(Okay, technically they did this bit yesterday—eagle-eyed New Yorkers spotted it being filmed on Wednesday afternoon—but Colbert aired the footage alongside Letterman’s final appearance on the soon-to-be-shuttered series tonight.)
Grim as the reasons for it might be, there’s still something very pure about watching how happy Colbert and Letterman are to first order, and then directly participate in, the destruction of CBS’s furniture, hurling it off the roof and smashing a ball pit covered in a giant recreation of the network’s eye logo. Sure, you could argue that this anarchic spirit was always more Letterman’s bag than his successor’s, but Colbert has been letting his inner chaos gremlin out to play a bit more ever since it was announced he was being fired; if the network’s going to claim he’s been losing them $40 million a year, what’s a few more watermelons (and one exultantly hurled cake) on the pile?
In the interview portion of the episode, meanwhile, Letterman was as fierce and devil-may-care as ever, whether joking that a CBS executive had spotted him in the lobby and fired him again for old times, or asking, in a faux-forlorn tone of voice, “What will become of the Jimmys?” (More sincerely, he noted that, “They can take a man’s show, but they can’t take his voice,” and most sincerely, by our estimation, he ended the rooftop segment with a “Good night, and good luck, motherfuckers” directed at CBS management.)
Colbert is now headed into his final week of shows; the last episode of Late Show With Stephen Colbert is set to air on Thursday, May 21.
Keep scrolling for more great stories.