WATCH: Jon Stewart signs off for the summer

On Thursday night, Jon Stewart tried to bid an emotional farewell to his Daily Show audience for the summer — he is off until Sept. 4 to shoot a movie in the Middle East — but John Oliver gets in the way. (Watch above.) Stewart's moment of not-quite-Zen, which ends in a sight gag and a hug, caps an unusually serious episode of The Daily Show.

Stewart starts out with a segment on New York's Citi Bike program, and the backlash from (mostly older) residents of tony Manhattan neighborhoods. (Watch below.) After poking fun at the bike-sharing scheme himself — "full metal racket" — he raises an eyebrow at the over-the-top condemnation from Wall Street Journal editorial board member Dorothy Rabinowitz. Finally, correspondent Al Madrigal does a very Daily Show person-on-the-street interview montage.

But the bulk of the show is consumed with Stewart talking about his summer plans, and how he came to the decision to film an adaptation of Iranian journalist Maziar Bahari's post-jail memoir, And Then They Came for Me. (Hint: A dash of guilt is involved.) Stewart re-runs the 2009 Daily Show interview between Bahari and correspondent Jason Jones that perhaps helped land the journalist in prison — during his enhanced interrogations, Bahari was asked about his meeting with "American spy" Jones, whom Stewart notes is neither a spy nor American (he's Canadian).

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If you're interested in Stewart's summer in the Middle East — "where stars are born," he quips — or Bahari's story, or Jones' actual journey to Tehran, continue watching below: