FUBAR (TV series)

Not to be confused with FUBAR (film).

FUBAR^[1] is an American action comedy television series created by Nick Santora for Netflix. It stars Arnold Schwarzenegger in his first leading role in a scripted live-action television series and is produced by Skydance Television and Blackjack Films. The series premiered on May 25, 2023. In June 2023, the series was renewed for a second season which premiered on June 12, 2025.

FUBAR
Genre	Action comedy Comedy-drama
Created by	Nick Santora
Starring	Arnold Schwarzenegger Monica Barbaro Milan Carter Gabriel Luna Fortune Feimster Travis Van Winkle Fabiana Udenio Jay Baruchel Barbara Eve Harris Aparna Brielle Andy Buckley Guy Burnet Carrie-Anne Moss
Music by	Tony Morales
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	16
Production
Executive producers	Nick Santora David Ellison Dana Goldberg Bill Bost Adam Higgs Scott Sullivan Holly Dale Phil Abraham Arnold Schwarzenegger Matt Thunell Amy Pocha Seth Cohen
Producer	Agatha Barnes
Cinematography	Craig Wrobleski Colin Hoult Michael McMurray Jimmy Lindsey
Editors	J.J. Geiger Eric Seaburn Anthony Miller Sang Han Christopher Petrus Ryan J. Knight
Running time	42–59 minutes
Production companies	Blackjack Films Skydance Television
Original release
Network	Netflix
Release	May 25, 2023 (2023-05-25) – present

Premise

Luke Brunner and his daughter Emma have lied to each other for years, with neither of them knowing that the other is a CIA operative. Once they both learn the truth, they realize that they do not actually know anything about each other. They are required by their superiors to work together on dangerous operations, leading to challenges when Luke treats Emma as a child and when he becomes overly concerned for her safety and relationship conflicts.

Cast

Main

• Arnold Schwarzenegger as Luke Brunner
• Monica Barbaro as Emma Brunner
• Milan Carter as Barry Putt, the CIA technical operations officer of Luke's team
• Gabriel Luna as Boro Polonia (season 1), a powerful arms dealer
• Fortune Feimster as Ruth “Roo” Russell, the CIA operative of Luke's team
• Travis Van Winkle as Aldon Reece, the CIA operative of Luke's team
• Fabiana Udenio as Tally Brunner, Luke's ex-wife and Emma's mother
• Jay Baruchel as Carter Perlmutter, Emma's boyfriend who is a kindergarten teacher
• Barbara Eve Harris as Dot Okoye (season 1; guest season 2), a regional CIA director who tasked Luke and Emma to work together as a team
• Aparna Brielle as Tina Mukerji, the NSA data analyst brought in to support Luke's team
• Andy Buckley as Donatello “Donnie” Luna, Tally's boyfriend
• Guy Burnet as Theodore "Theo" Chips (season 2), a former MI6 agent who works with Greta and is interested in Emma romantically
• Carrie-Anne Moss as Greta Nelso (season 2),^[2] a former East German spy who had a romantic past with Luke

Recurring

• Devon Bostick as Oscar Brunner, Luke and Tally's son and Emma's brother
• David Chinchilla as Cain Khan (season 1), Boro's right-hand man
• Stephanie Sy as Sandy Yoon-Brunner, Oscar's wife
• Scott Thompson as Dr. Louis Pfeffer, the operational psychologist that Dot brought in to conduct Luke and Emma's mandatory joint therapy sessions
• Adam Pally as The Great Dane
• Enrico Colantoni as Reed (season 2), the interim regional CIA director replacing Dot

Notable guest stars

• Tom Arnold as Norm Carlson, a CIA torturer

Episodes

Series overview

Season	Episodes		Originally released
1	8		May 25, 2023 (2023-05-25)
2	8		June 12, 2025 (2025-06-12)

Season 1 (2023)

