Season 50 Cast Shot — Pictured: (top row l-r) Sarah Sherman, Kenan Thompson, Michael Longfellow, Emil Wakim, Devon Walker, Chloe Fineman, Jane Wickline, Ashley Padilla, Andrew Dismukes; (bottom row l-r) Michael Che, Colin Jost, Marcello Hernández, Heidi Gardner, Mikey Day, Ego Nwodim, Bowen Yang, James Austin Johnson
Mary Ellen Matthews/NBC via Getty Images
Saturday Night Live’s 51st season is just around the corner, and the long-running comedy show has seen several departures and new cast members ahead of its scheduled return on October 4, 2025.
In a rare interview with Puck News published in late August, Lorne Michaels revealed his plans to shake up the cast before the new season. Since then, the news has come streaming in.
The first departure announcement came on August 24 when writer Celeste Yim took to Instagram. Yim is notable for being the first out nonbinary writer for the show. They joined the SNL staff as a writer in 2020 and were promoted to writing supervisor in 2023. Shortly after their departure, cast member Devon Walker also announced he was leaving the show.
Walker originally joined the show in 2022 with Michael Longfellow, Marcello Hernandez and Molly Kearney (who left the show in 2024). Days after Walker’s announcement, Longfellow revealed that he was fired from the show. The news was especially shocking given that it came on the heels of unsubstantiated rumors that he might have been screen testing for a possible Weekend Update host spot. Newcomer Emil Wakim also announced that he would be leaving the show via a late August Instagram post.
Behind the scenes, Weekend Update writer Rosebud Baker his also departing the show. Baker joined the writing staff during season 47. However, the most shocking departure might be Heidi Gardner’s. Gardner isn’t only currently the longest-running female cast member, but she is also an anchor of the show. Gardner joined as a featured player in 2017 and was promoted to the main cast in 2019.
These departures are notable for several reasons. Demographically, they hit women and people of color much harder, but more than that, the show has lost several unique voices. Wakim was only on the show for a season, but was an exciting new voice. He made headlines for showing support for Gaza in a Weekend Update segment in October 2024 and playing Luigi Mangione later in the season. SNL can sometimes feel safe, but Wakim’s willingness to navigate current events felt welcomely risky.
Longfellow felt like another rising star as of late. His comedy stylings are somewhat dry for the overall tone of the show, but he had a great perspective and voice this season. Walker felt somewhat underutilized this past season. While he appeared in many sketches, he never fully got the chance to lead one. It would have been great to see him take on more. While Lorne seems to have wanted a shake-up, the departure of unique voices feels less like a new vision and more like a return to stasis, especially given the number of recent hires on the chopping block.
Gardner’s departure will likely be the most shocking to casual fans of the show and represents arguably the largest shake-up. However, not in a necessarily positive way. She was a highly utilized cast member, a long-go-to for impressions and characters and it isn’t clear who on the current cast could fill her large shoes.
After the mass departures of late August, NBC announced new cast members on September 2. The list includes Tommy Brennan, Jeremy Culhane, Ben Marshall, Kam Patterson and Veronika Slowikowska. SNL fans will recognize Marshall as one-third of the Please Don’t Destroy video team. Please Don’t Destroy saw the most recent departure. On September 2, it was also announced that PDD member John Higgins would leave the show and while the third member of the trio, Martin Herlihy, will continue as a writer. Much like the earlier departures, this feels slightly shocking. PDD ‘sketches’ have been among the best of the season. However, this season also features pre-tapped sketches from Dan Bulla, which will hopefully return for season 51.
While the new castmates are impressive comedians in their own right and may do fabulously on the show, they don’t undo a bit of the sting of recent departures.