Ryan Murphy is a showrunner who is often torn between his worst tendencies. He revels in soapy camp but also has a keen eye for social commentary, which is frequently hindered by his shameless revelling in the grotesque. His hit rate has only gotten more erratic as he’s been given more money and power. For every “American Crime Story,” so meticulous in its examination of media invasion and the business of trauma, we get a “Grotesquerie” or “Monster,” where real-life pain is turned into a leering and sexualized spectacle.
So, the idea of “All’s Fair” should be a relief to those of us still feeling from the repulsion of “The Ed Gein Story.” This is pure melodrama, focused more on glamour and fizz than anything of heft. Don’t we want more “Doctor Odysseys” from Murphy, high drama silliness where everyone involved is giving their all? If only the final result was actually fun to watch.
It’s truly baffling how terrible “All’s Fair” is. One wonders if Murphy is engaged in some sort of social experiment to see if he can get away with making the most transparently terrible show on Disney’s dime. Maybe it’s self-sabotage, akin to Bob Dylan’s “Self Portrait”, or a “Producers”-esque scam. Or it’s simply that nobody says no to Murphy, and the end product is a glossy but shockingly slapdash production where some of the most charismatic actresses of our generation are left braying into the wind for a trite #girlboss fantasy that’s a decade too late.
Allura Grant (Kim Kardashian) and Liberty Ronson (Naomi Watts) have gotten tired of the old boys’ club of the legal world, and decide to leave their sexist firm to start up their own business. Their focus will be on divorces, and ensuring that women are given their fair share of the pile from a slew of rich cheaters and trophy husbands who think the world revolves around them. But it’s not just the guys who are causing trouble. When Allura and Liberty left their old firm, they left behind Carrington Lane (Sarah Paulson), and she won’t rest until she’s had her revenge.
This setup should be fun. We should be knee-deep in the guilty pleasures of wealth porn, sassy women in couture and interior design that would make “Selling Sunset” realtors weep. So, why is it all so unwatchable? Truly, this is the nadir of Murphy’s career, the dark spot to a 2025 where his nastiest and most inept showrunner qualities overwhelmed his output. Murphy has a writing credit on five of the season’s nine episodes, including the pilot (alongside Jon Robin Baitz and Joe Baken), which he directed. The buck stops with him. Has his dialogue always sounded this tin-earred? Were the setups always so lazy? There are lines of dialogue here so bad that one wonders if the script ever got past a sketched-out first draft on the back of a napkin. When it’s not lazy exposition, it’s painfully stretched attempts at gif-ready one-liners. In one scene, Carrington smashes up someone’s office while screaming, “Are you calling me an ugly duckling? So what if I give myself home perms? It’s economical!” What?
It’s easy enough to rag on Kim Kardashian, whose uncanny and unmoving face is not designed for the craft of acting. This is pure stunt casting, and you can’t get mad at a notorious hustler of attention for taking the opportunity. But at least her stillness and choice to keep things level-headed gives us a breather from her manic costars. Naomi Watts did great work in “Feud: Capote vs. The Swans,” but leans too heavily on mannered quirk. Sarah Paulson has done career-best work under the Murphy umbrella, which you wouldn’t know if this was your first experience with the Emmy winner. She’s so loud and trying too hard to be a “Dynasty”-esque diva that she falls into tedium. If she’d thrown a pie in someone’s face, it would have been one of the subtler choices. Niecy Nash-Betts fares better, although her role feels like a ‘90s throwback of Black woman tropes that reminds us once more of how Murphy all too frequently falls foul of reductive clichés. Glenn Close tries to spin gold from straw, although all viewers hoping to see her in a good legal drama should stream “Damages” instead.
One would never turn to the guy who made “Glee” for a feminist drama and certainly, “All’s Fair” has no desire to be “Mrs. America” or even “Ally McBeal.” Still, the self-aggrandizing rich lady drama that the series tries to cloak in pastels and designer brands while preaching about women getting their big payday tries to have its cake and eat it. It wants “Real Housewives” slaps and villainy, but it also craves an audience that will share key quotes on Instagram with a clapping emoji and declaration of fierce females getting s—t done.
There’s something hopelessly out of date about the entire affair. “Ally McBeal” feels like an obvious inspiration, but without that oft-derided show’s screwball spark, and there’s an attempt to capture the primetime soapiness of “Desperate Housewives” but without the domestic darkness of Marc Cherry’s hit. Moreover, even when those two series got squirrelly, they had grounded characters with real emotions. Everyone in “All’s Fair” is a stock caricature from a man’s idea of a woman’s drama. It’s a cavalcade of wigs and screeching in search of truth, but Murphy seems to have lost the magic touch that made his work so appealing for so long. His snark has rotted into contempt, for audience and art alike.
“All’s Fair” releases new episodes Tuesdays on Hulu.
