A lot can change in five months, as Seth Meyers learned the hard way.
The Late Night host made a triumphant return to NBC on Monday night following the resolution of a 148-day writers’ strike. But rather than chat up a host of A-list celebrities, Meyers chose to put his writers front and center—and to the test—by turning the entire night into one giant “A Closer Look” segment.
“Just bear with me while I try to get through this,” Meyers implored viewers before launching into a nearly two-minute diatribe in which he frantically spit out five months’ worth of head-spinning headlines, beginning with Monday’s biggest stories: “Donald Trump appeared in a Manhattan courthouse today for a fraud trial after a judge ruled that he and his family had lied about their business assets for years. House Republicans descended into chaos and finger-pointing after nearly shutting down the government while simultaneously embarrassing themselves with a sham impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden that even their own witnesses admitted did not have any evidence.”
Meyers didn’t even bother with any segues, let alone stop to catch his breath, as he debriefed viewers on the many ways Washington, D.C., has devolved into the Wild West since Late Night went dark on May 2. Trump’s various indictments (plural) and other legal woes took center stage in the late-night soliloquy, and Meyers couldn’t help but almost break when he shared that one of his all-time favorite targets, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, “was also indicted by a grand jury in Atlanta for election interference, and is being sued by his ex-lawyer for failure to pay as well as by Hunter Biden for tampering with his laptop.”
The host saved the best for last, however, when he wrapped it all up by sharing that “Mike Lindell got mad in a lawsuit because someone called his pillows lumpy and Lauren Boebert got to second base at a Beetlejuice musical.”
But before he dug into the dirt, Meyers kicked off his first night back by taking a few minutes to share just how “grateful” he was to be back behind the Late Night desk. “I never take this show for granted, but being away from it for as long as I’ve been away from it really hit home how much I love having this as a workplace.”
He also took a moment to express his gratitude to the executives at NBC for making “some very compassionate choices about the people who work at this show and at this network, and it did not go unnoticed.” Meyers also gave thanks to the many writers who fought on the front lines during the strike, both those he works with and those who led the guild’s negotiations. While Meyers said he was thrilled to be back in a room with his writing staff, he also copped to being “over it” by lunchtime. “They’re really talented,” according to Meyers, “they just have a ton of opinions.”
