I am such a sucker for ‘final shows’, the ends of the things, new chapters, all that stuff.
Really, it’s so easy to make me feel a lil’ emotional and heartstringy with bittersweet goodbyes.
Conan, rightfully so, submitted their finale episode to the Television Academy for voting purposes. And I really hope he wins. [I know that Last Week Tonight practically always has the Emmys on lock. But this episode of Conan is really special! And Conan is really funny, and brilliant, in general! It’s not just about the fact that this is the last one.
I don’t know if you all saw his last show… But it starts with a cold open of him being interviewed by Homer Simpson!!! While I was watching, I was thinking about how it must’ve been such an incredibly special experience (since obviously, he came from The Simpsons).
Sure enough, he started his show talking about what a special experience it was, which was great to hear.
The cold open ended with [spoiler alert] a joke with Cartoon-Conan taking off his hair and being bald. And of course a sort of stereotypically bald joke people would expect would be about baldness being sort of disgusting etc., but Conan is not usually super stereotypical. He’s too smart for that, always subverting our expectations. And Homer, being bald himself, not surprisingly said it was beautiful.
Anyway, it ends with Homer and Conan hugging. Conan says, “Thank you, Homer. You mean the world to me.” And I thought thought that had such a real meaning underneath it all, because The Simpsons started this whole amazing long-running career. So, I’m sure The Simpsons really does mean the world to him. And it just felt so sweet to hear, even wrapped in a joke, inside a sketch (probably the best way to hear it, in this case).
I wondered if Will Ferrell was gonna be there – he WAS! They made a huge running joke about how Will is always there for the last shows of Conan’s, and wondering how many more were to come.
They did a whole compilation of Conan Without Borders.
Also, he even thanked Lisa Kudrow! I’d heard the story many times of them being friends, and her encouraging him to take the job. But for him to tell that even on his final show – for it to be something that mattered to him that much, that it was one of the last words spoken in his farewell, was just so sweet.
It was just really special. Conan is so special and funny. I look forward to see what happens next!