Jon Stewart eviscerates himself, overexcited Daily Show recappers, in penultimate show

Jon Stewart turns the satire on himself
(Image credit: The Daily Show)

On Wednesday's Daily Show — the second-to-last one Jon Stewart will ever host — Stewart turned his satire on himself. And on the poor grunts who toil away thanklessly every Monday through Thursday nights, recapping The Daily Show under ridiculous headlines touting Stewart's various conquests.

As he looked back on his time at The Daily Show, Stewart began, "I feel like what we built here was a monument to evisceration. Issues, pundits politicians — we here at the show left no target un-disemboweled." With overwrought headlines filling the screen, Stewart turned the mockery his own way: "And so now, at the end of my tenure, with all my targets pulverized into ash before me, I'd like to take a moment to see my crushed enemies driven before me and hear the lamentation of their women, in our new segment: The Daily Show, Destroyer of Worlds."

What followed was a string of Stewart's pet issues — ISIS, racism, big banks — and a look at how they're doing today. (Spoiler: Fine.) "Perhaps Fox News, the best-known target in our show's proverbial crosshairs, paid the ultimate price," he said, in vain. Finally, the cri de cœur: "The world is demonstrably worse than when I started. Have I caused this?!?" But just as Stewart was about to go all Hamlet on us, bad Shakespearean English and all, he found one note of saving grace. He'll take it. After all, he only has one show left. Peter Weber

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Peter Weber

Peter Weber is a senior editor at TheWeek.com, and has handled the editorial night shift since the website launched in 2008. A graduate of Northwestern University, Peter has worked at Facts on File and The New York Times Magazine. He speaks Spanish and Italian and plays bass and rhythm cello in an Austin rock band. Follow him on Twitter.