Showtime’s Best Pair Is Splitting And Calling It Quits
Say goodbye folks!
It’s not a stretch to say that the late-night talk show formula has become pretty stale over the years, with some of the best hosts of the format fully retired and out of the game now. However, Daniel Baker and Joel Martinez, better known as Desus Nice and The Kid Mero, have always brought a breath of fresh air to late-night with their Showtime series Desus & Mero. Unfortunately, it looks like that will no longer be the case as the two are splitting up to pursue separate creative endeavors.
A spokesperson for Showtime confirmed the news, saying that there would not be a fourth season of the late-night show. Desus & Mero aired the final episode of its fourth season on June 23rd, meaning that episode is now effectively the series finale. While this news is undoubtedly disappointing to fans, it’s not necessarily shocking. Social media rumblings indicated the two had fallen out, and the fourth season only aired once per week, rather than the twice-per-week format of previous seasons. Additionally, the show stopped premiering episodes of the fourth season after just 15 episodes hit Showtime, whereas previous seasons had as many as 60 episodes.
Losing the Desus & Mero talk show will definitely be a blow for Showtime and fans of late night. The two hosts would consistently nab high-profile interviews with figures like Barack Obama, Joe Biden, the Wu-Tang Clan, Spike Lee, Zendaya, David Letterman, Lil Nas X, Matt Damon, Idris Elba, Dwayne Johnson, Derek Jeter, Tom Holland, Michael B. Jordan, and many more. The show has won a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedy/Variety Talk Series and has been nominated for multiple Critics’ Choice Awards for Best Talk Show.
Desus & Mero is the third series from Desus Nice and The Kid Mero after they started with the Complex TV web series Desus vs. Mero and the Bodega Boys podcast. The last time an episode of the Bodega Boys podcast aired was on November 15, 2021. and with the pair separating, it’s likely that this podcast is effectively over as well. They also had a series on Viceland from 2016-2018. Showtime picked them up for Desus & Mero in 2018, with the first season airing in 2019 with an episode interviewing Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez.
The overwhelming popularity of Desus & Mero should definitely help the two hosts in their separate creative endeavors, and it will be interesting to see where the two take their talents next. Judging by the social media interactions, it seems likely that this is a pretty definitive ending for their partnership, at least for now. Fans of the podcast and the series, known as the bodegahive, are understandably in a tizzy over this development. Desus Nice himself took to Twitter to express his sorry to the fans, saying “the hive deserved better than this ending.” While the details of the split between the two are scant at this time, there will likely be more about this story as it develops. Until then, you can revisit the back catalog of the Bodega Boys podcast and watch the first three seasons, plus the final fourth season episodes, of Desus & Mero on Showtime.
