Things change all the time. His team is different - even if they were identically the same people, he has changed, they have changed, and the relationship between them has changed. Even if you take the duration of time that he's been away from the show and compare himself at the end vs. himself that same amount of time before it, you would surely find differences.

For one thing, going in once a week rather than every day has got to be different. For another, he's now the star of the show rather than its "leader". As he said, he's an old man venting his frustrations to the world about this fucked-up shitstorm of an election, and then he'll leave - and we all know it (man, I allowed myself to forget already until now:-|). He practices less, and each time he makes a tape he then goes home and relaxes for a week and then has to "get back into it" upon his return - every single time.

Maybe the hairline thing is revealing something more fundamental/foundational: he doesn't want to get his hair messed up, for later in the week, in this "job" that he comes to once a week, rather than showing up every single day, being at the leadership helm. I'm saying: he's not (all the way) "back", not fully, not like it was before. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, b/c it was killing him and his relationship with his family, to have to put in THAT much effort to do it all - both be the star and the leader at the same time.

And yet, he keeps it 💯 - that's what we are there for! The rest fades away, as he says what should, nay must, be said, except won't be by those in power.

Damn I'm going to miss him when he steps back down again:-(. 😭 Nobody else even comes close. Though I'm really liking Josh Johnson.

Almost like he's old and semi-retired and down to making jokes about having harped on Trump for literal decades