Punkie Johnson reacts as Saturday Night Live faces cast shake-up: Gardner, Longfellow, Walker and more exit before Season 51
I am Maya Rivers, here to rhyme with receipts and sip the spotlight like a late-night latte, letting a sketch comedy saga waltz into verse even as the glitter falls to the studio floor.
A stage once packed with punchlines is suddenly echoing with goodbyes. Former Saturday Night Live cast member Punkie Johnson saw the exodus and typed what half of Studio 8H is thinking: “wtf is happening… This is like the departed.” She posted the stunned remark beneath Michael Longfellow’s Instagram announcement, a farewell after three seasons that joins a swelling tide of exits ahead of Season 51. If it feels dramatic, that is because it is, and the receipts are public.
Longfellow’s exit did not stand alone. Over the same week, Heidi Gardner confirmed she is leaving after eight years, a long tenure that made her the senior woman in the ensemble last season. Johnson’s salute to her colleague was part praise hymn and part sisterly send-off: “This probly the biggest surprise of this ‘shake up’… You had a great run… YOU ARE AN SNL LEGEND FOR LIFE… See you outside.” Emil Wakim and Devon Walker also revealed their departures, each choosing Instagram to say the quiet part out loud. Walker, 34, compared his time on the show to a relationship that could be sweet or “toxic,” a hard-earned confession that still landed with gratitude for the “f–ked up lil family” they built. Wakim, 27, called the call that ended his run “a gut punch,” yet thanked the opportunity and promised resilience.
This flurry of exits arrives months after the series toasted its 50th anniversary with a starry celebration, a confetti moment that now feels like the curtain call for an era. According to Puck News, longtime architect Lorne Michaels, 80, signaled change on the record, answering “yes” when asked if he planned to shake up the cast. That single syllable looks heavier now, weighted with names we have come to know in the good-night crowd.
Johnson knows this carousel. She joined Saturday Night Live in 2020 and left in 2024, making history as the show’s first openly queer Black woman. On the Fly on the Wall podcast with David Spade and Dana Carvey, she described her exit as a neutral decision, a feeling that settled by February of her final season. It echoed another moment of candor from 2021, when she told NBC News that landing the show had not been a lifelong dream because it had felt unattainable. “I’m just this little lesbian chick from New Orleans,” she said, marveling at the unlikely path from stand-up to studio.
From the Weekend Update desk to recurring characters in the wings, the Season 50 cast featured Johnson, Michael Che, Colin Jost, Mikey Day, Chloe Fineman, Gardner, Kenan Thompson, Bowen Yang, Ego Nwodim, Sarah Sherman, Marcello Hernandez, Andrew Dismukes, Longfellow and Walker, with Ashley Padilla, Emil Wakim and Jane Wickline listed as featured players. Behind the cameras, writer Rosebud Baker, who contributed from 2022 to 2025, is part of the creative exodus. As the credits roll on multiple roles at once, the vibe is unmistakable: spring cleaning with the volume turned up.
Social media has become the stage door for goodbyes. Johnson scattered affectionate replies like confetti. To Longfellow, she wrote, “My sexy handsome work husband… I love you so much… Welcome back outside baby.” To Walker, she said, “Welcome back Dev. It’s fun outside,” a whisper of solidarity that reads as advice. When Wakim announced his exit, Johnson suggested a bit of comic catharsis at 30 Rockefeller Plaza: “We should stand at the doors of 30 Rock and act a fool for you.” The camaraderie feels genuine, the kind that survives cue cards and live cues.
Are these departures unprecedented? In the long memory of Saturday Night Live, cycles of turnover are ritual and renewal. The difference this time is the chorus line leaving behind a milestone season and the on-the-record nod from Michaels that change is not just coming, it is by design. When exits stack up in a single week and Instagram becomes the official press office, the audience sees the pattern and wonders about the premiere cold open and the chemistry to come.
For fans, the watch list is clear. Which new faces will test their timing live on a Saturday? Will veterans like Kenan Thompson and the Weekend Update tandem anchor a rebuilt rhythm? With Gardner stepping away after an eight year run, whose characters will fill that versatile space, and how soon will a breakout catch fire? The show that mocks chaos is casually courting it, and that might be its secret fuel.
Until the next talent roll call, chalk it up as a season of endings that could make room for unexpected beginnings. In Studio 8H, reinvention is not just a theme, it is the house style, and every goodbye plants a seed for the next impression worth waking up to on a Sunday.
And so, our sketch ends with a wink and a curtain tug, soft shoes shuffling toward Season 51. The ink dries, the jokes wait in the dark, and the live light stands ready to bloom again.
Sources: Celebrity Storm and New York Post, Puck News, NBC News, Instagram
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