Behold the Glorious Return of the Old Stephen Colbert

New Colbert did Old Colbert on last night's Late Show.
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We could tell from some stealth footage captured over the weekend that Stephen Colbert would have some tricks hidden up his sleeve for the Republican National Convention. The Late Show host had already halfway returned to his role as Republican-Irritant-in-Chief by crashing the RNC stage on Sunday, but then Colbert took that role up several notches Monday—he took it up all the notches, quite frankly—by reviving his Stephen Colbert character from The Colbert Report.

That's right, Stephen Colbert finally became Stephen Colbert again, and the results were spectacular. (Pushing Colbert into his old self, by the way, was Jon Stewart. Expect more of him later in the week.) For now, we'll not worry about answering the philosophical implications of the character's return, (Didn't Colbert work so hard to distance himself from the character? Did he really want to do this, or was it more about a ratings ploy? How will Colbert deal with the demand for a character he seemingly buried?) and instead marvel at how seamlessly Colbert re-assumed his old role.

The glasses were back, as were the finely combed hair and arched eyebrow. Colbert not only brought back his old look, he brought back his old The Word segment and laid down some great (and necessary) burns on the ludicrousness of the RNC and its participants. It's the Colbert we've been waiting to see on the Late Show for quite some time, only the laugh-a-minute political smackdown was delivered by the Colbert we expected never to see again.

Of course, it's kind of hard to watch Colbert become take on his old persona (the one he admitted to being tired of) and not be skeptical as to whether his heart was in it. But like any brilliant performer, Colbert deflected any of our worries with his commitment to the character. (Fake) Stephen Colbert, it's nice to see you again, even ever so briefly.