted by a pan of his performance on The Curse in the New York Times. Emma Stone did some excellent accommodating friend work in this performance piece — everything you wanted Lily-Rose Depp to be in The Idol, except smoking Capri 120s. This was a king-shit one-act play on late night. Thank you Jimmy Kimmel for hosting it in your black-box theater on Hollywood Boulevard.
