'Late Show with Stephen Colbert' finale: 4 takeaways

"The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" — and "The Late Show" franchise — wrapped Thursday night after a 33-year run, with 11 of those starring the current, now former, host. Here are four takeaways:

THE MONOLOGUE WAS MILD

Most notable here is that Colbert's foil-in-chief, the POTUS, was not mentioned once during the single most important element of any "Late Show." The jokes were strictly topical, about sinkholes in Queens, erectile dysfunction, a sexy-priest calendar controversy in Italy ("wait ... this is the worst scandal to ever hit the Catholic Church?"), as well as some billboards from the Marine Mammal Foundation in South Carolina directly referencing Colbert (who ended with, "what, the dolphins know I was canceled?"). It might seem safe to assume Colbert didn't want to give Donald Trump the satisfaction of being part of this final episode — a finale in which he (maybe) played a direct role (recall those highly plausible reports that the President demanded the show's cancellation as a condition of Paramount's purchase of CBS). But what this monologue really was about was a world in which Trump didn't exist at all. What if Colbert had done a show all these years without that guy in the White House providing a daily fire hose of material? (Lots of sinkhole jokes maybe?) A clever conceit, sure, except this monologue also lacked the fire and conviction of the last 1,800-or-so. It was like a balloon that wasn't fully inflated, or a basketball that didn't quite bounce. Where was that final fusillade, that searing last shot? Too bad fans were denied the satisfaction of one.

PAUL McCARTNEY WAS THE PERFECT FINAL GUEST

After Colbert made a jokey riff about Pope Leo coming out of the green room (He has long said he hoped to get the Pope for this final lap), Sir Paul McCartney arrived instead. No matter. Sir Paul is as close to a secular saint as you're going to get anyway. McCartney (who recently performed on "SNL's" season finale), as usual, was McCartney — the perfect guest who gamely answered the obvious questions, although he did try to bait Colbert to say something, about the president: "We [the Beatles] thought of America as the land of the free, the greatest democracy, and it still is, hopefully." Colbert shrugged. Good as he was, McCartney was also reminder of what late night shows are so often about — a place for famous people to sell stuff (and sure enough, a new McCartney album is coming out on May 29).

THE LONGEST WORMHOLE JOKE IN TV HISTORY

During the McCartney sit-down, the show segued to a taped bit lasting a full eight (!) minutes, where Colbert goes backstage to greet a giant swirling wormhole. TV's most famous astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson then warns Colbert that "two contradictory ideas can't coexist without disrupting the wormhole" (One of those contradictory ideas? That the number-one show on late night TV was canceled, which sets up Colbert's funny quip, "they canceled 'Gutfeld'??!!"). The wormhole riff was another a reminder that Colbert truly can be a quirky, obtuse brainiac with a cerebral sense of humor. While it also played into that other joke about an alternate timeline (see: the monologue) it mostly functioned as a setup for two metajokes. The first was that late night shows could eventually be sucked into this seething hole-of-no-return (the other late night hosts, in cameos, were all sucked into its maw). Then, there was a final image of the Ed Sullivan Theater drawn into the wormhole as well, then reduced to a point of singularity — a snow globe (thanks to "St. Elsewhere" for that gag). Sure, this was a shaggy-dog of a joke that went on too long, but hey — it's Colbert's final show. He's allowed to indulge (and sure did).

MUSIC SAVED THE FINAL SHOW

"Late Show" at least did save the best for last. Elvis was in the building — Costello that is, who sang an unreleased song from the 1970s, "Jump Up," with Jon Batiste and show bandleader Louis Cato. For Costello fans this was a treat, and the show's most obvious shot at Trump and the current political climate: "Jump up, hold on tight/can't trust a promise or a guarantee/'Cause the man 'round the curve says that he's never heard of you or me ..." It's a song about political corruption, campaign lies, and propaganda, with shades of mortality (tombstones, hanging trees, obituaries). Again, a little obtuse, but fans sure got the idea.

Then, the whole shebang wrapped with the McCartney performing The Beatles' 1967 classic "Hello, Goodbye." If you really care to go deep here (and Colbert usually does), that chestnut was about duality, and that for every negative there's a positive. So farewell, Stephen. Looking forward to seeing you on the other end of that wormhole. Hopefully it's a better place.