In a late-night landscape filled middle-aged white guys sitting behind studio desks, Desus and Mero (real names Daniel Baker and Joel Martinez) were a breath of fresh hookah, two shit-talking, first-generation Caribbean Americans from the Bronx who could free associate on any topic: from Donald Trump shooting paper towel rolls at Puerto Rican hurricane victims like free throws (“Swoosh!”) to ESPN’s Stephen A Smith spiralling about the Knicks.
So it was painful for fans when, late on Monday, Showtime announced that their late-night talk show would not be returning for a fifth season, due to creative differences between the co-hosts. There will also be no new episode of their podcast Bodega boys.
The end of their creative partnership is a huge loss to TV – they are two rare talents who many expected to one day take over a flagship late night show. David Letterman himself, when appearing as a guest on the show, told the pair: “Years ago I saw promos for your show at the other place,” referring to their minimalist Vice show. “And I thought, whoa. This is either gonna be something, or it’s gonna be nothing. And it turned out to be both. I wanted to be on the show,” Letterman told them, before reciting some of his favourite bits from their shows.
At the beginning of their careers, the pair would constantly goof about being more famous than they were – joking that “the brand is strong” or that they were “the No 1 show in late night”. But it turned out to be a powerful example of self-actualization as they broke from the shackles of their quotidian vocations (Desus wrote small business columns, while Mero reviewed music) and honed their fast-paced banter on MTV’s Guy Code before establishing themselves as podcast hosts, growing a devout audience of “Bodega Hive” followers along the way.
The podcast led to shows on Complex, Vice and eventually Showtime, where their excessively relaxed vibe broke with the slickly produced tradition of late night TV. And guests appeared to relish the opportunity to go off-script. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, not just a friend of the show but their US representative, did an interview while tending a bar – the job her critics attempt to shame her for having done.
In a guest appearance tied to the promotion of Macbeth, Denzel Washington, who also did some growing up in the Bronx, joked about shipping VHS tapes of the film to the Dominican Republic “in a barrel”. Sometimes in between one-liners, Washington would randomly roll a pair of dice on the folding table the three sat around. There was no chance you’d see so casual a conversation on network TV after dark. Desus and Mero’s guest appearances on other shows were no less compelling. When The Breakfast Club host DJ Envy walked off an interview with the pair in response to a bit they did about him and his wife, it felt like the duo had truly arrived.
The duo, who called themselves the Bodega Boys, lounged around on bodega-themed sets, and dressed in the unofficial store uniform: Timberland boots and Yankees swag. They would often spend whole segments of the show discussing the pizza-eating subway rats, the existential dread of being taken out by a window air conditioning unit – creating a late night show that New Yorkers could be proud of.
Now, as Letterman put it, Desus and Mero are indeed nothing, a comedy team no more. Worse, the subtweets and stray Reddit comments they’ve exchanged over the past few days suggests there’s no love lost. The reason behind the bust up is unclear (although internet rumours abound), but perhaps it’s just the inevitable ending for all comedy duos. But still: Desus and Mero weren’t Hollywood; they were two kids from the Bronx, and that complete lack of showbiz pretence seemed like it might set them up to, at the very least, take over one of the Jimmys one day. It may now fall to former Desus and Mero writer Ziwe, with her own Showtime show, to complete this mission.
