Ego Nwodim is leaving Saturday Night Live and that has us feeling a little bit uneasy. The news of the comedian’s departure hit the news over the weekend. And, like everything surrounding SNL in the year of 2025, it became a jumping off point to argue about the show’s place as a cultural institution. We’re probably going to do a bit of the same here, but it’s hard to shake a feeling of lurking unease when discussing the longtime cast member deciding to pursue other avenues.
She joined the cast of Saturday Night Live back in 2018 and those seven seasons is a run that any comedian would be proud of. However, it’s hard to argue with the decision to pick up and leave after so many of her other colleagues have made the decision to ply their trade in other corners.
Our friends over at The 19th highlighted that there are no black women cast members on Saturday Night Live heading into this new season. In fact, there have only been 8 Black women cast members since SNL launched in 1975. Still, this current moment feels a little more ominous than just losing “Lisa from Temecula” for the time being. (Shout-out to her hysterical Dionne Warwick as well!)
Saturday Night Live’s current comedy drain endgame
Recent years have seen so many notable names step away from Saturday Night Live. Among those newly minted alumni are people doing movies now like Pete Davidson and Kate McKinnon. But, also Aidy Bryant, Cecily Stong, and Melissa Villasenor who felt like staples of the comedy lineup. SNL creator Lorne Michaels talked about Nwodim’s departure with Entertainment Tonight this weekend.
“The show has always brought people in from different ages and different generations. It’s always hard when people leave, but there’s a time for that,” Michaels admitted. “Our audiences always stay relatively young, more so now with TikTok, and change is good. And the people that we’re bringing in, I’m really excited about.”
Now, we can’t completely discredit what the SNL creator says here. There is a real chance that whoever comes in to fill Nwodim and other slots on the long running series will be amazing. But, there’s no denying that all these departures carry with them the risk of significant drain on the show.
You don’t even go back that far to think about that SNL reunion special and how amazing that bit of TV was. Of course, an All-Star game, which that SNL reunion show effectively was, it’s going to be a crowd pleaser. In order to have those kinds of events moving forward, you have to keep having long stints with recognizable talent that the audience connects with over time.
What does the future even look like for SNL right now?
So you might be asking what we do about all this? Well, a lot of television observers, reviewers, and writers have been wondering what to make of SNL as an institution since 2020. There’s no question that these legacy media brands don’t really go away. In effect, they mutate over time into something that retains most of the characteristics of what came before. But, also live on as shadows of the dominant cultural forces they used to be.
There’s no other way to look at this than to see all of these beloved comedians surveying the landscape and opting to go it alone as evidence of SNL losing some ground as a cultural bedrock. Why even be on NBC in a coveted time slot anymore, when you can just start a YouTube channel and feel completely in control of your own output? These are the questions facing most modern comedians as they navigate our social media reality in 2025.
Simply: Ego Nwodim is too talented to be left waiting for very long. All of the other SNL talent that’s left the program in recent years have basically landed on their feet. Yeah they might not command the highest salaries in Hollywood. But, they survive. And, maybe more crucially they find their audience in a way they never would beaming into our living rooms late on a Saturday night.
Even with those facts stated, it’s hard not to look at the exodus of different talent and be worried about the idea of a monoculture ever returning to our airwaves. In TV’s current configuration, the only thing certain is more upheaval.
Photo Credit: (NBC)
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