Live, from New York, it’s three new featured players!

At the end of Saturday Night Live‘s 46th season, several of the main cast members still hadn’t negotiated their new season deals, and there was a lot of speculation about who would be remain a part of NBC’s long-running sketch comedy show. As it turns out, fans of Kate McKinnon, Kenan Thompson, Cecily Strong and most of the others had nothing to worry about.

Beck Bennett fans? You have our deepest condolences.

Beck Bennett is stepping down from SNL after eight seasons. He joined the not-ready-for-primetime players in 2013 alongside sketch partner Kyle Mooney, who is staying put. Bennett served as the show’s all-purpose white guy authority figure type, playing Mike Pence and Vladimir Putin, among others.

Bennett bade farewell on the show on Instagram, saying, “Love you, SNL. Gonna miss you so much. Thank you for 8 years of remarkable people and incredible experiences that completely changed my life. I had so much fun.” Bennett has a thriving career in voice over work and will undoubtedly make an appearance in all manner of movies and TV shows post-SNL.

Chloe Fineman and Bowen Yang have been promoted to the main cast after being hired as featured players in 2019. Last year’s rookies Andrew Dismukes and Punkie Johnson are staying with the show, still as featured actors, but Lauren Holt, who joined at the same time, has left the cast.

No other cast members are departing this year, despite what many saw as clues to the contrary. During last season’s finale, McKinnon, Bryant, Thompson and Strong appeared in a segment in which they discussed the challenges of producing the show during the pandemic and the 2020 election, and some of their on-camera emotion had some believing they were hinting at leaving. Davidson did the same with a “Weekend Update” segment that mentioned how being on the program had helped him mature, and Strong added to the feeling with a show-stopping turn as Fox News host Judge Jeanine Pirro drunkenly singing “My Way.”

All of them are staying, along with Aidy Bryant, Michael Che, Mikey Day, Heidi Garner, Colin Jost, Alex Moffat, Kyle Mooney, Ego Nwodim, Chris Redd, and Melissa Villaseñor.

The new kids on the block are comedians Aristotle Athari, Sarah Sherman and James Austin Johnson, who will serve as the 2021 class of new featured players.

As a member of Hasan Minhaj’s sketch group Goatface, Athari is a seasoned performer with almost a decade of experience. Fans of HBO hit Silicon Valley may recognize him as the unpleasant Gabe in the show’s final season. 

Sarah Sherman, who is also known as Sarah Squirm, is the leader of Chicago’s Helltrap Nightmare live show, and an avant garde performer whose body-horror art-comedy is an unusual choice for the relatively conservative, formulaic Saturday Night Live.

James Austin Johnson is a skilled impersonator, whose impression of Donald Trump has been called the best by Vanity Fair. He is a regular in the Los Angeles standup scene, and has appeared Tuca and Bertie, Better Call Saul, Hail, Caesar!, among others.

All three are joining the show in time for the October 2nd season premiere, with host Owen Wilson and musical guest Kacey Musgraves.