Late Night Last Week: Taylor Tomlinson Says Goodbye as Conan Returns to Late Night

Each week, Late Night Last Week highlights some of the best late night TV from the previous week. This week, we mourn the end of After Midnight, celebrate Conan’s return to Late Night, and share Troy Iwata’s hilarious segment on Pride.

One of the few bright lights in the landscape of late night television has gone out. After just two seasons on CBS, Taylor Tomlinson brought After Midnight to a close last Thursday, June 12. While the show never quite found its level, its unique approach to the day’s news and month’s trends, featuring that millennial cocktail of irony, sincerity, and existential dread, offered a refreshing glimpse into how late night television may look in the future, if it exists at all.

As was often noted in this column, Tomlinson consistently delivered some of the finest monologues in late night television. After Midnight’s hybrid game-talk show format, however, proved a bit limiting, even when the show tried to open up and include a Dick Cavett-style group interview on a pair of couches. But the show always seemed to be getting closer and closer to hitting its stride, taking risks that other late night programs would never sniff. The show easily made our list of the best late night programming of 2024.

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But then, Tomlinson announced her full-time return to stand-up—who could blame her? The trio of specials Tomlinson has released for Netflix are an impressive body of work for a career that has only just begun. With her departure, CBS announced an end to the show.

“This was never something that was on my vision board at all, because I just didn’t think it was possible for me,” Tomlinson said in a final monologue thanking her team for all their work on the show. “I’m a rat road dog comedian. I’m a garbage person. Okay? All right? And you saw how many people came out to brush me like a horse. I didn’t do this. The hair and makeup and wardrobe team alone deserve an award.”

Tomlinson gave a special shoutout to her bare bones operation, who, night after night, made the most with far fewer resources than other late night shows. “Like, I know we make jokes on the show, like, we don’t have the budget for that,” Tomlinson said, “We really didn’t. We really, really didn’t.”

And now, the stand-up comedy circuit regains the full attention of one of its great talents, as network late night television is once again back in the hands of the dudes. Tomlinson may never wish to return to late night, but years from now, when there is yet another late night shift, networks would be foolish not to consider Tomlinson for primetime. If not, Tomlinson and her team at After Midnight have left a lasting imprint on late night, offering hope to a dying genre and perhaps a path forward for a low budget future.

Let us state the obvious: 2025 is the year of Conan O’Brien. Our man has hosted the Oscars, received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, and launched the second season of Conan O’Brien Must Go on Max. In the four years since his eponymous show ended on TBS, he has simultaneously embraced his elder statesman status, like during his April appearance on Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney, while showing just how much gas he has left in the tank. And we can’t get enough.

On Wednesday, June 11, O’Brien returned to Late Night, the show he hosted for 16 years following David Letterman’s initial run. Apart from a brief appearance during Jimmy Fallon’s tenure as host, O’Brien has never returned to the program—after his infamous departure from NBC, it’s easy to understand why. But Seth Meyers had publicly stated for years his desire to interview O’Brien, and the appearance did not disappoint.

For late night nerds, it was a glorious evening, as Meyers and O’Brien discussed some of the latter’s favorite bits (horse riding a horse, Shoeverine) and some of his least favorite pitches (a basset hound dribbling a basketball). Two two also discussed a vision Conan and his head writer, Robert Smiegel, had to rebrand Late Night as Night Night. Part of their motivation was fear that preserving the name would invite comparisons to David Letterman. “I’m not kidding,” he said. “We were convinced.”

As always, genius was not appreciated in its time. Watch their full, extended conversation below.

June is Pride Month. In years past, that meant you couldn’t walk into a store without witnessing an array of rainbow merchandise. But given the, uh, *checks notes*, political environment, people have started to notice that corporations have rolled back mentioning pride, with many pointing to fears of retaliation by the Trump Administration.

“Target has completely abandoned its role as the number one destination for gay people with horrible fashion sense,” Desi Lydic said from the host’s chair on the June 11 episode of The Daily Show.

For more analysis, Lydic turned to the program’s senior gay business correspondent, Troy Iwata, who predicted that someday the pendulum would turn. Corporations, Iwata said, would have to come back with more than just flags.

“They’re going to have to bottom,” Iwata said. “Hey, corporations, you want to prove that you have commitment? Find your most homophobic executive, change his fiber intake. Day one of the act, make him eat light, mostly greens. He needs to douche because sometimes you can’t trust your body. And then he needs lubricant, okay? You can’t just pull a Heath Ledger and spit on it, RIP.”

Iwata diatribe is simply a must watch. He then pivots to Lydic, who takes on a more meta role, playing the audience member shocked by the audacity of his brilliant bit. “That demand is detailed,” she says. “Sorry, is that too much detail for you? Does male love make you cringe?” Quotations won’t do it justice. Just watch.

Will DiGravio is a Brooklyn-based critic, researcher, and late night comedy columnist, who first contributed to Paste in 2022. He is an assistant editor at Cineaste, a GALECA member, and since 2019 has hosted The Video Essay Podcast. You can follow and/or unfollow him on Twitter and learn more about him via his website.