No. overall	No. in season	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original release date
1	1	"Take Your Daughter to Work Day"	Phil Abraham	Nick Santora	May 25, 2023 (2023-05-25)
Luke Brunner, a CIA officer, successfully completes his last mission, and can now retire. Luke returns home to Armonk, New York, hoping to rekindle a full relationship with his divorced wife, Tally, and daughter Emma, who are unaware of Luke's true occupation. During his retirement party, Luke's friend and fellow CIA operative, Barry, reveals that a secret CIA operative codenamed Panda is in danger in Guyana, monitoring arms dealer Boro Polonia. Luke secretly killed Boro's father years ago, and has become "Uncle Finn" to him. Luke goes to Guyana to help Panda with the mission – and is shocked to find that Emma is Panda. Luke and Emma eliminate Troy, an associate of Boro, to protect Panda's identity. Boro's henchmen find the bodies, leading to suspicions. Luke and Emma hide in the jungle and encounter a British family seeking escape, but they are ultimately cornered by Boro's men and held at gunpoint.
2	2	"Stole Train"	Holly Dale	Scott Sullivan	May 25, 2023 (2023-05-25)
Emma and Luke manage to shoot their way out of trouble with a little help. Their boss forces them to work together to track down Boro. They discover Boro will try to hijack nuclear waste from a high-speed maglev train in Kazakhstan and are successful in stopping the theft but overspeed the train risking a crash at the terminal.
3	3	"Honeyplot"	Holly Dale	Adam Higgs	May 25, 2023 (2023-05-25)
Emma and Luke manage to slow the train by working together. Boro becomes obsessed in finding Emma and Luke. He is also trying to make a weapon out of the small amount of radioactive waste that he was able to obtain. The team all work together to obtain a secure scientific paper that explains exactly how to do that
4	4	"Armed & Dane-gerous"	Steven A. Adelson	Penny Cox	May 25, 2023 (2023-05-25)
Carter proposes to Emma and she accepts. Emma and Luke continue to go to counseling, as ordered, even engaging in other person role-playing. The team has to extract the "Great Dane" from a Turkish prison as he is essential to their plan.
5	5	"Here Today, Gone To-Marrow"	Steven A. Adelson	Cait Duffy	May 25, 2023 (2023-05-25)
The team captures Boro while exchanging the miniature nuclear reactor (MNR). As Luke's granddaughter and Emma's niece, Romi, needs a bone marrow transplant, the team forces Romi's biological father to be the donor. Boro masterminds his own escape and recovery of the MNR.
6	6	"Royally Flushed"	Phil Abraham	Scott Sullivan & Lillian Wang	May 25, 2023 (2023-05-25)
Barry and Tina get into a high stakes poker game to get data from Cain's phone. The rest of the team get trapped in a vault in the excluded poker players' old home. Luke and Tally renew their relationship.
7	7	"Urine Luck"	Stephen Surjik	Adam Higgs & Michael J. Gutierrez	May 25, 2023 (2023-05-25)
Barry and Tina start to date. Carter calls off the engagement after learning Emma had kissed Aldon, and as she complains to Luke about him having revealed that and ruining her relationship, he in turn calls Tally saying they are better off separated, leading Tally to ask boyfriend Donnie to marry her. While the team intercepts Boro in an abandoned nuclear plant to prevent him from developing dirty bombs with the nuclear material, Aldon is shot, forcing Roo to take care of him as Emma and Luke go after Boro. After deactivating the material and preventing an accidental explosion, the Brunners leave Boro behind in the plant.
8	8	"That's It And That's All"	Stephen Surjik	Nick Santora	May 25, 2023 (2023-05-25)
Learning Tina is about to be recalled by the NSA, Barry asks many favors around the agency to keep her around. On the day of Tally and Donnie's wedding, Emma tells Luke to be honest with her mother. He reveals his life as a CIA agent, giving her his National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, and asks if she wants to call off the wedding and run away with him. The ceremony is then invaded by Boro, who after being rescued by his men used all the data he accrued on the Brunners to discover their location, and proceeds to render Tally hostage while asking Luke and Emma to shoot each other dead. Once Tally stabs Boro with Luke's medal, she breaks from his grip, and Luke and Emma kill him. As the Brunners are told their identities have been leaked by a mole, they gather the group and run away alongside Tally, Donnie, and Carter, knowing many former enemies will be out to get them.

