Well, this is awkward.
During an appearance on The Late Late Show with James Corden , Linda Cardellini called out Seth McFarlane for firing her from Family Guy .
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The awkward part? Well, Seth was right there next to her.
Let’s see what happened.
You’ve probably seen Linda Cardellini before
If you’re a millennial, you’ll likely know her as Velma from the live-action Scooby Doo.
She’s also been in Avengers: Age of Ultron (as Hawkeye’s wife), and had large roles in big TV shows, like Mad Men , and ER .
And you’ve obviously seen Seth McFarlane around
Or, at least heard his voice.
He’s the creator and voice actor of Peter, Brian, and Stewie on Family Guy .
More recently, he’s focused his attentions on his Star Trek parody show, The Orville.
In fact, Seth seems pretty done with “Family Guy”
Before the awkwardness ensued, James brought up that Family Guy has been running for 20 years.
Seth’s reply?
“[…] I had a cat one time, it’s like…you know, the bone was starting to dissolve, you know, and I had to put the poor thing down at a certain point.”
The metaphor got more brutal
“When does Family Guy become that cat? We just don’t know.”
James then directed the conversation to Linda — which in retrospect wound up being way more awkward than the dead cat analogy.
He turned to Linda while Seth took a break from cat jokes
“You’d be a good voice on Family Guy .”
Linda exclaimed: ” Well , funny you should mention that, ’cause I got fired from it once!”
Guys, you just can’t make up this kind of awkwardness.
James was living for it, though
He exclaimed, “Shut up!” in the same way that I do when I hear a really juicy piece of gossip.
The whole audience erupted in laughs and yells. Linda was clearly having a good time.
Seth looked shook.
Like, James was having the time of his life
He was rolling around in his chair, yelling, “Shut the front door!” while Linda tried to explain what happened.
Again, Seth kinda just looked bewildered and uncomfortable. That’s gonna be his mood for the rest of this moment in his life.
Apparently, Linda had a voice role on the show
She told everyone to tune in and watch her on Family Guy.
“And then when I watched it, I was replaced!”
James wanted to know who she was playing (so do I), but Seth had a more embarrassing question.
He was laughing as he asked her it, too
“I hope, like, you didn’t have people over to you house to watch the show or anything like that?”
If you’re hoping the answer is a casual “no,” then I have bad news for you.
Linda said, “I mean, I might have. […] I mean, maybe.”
Oh god. She did, didn’t she?
James helpfully pointed out that “fired” isn’t exactly the right word
He said it’s actually worse, because she was just replaced.
And to top it all off?
“Nobody ever told me!” Linda said. But she did give Seth an out, by saying that she wouldn’t want her voice in there if she stunk at it.
Seth just walked right by that opening
And instead posited a different situation, which I think was him trying to diffuse the moment with laughter?
“What would you do if the show aired tonight, and it was me, and James, and Maya Rudolph?”
Linda laughed, so his trick definitely worked.
James tried to give Seth an opening to apologize
But he seemed pretty oblivious to it…and instead made it worse.
“In my defense, I have no recollection of anything past this morning.”
That is absolutely not a defense at all, in my opinion.
And then silence kind of fell for a second
Seth raised his eyebrows, like that was an actual normal thing to say.
And then James, who I think is all of us in that moment, went, “That’s really it? That’s the best you’ve got?”
Linda egged him on, too, so she clearly didn’t think much of it, either.
Seriously, James gave him so many chances
He kept opening doors and Seth just slammed ’em shut. He even told Seth to blame someone else and make it look like he fought for Linda!
Seth…did not take him up on that.
Here’s what he said instead
“I’ll say what I say whenever this happens: Can I offer you something on American Dad ?”
Okie dokie.
Thankfully, Linda took the whole thing like a champ and laughed her way through it.
