Analysis of cast members departing “Saturday Night Live” after Season 50.

SNL contracts are said to typically have options for seven seasons, so it seems likely that Fineman, who has clearly been successful on the show, would fill that number out. What makes her more ripe for speculation than her similarly established co-stars Yang and Nwodim, then? Mainly that she’s surprisingly maintained relatively low screen time this season, per LateNighter’s ongoing calculations in partnership with SNL stats guru Mike Murray. Part of Fineman’s low numbers have to do with missing one show entirely due to a post-SNL 50 COVID infection, but that doesn’t explain why she didn’t appear in this past Saturday’s Walton Goggins episode, even as she made the press rounds for her new movie Summer of 69 on Hulu. Now, some of this is just luck of the draw, and unless cast members are actively sitting out long stretches of the season in order to make movies or other shows, it’s probably foolish to read too much into the screen-time stats of a six-season vet. But Fineman does have several more movie roles booked, and she may not want to spend the entirety of her thirties doing celebrity impressions.

Prediction: Fineman does one more season and bolts.  

On the other side, ranking a cast member with so relatively little screen time as so likely to return might seem foolish. But many fans regard Longfellow as a potential future Weekend Update anchor, and he certainly has some of that Norm Macdonald vibe, where he can be very funny in certain sketches but seems most comfortable as a stand-up-adjacent version of himself. Earlier this season, it seemed as if Longfellow was taking the Bill Hader slot of go-to menacing game-show host, and though he lacks Hader’s overall versatility (or, for that matter, clear evidence that he would want to do Update), he seems like he’s being kept in the wings for something bigger. Besides, if they were going to boot him for being kind of an acquired-taste weirdo (complimentary), would he have logged three seasons already?

Prediction: Longfellow sticks around – but if he doesn’t get Update next year, it may be his last.

A first-season featured player is typically the most precarious job at SNL; five new hires have turned into one-and-dones since the fortieth season. Ashley Padilla seemed to get the least screen time early on in Season 50, but this spring she’s made herself seem borderline invaluable playing various co-workers, moms, and other normies; even without a big showcase character, her classic sketch-comedian skill set comes through. In a stand-up-heavy cast, she’s a major asset. Then again, the same was true of Michael Watkins and Chloe Troast, who both became one-season players to the confusion of many fans. So her survival is by no means assured, though she seems like an awfully strong bet.

Prediction: She’ll be back.

Wickline feels like an odd fit for this cast; neither a big-personality stand-up nor a classic shapeshifting improviser, she hails from TikTok, and even there her energy is a bit more deadpan than the manic one-person shows often favored by ultra-short-form comedians. That’s also precisely why she’s so refreshing on network TV, where her biggest showcases have been oddball songs on Weekend Update and, more recently, in music-video form. And anecdotally, it seems like if she’s part of a strategy to get SNL material shared on that beloved social media platform, she’s succeeding. (She also, like a number of SNL staffers, has showbiz connections; her dad was a comedy writer and her mom used to work for Lorne Michaels.) A lot of SNL traditionalists seem baffled by her, which is also probably a sign that she should return, whether or not she makes the cut.

Prediction: Unless the producers have their eyes on more newbies, she seems likely to maintain the show’s youth outreach.

Normally, a nine-season veteran would be prime for speculation about leaving, but a loophole that should make Day even likelier to leave – he was at the show for three seasons as a writer before he jumped into the cast, meaning that he’s actually been there for 12 seasons in total – is also what could keep him there: He’s got SNL lifer vibes. Earlier in the show’s history, this was characterized mostly by writers who returned to the show with Lorne Michaels in the mid-1980s after serving during the first five years, and most especially by writer-performers like Al Franken who would dabble in on-camera work. But with the rise of the Weekend Update anchor doubling as a head writer who might also transcend other cast changes (see Seth Meyers, Colin Jost, etc.) as well as Kenan Thompson’s precedent-shattering run, it has become somewhat more normal to simply stay at SNL. It makes sense; Day has been a phenomenally successful writer-performer with his writing partner Streeter Seidell, and who wants to see these guys churning out hacky feature screenplays for straight-to-Paramount-Plus comedies? Then again, he does have plenty of other gigs, and at some point, burnout could set in.

Prediction: Day makes a play for the upper echelons of long SNL runs and stays for a tenth season at least.

