The final episode of WTF With Marc Maron didn’t take place in his garage. Back in 2015, the President of the United States proved he was still a man of the people by sitting for a podcast recording in Maron’s humble abode. Post-presidency, Barack Obama apparently doesn’t see the need to perform such humility. Instead, Maron traveled to Washington, D.C. to do the last-ever WTF from Obama’s office.
Obama’s first interview on WTF set download records at the time as one of the most-listened to podcast episodes ever. After announcing the end of WTF, Maron pitched the ex-prez as his final guest during an interview with Variety, and on Monday the dream was realized. The final guest needed to be “singular,” Maron said in his introduction, “in that he could address the importance of this being our final episode, but also address how we move through the world we’re living in, as frightening as it is.”
The episode draws an odd comparison between life after a long-running podcasting gig and life after the presidency. “I think it’s pretty similar,” Obama endorsed the notion. (It is?!) Of course, the influence of comedy podcasting on politics has only increased in the years since Maron and Obama first sat down to chat. Some have argued that the podcasting “manosphere” paved the way for the election of Donald Trump, who in many ways stands for the “opposite” of what Obama represented, as he himself said on WTF With Marc Maron.
“I think there is no doubt that a lot of the norms, civic habits, expectations, institutional guardrails that we had, that we took for granted for our democracy have been weakened deliberately. And I don’t think they’re destroyed, but I think they have been damaged. And they’ve been systematic about it,” the politician observed in the episode (via The Hollywood Reporter). “Just as was true during the McCarthy era and has been true throughout our history, what’s required in these situations is a few folks standing up and giving courage to other folks. And then more people stand up and kind of go ‘That’s not who we are. That’s not our idea of America. We don’t want masked folks with rifles and machine guns patrolling our streets.'”
The state of the nation at large is a broad topic to tackle for the last installment of WTF. But Maron has been ruminating on the series’ legacy since the end of the show was announced. In September, he revisited some classic moments from the 16-year history of the show—including listening back to the Obama interview for the first time—with Judd Apatow. (Maron also picked some of his favorite episodes for The A.V. Club back in 2013, pre-Obama interview, if you want a trip down memory lane.) And the penultimate episode released on October 9 did not feature a guest, just Maron in the garage, addressing his audience.
“I am feeling grateful, I’m feeling sad. It is a sense of loss, but it’s not a bad one. It’s just life. I mean, fuck. Really, really a lot of your input changed, my mind changed the way I looked at things. I really took to heart a lot of what many of you said to me in person, sometimes through emails and I really feel like you were a big part of my evolution or my evolving wisdom and perception,” Maron said on that episode (via THR). “You really helped me. Yeah. I don’t know man. I love you guys and I think you’ll be okay without me. I’m not entirely sure I’ll be okay without you, but it has been quite a ride, quite an adventure, quite a life.”