Season 2 (2025)

No. overall	No. in season	Title	Directed by	Written by	Original release date
9	1	"Fullest House"	Phil Abraham	Nick Santora	June 12, 2025 (2025-06-12)
10	2	"Highly Re-Greta-Ble"	Phil Abraham	Adam Higgs	June 12, 2025 (2025-06-12)
11	3	"Tango and Smash"	Phil Abraham	Scott Sullivan	June 12, 2025 (2025-06-12)
12	4	"Astro-Not"	Jeff T. Thomas	Seth Cohen & Amy Pocha	June 12, 2025 (2025-06-12)
13	5	"Trippin' the Abyss"	Jeff T. Thomas	Penny Cox	June 12, 2025 (2025-06-12)
14	6	"Penny Possum's Pizzapocalypse"	Jeff T. Thomas	Cait Duffy	June 12, 2025 (2025-06-12)
15	7	"Dam It"	MJ Bassett	Lillian Wang & Michael J. Gutierrez	June 12, 2025 (2025-06-12)
16	8	"Let's Twist Again"	Phil Abraham	Adam Higgs & Scott Sullivan	June 12, 2025 (2025-06-12)
The team realizes that Dante Cress' true goal is to cause an apocalyptic nuclear war to wipe out most of the human population. With the help of Tina, Aldon and Barry locate Volek's hideout. Barry kills Volek with a self-driving car, allowing Aldon to unjam communications with Russia, but not before Volek reveals that he's not Dante Cress. Luke uses his backdoor password at a silo, only to have Chips reveal himself as the real Dante Cress. Chips launches the missile, but Luke and Greta manage to disarm the warhead. With Russia still threatening nuclear war if it leaves US airspace, Greta seemingly sacrifices herself to sabotage the booster rocket; Chips is incinerated in the launch. In the aftermath, Luke and Emma reconcile and allow Greta to escape, reporting her as KIA. In thanks, Greta hires hitmen to kill everyone who purchased the team's private information from Boro. Luke and Tally's breakup turns out to have been a deception and they get engaged and Luke retires while Emma stays with the team. Donnie and Carter are forced to go into witness protection for four years after a million dollar bounty is put on their head for killing the biker. Aldon and Barry swap Tina for the Great Dane, only to learn that Tina had been feeding Russia false information all along, putting her life in danger.

Production

Skydance Television first announced that it was developing an untitled spy television series for Arnold Schwarzenegger to star in and make his scripted live-action television debut in August 2020.^[3] Shortly afterward, Monica Barbaro was cast as the lead opposite Schwarzenegger in the series where a father and daughter are both CIA officers, unbeknownst to the other.^[4] Netflix won the rights for the project that November and had ordered eight episodes of the series by May 2021.^[5] The cast was expanded in April 2022, announcing several regular and recurring roles.^[6] Phil Abraham was announced as director and executive producer of the pilot episode in May,^[7] and a July casting announcement added Adam Pally.^[8] While in production, the series used the working titles Utap and FUBAR.^[9][1]

Filming for the first season began in April 2022 in Antwerp, Belgium around Grote Markt.^[10][11] Additional filming took place in Toronto,^[12] where Schwarzenegger was seen re-teaming with former True Lies co-star Tom Arnold.^[13] In September 2022, filming wrapped up with the series now titled FUBAR.^[14]

On June 17, 2023, Netflix renewed the series for a second season.^[15] On May 13, 2024, Carrie-Anne Moss was cast to star opposite of Schwarzenegger for the second season.^[2] Filming for the second season began on April 29, 2024, and concluded on August 30, 2024, in Toronto.^[16]

Release

FUBAR was released to stream on Netflix on May 25, 2023.^[17] The second season was released on June 12, 2025.^[18]

Reception

For the first season, the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 51% approval rating with an average rating of 5.4/10, based on 57 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "With jokes that fall flat and a story that borrows liberally from star Arnold Schwarzenegger's earlier career triumphs, FUBAR is just OK."^[19] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 48 out of 100 based on 25 critics, indicating "mixed or average".^[20] The series was the overall most streamed television series for the week of its release, May 22–28, 2023, according to the Nielsen streaming rankings.^[21]

The second season has a 46% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 13 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus states, "FUBAR doesn't mess with its formula beyond recognition in a second season that's not without its charms but still hampered by clunky scripting."^[22] On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 59 out of 100 based on 6 critics, indicating "mixed or average".^[23]