Review: Family Guy “Fighting Irish”

If one thing could be said about this past weekend, it could be said that it was one of conflict. The Avengers reassembled to take on Ultron, Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao faced off in the considerably underwhelming boxing bout of the century, and Peter Griffin takes on one of the most badass men on the planet… Liam Neeson. What could go wrong? Let’s get into it all in the review!

In “Fighting Irish” Peter claims he could beat Liam Neeson in a fight, but finds it isn’t as easy as he thought; Stewie gets jealous when Lois decides to become a class mom.

As far as guest stars go, Liam Neeson is probably one of the best Family Guy has ever had. In addition to being one of the world’s biggest action stars, we’ve also learned over the last few years that Liam Neeson isn’t afraid to tackle comedy. Last year we saw him also work with MacFarlane on “A Million Ways to Die in the West”. We also saw him do some voice acting last year in “The Lego Movie”. He was a little underused in A Million Ways, but his role in the Lego Movie as Good Cop/Bad Cop was one to remember.

He plays himself in this new episode of Family Guy, and I think his screen time with Peter was very well done. He comes across as a jerk in such an unnecessary way, it’s impossible to not find him funny. The jokes involving him usually revolve around the typical perception fans would have of him. A tough Irish guy with a comedic lack of empathy. Just to see how he treats Peter is worth your half hour.

The second story in the episode involving Stewie and Lois is sort of a throw away. It doesn’t exactly feel like the most original story for the show, and the jokes in it aren’t that funny. Stewie essentially becomes jealous of another baby. The other baby doesn’t emote much, so the conflict and humor ends up going in one direction with nothing in return. What really could have made this story funny is if the baby Stewie was jealous of was also tough and Irish. Maybe even go a step further and get Liam Neeson to voice that baby. If Patrick Stewart can be Susie Swanson’s internal monologue, I think we can have Stewie face off against Liam Neeson baby. Just my pitch. But, really, this half of the episode isn’t worth watching. Use it as extra time for a washroom break.

The episode doesn’t let us down. The final act of the episode has Peter face off against in Liam Neeson in an all-out brawl…sort of. If you can call a one-sided beat down a brawl, then sure, that’s what this was. But seeing Liam Neeson just viciously attack Peter in a horrific manner is very fun to watch. They got creative with some of the action, and there is still an element of comedy. It’s the perfect payoff for the episode.

Overall, this was a good episode. Almost everything with Liam Neeson was awesome, but Stewie’s story can be easily put aside. If you haven’t seen the episode, and ignored the spoiler warning, I really recommend checking this one out. I think this is a good way of using guest stars on Family Guy. The show has always reflected pop culture as the audience would expect to see it. Bringing in other stars to act the way we’d expect them to, and maybe go a little over the top. It could be a funny recurring formula. It’s a good episode despite it’s flaws, there is enough here to get a decent score.

How did you like “Fighting Irish”? Did you have fun watching it? Like Stewie’s story more than I did? Let us know your thoughts!