This Week in Late Night: Seth Is Back!

It was another week of transcendent music booking and staging from The Tonight Show. We had Brandon Flowers in one of John Cena’s bolo ties from Coyote vs. Acme and Cara Delevingne looking like a sexy Leatherhead from Leatherheads. There’s just been banger after banger after banger. Last week, The Tonight Show hosted Suki Waterhouse singing about everyone’s favorite junket liar. And her story about the wardrobe choices she made (and their consequences) must be seen to be believed.

But most of all, we’re celebrating the return of the whole late-night slate. Late Night With Seth Meyers is back, and there was much rejoicing. To illustrate exactly what late night has been missing these many weeks, I want to highlight Meyers’s Wednesday night interview with Ethan Hawke. Seeing these two girl dads tear up about walking their babies down the aisle, the passage of time, and the inviolate personhood of their daughters was tender and precious. Then they go right into an anecdote about eating shit in front of James Cameron. Perfect celebrity interview. Welcome back, Sethy. Here’s who else we were happy to see on late night this week.

5. 
John Oliver’s erotic reveries

Last Week Tonight also came back from a break this week, albeit one slightly less protracted than Late Night’s. Don’t worry, John Oliver is still as left-field horny as ever. This week, he spun a yarn about a nun who only knew the touch of another human being during her sapphic summer in Italy. The joke was accentuated by the graphics over the host’s shoulder, which showed the old nun lost in the same reverie as Oliver. But points must be taken off for thinking a lesbian nun would only have gotten laid as a layperson. There’s an entire genre (nunsploitation) dedicated to busting that particular myth. Stream Benedetta. 

4. 
Woody Harrelson doesn’t judge

It was a big week for tenderness cut with embarrassment in late night. Besides Hawke’s turn on Late Night, Woody Harrelson and Jimmy Kimmel reminisced about Matthew McConaughey cheering up Kimmel after the Emmys “In Memoriam” (during which his best friend and bandleader was memorialized). How’d McConaughey do it? By rubbing his dick on Kimmel’s pants. It’s much better than hearing the “My dad might have fucked Matthew’s mom” story for the 85th time.

3. 
CYSK takes over The Tonight Show

“Comedians You Should and Will Know” class of 2026’s Ethan Simmons-Patterson had a Tonight Show set the day our list went live. How serendipitous. Simmons-Patterson proved why he belongs on the list by innovating in the “doctors be looking at your balls” joke space, which I thought had long been overfarmed into ruin. He posited a scenario where he is the pervert for wanting penile care and his doctor is the reluctant member of the dyad. Every other joke I’ve heard on this topic has played it the other way with the doctor as the aggressor. Simmons-Patterson turned the trope on its head and asked it to cough.

2. 
Back to basics on The Daily Show

Not to wax nostalgic, but back in my day, The Daily Show was mostly a cavalcade of weirdos consenting to be filmed while comedians played right in their face. The things people would say to Beth Littleford just because she seemed blonde and nice — it was insane. This piece from Josh Johnson about New Jersey councilman and former hitman John Alite harkened back to that format. Complete with a lovely bit of two-person shtick from Johnson and host Desi Lydic at the end. Work of this caliber got Steve Carell The Office.

1. 
Taylor Tomlinson joins Strike Force Five when

They’d have to call it Strike Force Six, which doesn’t have the Tarantino allusion. But Late Team Six, that could be something. Point is Taylor Tomlinson was one of the big boys of late night for a brief, shining moment, and it’s always nice when Seth Meyers affords her that recognition. Conan O’Brien was on The Tonight Show this week, Colbert was on Kimmel last week — these guys love to guest on each other’s stuff. It’s nice that Tomlinson gets included in this club. But she’s a stand-up as well, so her appearance on Late Night was also a classic “stand-up sits down” situation, in which prepared jokes are recited semi–off the cuff while in a seated position. Tomlinson broke the fourth wall this time, however, mentioning that she’d run a joke about kidney donation by her brother and he thought she could do better. The joke won late night this week, so it’s probably good enough.