“Do not confuse cancellation with failure,” Jon Stewart told Larry Wilmore Thursday night on the Nightly Show’s final episode. “You gave voice to underserved voices in the media, and … you started a conversation that was not on television when you began.”

Perhaps fittingly, the Nightly Show finale took Stewart’s comments to heart, favoring nostalgia over commentary and saying goodbye over looking ahead. Wilmore introduced just a single issue to debate—and it was certainly a worthy one—but when turning to his regular team of correspondents for analysis, they were all on “vacation,” or “in bed,” or, in the case of Franchesca Ramsey, “in the middle of doing a Skype interview.” The end was nigh—and that was the only topic up for discussion.

In that sense, Wilmore assembled a fairly traditional conclusion for his late-night series, making room for wistful sentimentality as the clock ran out. A long clip reel highlighted the Nightly Show correspondents’ best moments over the past year-and-some-change. The team then gathered for their final roundtable, albeit one featuring effortless reminiscing—and plenty of drinking—instead of the somewhat stilted political dialogue that was more typical of the format. And of course Stewart, Wilmore’s old boss and friend, returned to commend the Nightly Show on what it had accomplished and to encourage Wilmore to celebrate what his voice meant to the underrepresented.

But Wilmore made good on his promise to “Keep it 100” right until the end, providing a stirring closing message. “As a culture, we all agree with the opinion that the world should be seen in a certain way,” he said during the episode’s final minutes. “So at the Nightly Show, our chief mission was to disagree with that premise and to see the world in a way that might not make everybody comfortable.” For a late-night comedy program, it was a sobering notion to end on—but also a prideful one. Despite the proper, sappy send-off, the Nightly Show still managed to end as it began: a challenge.