Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Dustin Rowles | TV | August 21, 2025
Clueless and Blast from the Past star Alicia Silverstone has moved from promoting plant-based toilet paper while talking out of the side of her mouth to Acorn TV, where she is headlining Irish Blood, which set the record for the most-watched new series premiere in Acorn TV history. It’s even popular enough to be featured among Prime Video’s top ten shows through its subscription partners. The day it premiered also marked the highest number of subscriber sign-ups on Acorn TV’s streaming platforms in nearly two years.
OK, but how is the show?
It’s OK.
Alicia Silverstone stars as Fiona Sharpe, a high-powered Los Angeles divorce attorney who receives a mysterious phone call one night, summoning her to Ireland to uncover the whereabouts of the father who left her and her mother when she was ten. When she arrives to give him a piece of her mind, she discovers that he has died under suspicious circumstances.
Naturally, she stays in Ireland to investigate her father’s death and, while there, meets the family she never knew she had. She learns more about her estranged father and the circumstances surrounding his death, which at first appear to involve gambling debt and the Irish mob, but also tie back to the secret that prompted him to leave America all those years ago.
It’s not bad. Alicia Silverstone remains a likable presence, and there’s a solid supporting cast, particularly Musa (Leonardo Taiwo), Fiona’s love interest, and Garda Róisín Doherty (Ruth Codd), the quirky cop helping her investigate her father’s death. (Codd will be familiar to fans of Mike Flanagan’s Fall of the House of Usher and The Midnight Club.)
The tone, however, is uneven — part rom-com cozy, part brooding murder mystery — and the frequent flashbacks to young Fiona with her father, along with periodic dream sequences, are more irritating than insightful. Even at just six episodes, the series sometimes spins its wheels, and the mystery never fully hooks.
Still, it’s mostly light, amiable, and exactly the kind of show my wife watches on Acorn TV while half-distracted on her phone, decompressing. It doesn’t ask much of its viewers while delivering 42-minute episodes of mildly diverting entertainment. I wouldn’t call it a reason to subscribe to Acorn TV, but it’s a pleasant addition to their deep catalog of British mysteries.
