There were no apologies from him on Friday night, but neither were there any moments to provoke fresh outrage. Trump has turned the conventional wisdom of a presidential campaign so upside down that by the time his appearance with Fallon ended, it wasn’t clear whether the lack of some jaw-dropping statement from the candidate represented a plus or a minus for him.

He declined to double down on his comments about Carly Fiorina's “face,” and when the topic turned to Hillary Clinton, Trump resorted to some boilerplate criticism of her email controversy, along with a few crocodile tears. “I feel terribly about it,” he said as the audience laughed. “Honestly, it’s tough stuff.”

In addition to the interview, Trump filmed a sketch with Fallon impersonating the self-obsessed billionaire as he prepared for the interview, in a dressing room covered with portraits of him. The conceit was that Trump was interviewing himself. “Me interviewing me? That’s what I call a great idea,” Trump said.

The trouble with the sketch quickly became apparent: When the candidate himself is a spoof, there’s nothing left to spoof. The humor in these type of bits is found in watching a stiff, awkward politician take a modest risk and make fun of themselves. But thanks to his years on reality TV, Trump is already a polished performer, and the sketch felt familiar, if occasionally amusing. Fallon ribbed him about the utter lack of policy detail in his campaign platform (How will you grow the economy? “I’m just gonna do it!”), and the two Trumps let out a harmonic “YUUUGE!” to the crowd’s delight.

Trump’s appearance on Friday was his first on a late-night comedy show since he launched his presidential bid. But he has done no shortage of interviews in other formats, and his rather conventional give-and-take with Fallon could not have presented a starker contrast to the emotional introspection of Stephen Colbert’s interview of Joe Biden a night earlier. Next week will feature two more candidate appearances on late-night, as Bernie Sanders sits down with Colbert while Hillary Clinton goes on Fallon—the same night as the second Republican debate.

Just their different choice in comic interlocutor is at least somewhat revealing: Sanders went with the one who might engage him in an earnest discussion of policy, while Clinton went with Fallon, the host who prefers a few easy laughs. For Trump, there probably wasn’t much choice: Aside from a few mild jabs from Fallon, he departed NBC’s studio at Rockefeller Center on Friday without much threat to his “yuge” lead in the polls.

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