Review- Peacock’s Original Series MacGruber Spoofs Macgyver But Delivers Seriously Fun Action Movie Mayhem

The SNL reoccurring skit turned movie has finally been resurrected, this time as a series, and it’s every bit the painfully awkward, weirdly smart, and yet thoroughly entertaining parody we had hoped for.

After a decade behind bars, MacGruber is finally released from prison by General Barrett Fasoose (Laurence Fishburne) to partake in a rescue/suicide mission to save the POTUS’ daughter and the family dog from kidnappers led by MacGruber’s arch-nemesis Enos Queeth (Billy Zane). Before he goes on the mission, MacGruber tries to patch things up between himself, Dixon Piper (Ryan Phillippe), and MacGruber’s ex-wife Vicky St. Elmo (Kristen Wiig), and fails miserably. Cue the sad music and the hero walking off into the night, never to be heard from again. I mean possibly never; the song playing in the background doesn’t finish so we are left to wonder.

It becomes obvious that the kidnapping took place was just so Enos could get his hands on MacGruber for whom Queeth has big plans for. When the military loses contact with MacGruber, it is assumed he’s dead which leads to a fantastically bizarre montage of Vicki getting rid of everything that reminded her of her ex-husband and pledging to focus solely on her marriage and starting a family with General Fasoose. So when MacGruber shows up after escaping Queeth’s compound to restart the team, things get really weird.

MacGruber knows the final step in Queeth’s plan for global domination, and with a lot of begging, a lot of apologies, and a lot of yes-but-that-wasn’t-my-faults, he finally convinces Vicki and Piper to join him on one last quest to stop Queeth before he kills billions of innocents. After an unreasonable of throating tearing, bombs exploding, infighting, and betrayals, Queeth is stopped but his plan seems to have taken on a life of its own, which means someone who’s an even bigger asshole than Queeth is actually running the show, and now it’s up to the oddly functional trio to find out who it is before more lives are lost.

Honestly, it’s a great show. The one-liners are all so cringy it’s hilarious, the scenes flow from funny to awkward and back to funny again without missing a beat, the actors are all fantastic and interact with each other seamlessly, even the soundtrack is awkwardly funny and fits perfectly in the show. Lots of great callbacks to the 2010 movie but the series definitely has its own identity and flow.

MacGruber premieres December 16th and can be streamed on Peacock right here