Speaking of burnout: In a much speculated-about clip from Craig Ferguson’s podcast, SNL mainstay Heidi Gardner admitted to feeling a little burnt out in terms of writing material for herself, and that feels like it’s come through in Season 50, where Gardner characters haven’t been as frequent or visible as seasons past. A particular master of the Weekend Update character, Gardner has long been a highlight of the show, and it sounds like she’s conforming to the Lorne Michaels idea of when to leave: Just past a creative peak, rather than prior to it. Michaels has been successful in luring back similarly talented women like Aidy Bryant and Cecily Strong past the eight-season mark, but it seems entirely possible that Gardner will go more like Vanessa Bayer, and leave on her own terms.

Prediction: Maybe Gardner takes one victory-lap season for a proper farewell, but it’s possible she just peaces out with a relative lack of ceremony.

The third of Season 50’s new hires, Wakin has often logged more screentime than Wickline, but has probably had less pure showcase material than anyone on that trio – which makes him one of the least-showcased performers in the cast, period. He’s had a few stand-up bits on Weekend Update, and he seems like a funny, likable guy; he just may be one stand-up too many on a show that’s hired half a dozen or so in recent years.

Prediction: He’s the featured player who seems most likely to become a one-and-done, though maybe Michaels would prefer to give all three of them another shot rather than go through the rigamarole of hiring yet another newbie.

Honestly, I’m a little surprised that Walker has made it this far; like Wakim, he’s likable and has been funny as an Update guest, but he hasn’t popped in many sketches, and it took him a season-plus to stop making the same “welp” face in most of them. As Walker has gotten more comfortable on camera, he hasn’t gotten much more actual camera time, creating a real combination of “if not now, when?” and “well, definitely not now.”

Prediction: Whether by choice or necessity, Walker will find a better outlet for his stand-up talent.

I have read any and every memoir written by any and every SNL cast member, so I know for a fact that Jost’s book A Very Punchable Face, published in summer 2020, casually speculates about leaving SNL sometime after the 2020 election – so maybe May 2021, it could be extrapolated. Four years later, the man is still anchoring Weekend Update, and still seems to be enjoying himself; the most recent installment ran a whopping 18 minutes, and plenty of fans hotly anticipate his semi-annual joke swap with co-host Michael Che on the season finale. It makes sense that Jost stuck around longer than anticipated, given that Season 45 (the one preceding his memoir) was cut short by COVID, and Season 46 was an unusual one that began pre-vaccines; plenty of cast members have spoken of wanting to get another season or two of “normal” in, rather than leaving in the midst of pandemic chaos. One full presidential election cycle later, though, kinda feels like it’s Jost’s time.

He’s been on Update for a decade, longer than anyone else in the show’s history, and the show’s upcoming season finale is hosted by his wife, Scarlett Johansson, which feels like a perfect opportunity for a big send-off. The lingering question, though, as with Mikey Day, is what Jost would do next; despite his major Hollywood connection, he doesn’t exactly seem groomed for movie stardom, and some have speculated that he might have his eye on Lorne’s job actually running SNL. (As another writer-turned-performer, he certainly has the institutional knowledge; he’s been at the show in some form or another for just about 20 years.) In lots of jobs, this would entail needing to leave, work somewhere else, and come back; SNL is weird, though, and maybe the best way to get that gig would be to just hang around the show indefinitely. There’s also no rule that says he couldn’t move into a producer role on the show while retiring from performing on it, save the occasional in-joke cameo.

Prediction: I could see a situation where even if Jost’s Update partner leaves, they keep him on to de-facto train a replacement, but it seems more likely that Season 51 will have a new Update entirely. Please?

Normally, if a cast member had literally announced that they were leaving the show already, they wouldn’t be eligible for this list at all. But though Che talked about leaving SNL at a stand-up show earlier this year, he’s done that before; he seems to make shrugging off the show and pretending to have one foot out the door part of his who-cares shtick. So why believe him now? Well, he’s hosted Weekend Update longer than anyone not named Colin Jost and often seems vaguely disdainful of the gig, to the point of at one point producing his own sketch series on HBO. That, too, seemed like a sure sign Che was done with NBC, and yet here he still is.

Prediction: Che may like the platform SNL gives him more than he lets on, but with the 50th out of the way, he’ll actually bow out.  

Final prediction: Jost, Che, Walker, and Wakim leave before Season 51 gets underway, though Jost may stay on in a producing role.