Pretty much every TV show Ryan Murphy has ever made — from Glee, to American Horror Story and American Crime Story to the salacious Monster anthology — can be described as “over-the-top.” The writer/director has never shied away from stunt casting or all things camp. So when his latest effort, the Kim Kardashian-fronted legal drama All’s Fair, debuted with a rare 0% on Rotten Tomatoes (to be fair, it has since climbed to 5%), it was easy to wonder if critics were perhaps being a little hyperbolic. The Guardian‘s zero-star review called it “fascinatingly, existentially terrible.” USA Today dubbed it “the worst TV show of the year,” noting that, “It’s so stilted, artificial and awkward not even a glass of wine and leftover Halloween candy can make it remotely enjoyable to view.” Another review went even further, calling it “the worst TV drama ever.”
Reader, I’m here to tell you they are all completely right.
The show features Kardashian as hotshot divorce lawyer Allura Grant who finds herself tangled up in a messy divorce of her own after her NFL player husband leaves her for another woman (played by Teyana Taylor, in a huge downgrade from One Battle After Another), who also happens to work in the same firm. Wait, you’re probably asking yourself, Kim Kardashian can act? No, she cannot! I promise you, you’ve seen better performances in middle-school plays. Kardashian’s delivery is completely flat and deadpan, no matter how overwrought or soapy the material she’s working with is. One dramatic close-up of her in the pilot episode is meant to show her distraught over being dumped by her cheating husband, but the reddish eye makeup meant to make it look like she’s been crying is truly the only way we have any clue what emotion she’s trying to convey. This is supposed to be a woman whose whole career depends on how convincing she can be, yet everything she says makes her sound like an extra-terrestrial trying to mimic human behavior. The writing doesn’t do her any favors, either. At one point, when her husband gifts her a massive diamond ring for their anniversary, she reacts by asking, “Didn’t this belong to Elizabeth Taylor?”
Grant runs an all-female law firm — where she works with her fellow partners Liberty Ronson (Naomi Watts) and Emerald Greene (Niecy Nash) (yes, those are really their names) — that specializes in helping women get massive settlements after splitting with their rich husbands. When she needs representation for her own divorce, she turns to her mentor, Dina Standish (Glenn Close), while her ex hires Carrington Lane (Sarah Paulson, who, frankly, should be above all of this), an unhinged lawyer who sends Grant and the others hate mail every year because she’s still mad they didn’t invite her to join their firm 10 years ago. That’s basically the whole show. The rest of the time, they’re all strutting around dressed like Carmen Sandiego while helping the guest star of the week get a big check from her ex-husband.
It’s a show that purports to be feminist, but it’s painfully obvious that it’s written and directed by men. For all its posturing, All’s Fair really leans into sexist stereotypes. Its female characters are catty and materialistic, motivated more by money, power and revenge than by any actual sense of justice. And none of them seem to have any actual understanding of the law. The truth is, most real-life divorces consist of the former couple and their attorneys sitting in a drab conference room arguing about how to divide assets. But of course, that doesn’t really make for compelling TV, so Grant, Ronson and Greene spend their days acting like private investigators and blackmailing or extorting the opposing clients to get the huge paydays they were looking for. Oh, and at one point, Grant shows up to work in this:
Yes, that’s supposed to be a successful lawyer showing up to work wearing a suit that, for some reason, has cutouts in the butt area so we can see her thong. We’re supposed to believe that this woman — who, again, is an attorney — showed up to the office and spent all day negotiating settlements with her ass out. Why!?
The problem is that despite being inexplicably crazy, All’s Fair is also very boring. One would hope that, at the very least, this sort of show could fall under the “so bad, it’s good” category and be worth a viewing to laugh at it, but it’s too devoid of feeling or any shred of a compelling plot to sit through. It’s lazy on all fronts, cobbled together by a bunch of people who should know better. It feels like the show was reverse-engineered to generate memes, but to get to the few scenes that’ll actually make you laugh — or feel anything, for that matter — you have to sit through repetitive cases featuring characters we don’t care about and an overarching plot that can barely sustain itself for three episodes, let alone a whole season. It’s a show that thinks its audience is stupid enough to be sucked in by the atrocious fashion or Kardashian’s dead eyes, but the verdict is in, and this is truly one of the worst TV shows in quite some time.
More Like This
This article appeared in an InsideHook newsletter. Sign up for free to get more on travel, wellness, style, drinking, and culture.