Live updates from Oprah's final show

May 25, 2011|By Steve Johnson | Tribune reporter

So this is it. A run of 25 years nationally, plus another year-and-a-half here in Chicago before that, all comes down to one last hour of Oprah. Here's a recap of what went down in Oprah's final hour:

9:59 a.m.: She's damp eyed, walking through back halls among her staff, hugging some along the way. Then she lifts her dog and says, "We did it, Sadie." And she walks away from the camera, and an era is over.

9:58 a.m.: And then she walks throught the studio audience as the Paul Simon Oprah song plays. She hugs Stedman. Oh, dang. I'm actually tearing up. This is the end of a pretty amazing story.

9:55 a.m.: Winfrey talks about her daily prayer of gratitude for "the delight and the privilege of doing this show." Ending the show is "all sweet, no bitter," she adds. Over 25 years, there were aha moments together, there was "ugly crying" and there was the completion of gratitude journals. She ends on: "I thank you for being as much of a sweet inspiration for me as I've tried to be for you.  I won't say goodbye. I'll just say, Until we meet again. To God be the glory."

9:52 a.m.: "You and this show have been the great love of my life," she says, really, for the first time, tearing up. It is a sad moment, in a couple of ways.

9:50 a.m.: She gives out her new email: She says she'll read as many of them as she can. Winfrey says she understands that "there are no coincidences, only the divine order of God." 

9:42 a.m.: Kohls runs a "Thanks, Oprah" ad and says the store will continue to have our back. 

9:40 a.m.: We're back. Winfrey is talking about listening to what is whispering to you in your life. "Your life is speaking to you. What is it saying?" Mine is saying that I need a piece of toast and more coffee when this hour is over. 

9:37 a.m.: Uh-oh. Suddenly the Oprah show looks like a Monet painting. This is the dark side to relying on satellite dish for your TV signal. Big rainstorms will very occasionally cause a signal to be lost. I'm pretty sure Oprah was saying something about becoming a better person, though. 

9:33 a.m.: Going to another commercial after a segment in which she explains that what the show's thousand of guests all had in common was that they wanted validation. Easy joke: But, Oprah, I thought you owned the parking lot at Harpo. But seriously, this is a pretty somber show. Not bad somber, necessarily. Just sort of peaceful and reflective. 

9:28 a.m.: Now come the Oprah as stuntwoman clips. She rode in on an elephant, went through boot camp, shouted at her neighbors through a megaphone. Oh, no. Now she is using "LOL" as a verb: "One day we're LOLing with Chris Rock." Another way to say that would be, let's see ... ah, yes: "laughing." 

9:25 a.m.: The ad for the next "Cars" movie, "Cars 2," uses the Oprah catchphrase, cleverly: "This summer, you get new 'Cars.' You get new 'Cars.' And you get new 'Cars.'" Bravo. 

9:23 a.m.: She says people started coming on the show saying things they wouldn't say to their own family members: abuse, AIDS, coming out, alcoholism, drug addiction. "Little by little we started to release the shame," Winfrey instructs, as we head to commercial. 

9:19 a.m.: Science time. Newton's Third Law of Motion is "the abiding law that I live by," says Winfrey. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. And here comes the "Color Purple" clip, with a character demonstrating this principle.

9:17 a.m.: She describes the first years of her show as "people making bad choices" and says she is glad she grew out of that. The lesson she imparts -- very much in the teaching mode today -- is that "you are responsible for your own life." Don't blame your parents; take control. 

9:12 a.m.: First commercial break. The film version of "The Help," an Oprah's Book Club book, is coming this summer. Why isn't Winfrey in this? It's easy to forget that she was really quite good in "The Color Purple," way back then. 

9:10 a.m.: Everybody has their own talk show in their own lives, Winfrey says. And next year, it seems that everybody will have their own talk show on daytime TV as they scramble to fill the Oprah void. Hello, Katie Couric and Anderson Cooper. 

9:08 a.m.: WLS-Ch. 7, Oprah's home station, puts a "Severe T-storm warning" on screen. And they aren't talking about Stedman's charisma. But why do these things occupy the top of the screen, blotting out the host's head and beeping louder than a truck in reverse. We would see it at the bottom, promise, and hear it without a beep. 

9:07 a.m.: "Every day that I stood here, I knew that this was exactly where I was supposed to be," Winfrey says, explaining this show is her love letter to the audience. And, she points out, she never missed a day in 25 years. Alright, Oprah, you get the raise. 

9:00 a.m.: It starts with a clip from the first show, Sept. 8, 1986. Oprah is in a very big magenta jacket. Then she comes out live, in a vibrant pink dress. We see tears in the audience already. "How truly amazing it is, this journey that you and I have shared together," she says. "I mean really, people."

Pre-show: There won't be cars or almond-scented body creams. There won't be the full-scale celebrity onslaught we saw Monday and Tuesday, in shows derived from last week's United Center extravaganza. Instead, the reports coming out of yesterday's taping indicate, it'll just be Winfrey, her audience (including some well-known friends), and some clips. One last opportunity to leave us with some lessons, it sounds like. Let the teaching begin.