‘The Moodys’: Denis Leary, Elizabeth Perkins and Jay Baruchel Star in FOX’s Festive Family Feud

© 2019 FOX MEDIA LLC. Credit: Jonathan Wenk/FOX

Denis Leary found himself deep in enemy territory and vastly outnumbered while shooting The Moodys in Montreal. The renowned Boston Bruins fan faced some spirited slapshots, including a few from costar Jay Baruchel, a diehard Canadiens fan.

“Hockey fans always find each other, especially when they’re fans of the two teams that hate each other most in all of professional sports: Boston and Montreal,” Baruchel says. “We kept it civil.”

If only things were as cordial at the Moody household. FOX’s three-night, six-episode comedy The Moodys follows the Christmastime chaos that ensues when Chicago’s Moody family reunites for the holidays. Sean Sr. (Leary) and Ann (Elizabeth Perkins) are the parents of three adults: Dan (François Arnaud), overachiever Bridget (Chelsea Frei) and underachiever Sean Jr. (Baruchel), the eldest son who still lives with his parents.

“He’s your quintessential failure-to-launch type,” Baruchel says of Sean Jr. “He’s a guy who — not unlike me — excels at stuff he cares about but phones in literally everything else. He’s got delusions of grandeur about entrepreneurship. He fancies himself an Elon Musk, to a degree, except that he’s a visionary for crap that nobody wants or needs. There’s one particularly harebrained scheme that’s a sort of passion project for the run of the six episodes. It’s not a service that anyone’s clamoring for.”

As Sean Sr.’s plan for a happy celebration of Yuletide togetherness unravels and secrets come out, Sean Jr. revels in the fact that he might not be the family’s biggest screw-up after all.

“[Sean Jr.] and his father and mother have a pretty classic and truthful relationship,” Baruchel says. “But most of the time, it’s just warfare. They rarely exchange pleasantries. I think he’s proud of the family he comes from and he’s deeply loyal, but he also takes a great deal of pleasure in seeing his siblings in trouble. He’s just trying to bring everybody down a peg, down to his level.”

The Australian series on which The Moodys is based took place during Christmas in its first season and then was set during other family milestones in Season 2. Baruchel says there may be more of The Moodys to come if the FOX series is a hit. “It’s been quite exciting to hear talk of what we might get to do if all goes well,” he says. “It would snowball into something pretty neat. We all enjoy each other’s company and really enjoy what we’re doing and believe in this thing. If people dig it, we would love nothing more than to keep telling stories with these people.”

The Moodys debuts Dec. 4 at 9pm ET/PT with back-to-back episodes, then returns Dec. 9 for Episodes 3-4 and Dec. 10 for Episodes 5-6.

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Member of the Television Critics Association. Charter member of the Ancient and Mystic Society of No Homers. Squire of the Ancient & Benevolent Order of the Lynx, Lodge 49, Long Beach, Calif. Costco Wholesale Gold Star Member since 2011.