Peacock’s MacGruber has officially released. The eight-episode series—which finds Will Forte’s movie costars, Kristen Wiig and Ryan Phillippe—back as Vicki St. Elmo and Dixon Piper, dropped all at once on Peacock. The release date was revealed with an in-universe jailhouse interview with MacGruber himself, who claims his current status as a disgraced United States hero. The video concludes by confirming that MacGruber premiered December 16, 2021.

MacGruber is based on the Saturday Night Live skits that began in 2007, featuring Will Forte as MacGruber MacGyver, the son of television’s MacGyver character.

Similar to the iconic television show, each skit would see MacGruber attempting to solve increasingly difficult problems with mundane items, such as rubber bands or chewing gum. However, unlike the television show, the skits would generally end with a bomb detonating and MacGruber and company dying.

In 2010, Universal Pictures brought MacGruber to theaters. The character’s creator, Jorma Taccone, helmed the feature, with Forte reprising his role. This was along with fellow SNL sketch mates Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph. The film was ultimately panned by fans and critics alike, and failed to make back its $10 million budget. Despite the failure of the film, it was reported in early 2019 that Taccone was looking to turn MacGruber into a television series.

The setup for the MacGruber series is appropriately extreme. After killing his arch-nemesis, Dieter Von Cunth (played by Val Kilmer), at his wedding to Vicki, MacGruber was imprisoned. A military history littered with throat rips, seen by some as “untraditional,” certainly didn’t help his case.

But, 10 years later, America calls on MacGruber to take down a villain from his past: Brigadier Commander Enos Queeth (played by Billy Zane). With freedom in hand, the vest-wearing agent puts his team back together to save the world, yet again. Sam Elliot and Laurence Fishburne join the lunacy as new characters Perry and General Barrett Fasoose.

“We just spent the last two days pitching it as a series,” Forte said at the time. “Eight-to-ten episodes.” “I’m really hoping that when you print this, there’s an announcement that it’s actually happening, because I know nothing right now. This is the first time I’ve mentioned it, so this may be a tragic interview. We’ve had so many ideas over the years, from the moment we stopped filming. I just love this character so much. We can expand the world now.”

Are you excited for MacGruber? We can only hope that it doesn’t suffer the same fate as Cowboy Bebop‘s first season.

Photo via Universal Pictures