The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore took its final bow on Thursday, and not by choice.
Larry Wilmore’s Nightly Show signed off with Jon Stewart and one last promise
“I’m not done yet.”
Caroline Framke wrote about culture, which usually means television. Also seen @ The A.V. Club, The Atlantic, Complex, Flavorwire, NPR, the fridge to get more seltzer.
Since Comedy Central unceremoniously canceled the series earlier in the week, Wilmore has candidly discussed his disappointment with the decision, especially because it means The Nightly Show won’t be covering the final stretch of the 2016 presidential election.
But he made sure his final episode was as much of a victory lap as possible, playing montages of the show’s best sketches before gathering his correspondents for their most informal roundtable to date and letting them sit in a semi-circle, sipping their farewell drinks of choice.
Wilmore’s former Daily Show boss Jon Stewart also made an appearance, jokingly wondering if they “piss[ed] off Peter Thiel” — the billionaire behind Hulk Hogan’s ultimately successful lawsuit against Gawker — before getting sincere.
“What you were tasked to do, you have done, and done beautifully,” Stewart told Wilmore. “You gave voice to underserved voices in the media arena, and it was a show that was raw, and pointed, and funny, and smart.”
Finally, Wilmore addressed his viewers for the last time, answering the “number one question” he apparently received from the studio audience before every show: “Why is your map upside-down?”
Pointing at the world map on the screen behind him, Wilmore grinned. “Well,” he said, “I disagree with your premise.”
He elaborated:
“Upside-down” is just an opinion. If you were floating out in space, the world could take on any orientation. But as a culture, we’ve all agreed [with] the opinion that the world should be seen in a certain way.
So at The Nightly Show, our chief mission was to disagree with that premise, and to see the world in a way that might not make everybody comfortable, and to present it with a cast of people who don’t always get to have a voice on that.
R.I.P., The Nightly Show. Hopefully, we’ll be seeing more from this cast and crew in the undoubtedly harrowing news cycles to come.
You can watch Wilmore’s goodbye above, and see more clips over at Hulu.
