A team of female divorce attorneys leave a male-dominated firm to open their own practice in Ryan Murphy’s new show All’s Fair, starring Kim Kardashian.Ser Baffo/Disney/Supplied
There’s campy legal drama fun, such as Suits or How to Get Away With Murder. And then there’s All’s Fair, Ryan Murphy’s latest project that brings together a slew of notable actors for what may be the worst drama of 2025.
Advanced screeners weren’t made available to press, but after viewing the first three episodes that dropped on Disney+ on Nov. 4, it’s impossible not to wonder what anyone involved was thinking when signing up for this… offering.
Oh there are draws to be sure. All’s Fair revolves around a pair of divorce lawyers – Allura Grant (Kim Kardashian) and Liberty Ronson (Naomi Watts) – and a private investigator named Emerald Greene (Niecy Nash). The trio break free from their male-dominated firm to start their own practice, only taking on female clients and becoming multimillionaires in the process.
Also circling their world is mentor Dina Standish (Glenn Close), Allura’s assistant, Milan (Teyana Taylor) and sworn enemy Carrington Lane (Sarah Paulson). In three episodes there are new clients and enemies played by recognizable ’90s stars (Jessica Simpson! Eddie Cibrian! Elizabeth Berkley! Judith Light!) and other notable faces such as Grace Gummer, O-T Fagbenle, Rick Springfield, James Remar, Kevin Connolly, Jack Davenport and Ed O’Neill. Together, it’s a drinking game-worthy cast – take a shot every time you recognize someone.
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But for all of the star power, the acting falls flat. That’s mostly due to Kardashian’s casting as the lead. Allura is supposed to be the smartest woman in the room, except when it comes to her own love life. While each episode centres on a different legal case, the overarching, serialized story within the show is Allura’s divorce from her husband, football superstar Chase Munroe (Matthew Noszka). Kardashian takes the role far too seriously to be considered camp, and the result is a wooden performance of a terrible script that was meant to be elevated with a bit of fun.
Nash’s brash, loud, delivery verges on outdated tokenism, and while Watts is the most watchable of the trio, her character’s relationship issues feel out of step with her professional veneer. Many of the characters suffer from a similar lack of continuity.
The biggest problem, though, may be the script, which is full of zingers that fall flat and cringeworthy lines such as “Are you calling me an ugly duckling? So what if I give myself home perms? It’s economical!”
Kardashian takes her role far too seriously, resulting in a wooden performance of a terrible script.Ser Baffo/Disney/Supplied
Camp requires a balance of fun, style and subversion. Here, the female characters are meant to behave like stereotypical men, with younger conquests, dirty talk in the boardroom and a no-prisoners approach at work. But rather than being subversive, the result is simply clumsy. Even Paulson, who gives the most realistic performance of the bunch, feels like a cartoonish villain. Close is perhaps the most likeable, but even she can’t save this trainwreck.
The style is something else, too. Many of the outfits are gorgeous and the lavish houses and backdrops feel like something from Selling Sunset. But they create distance for the audience. How are you supposed to root for a teen who just received a full-ride scholarship when the camera pans out to a shot of him dancing with his family in a multimillion-dollar glass house?
Launching a new series with a specific tone is no easy feat, but for all the intended camp, All’s Fair just doesn’t know what it is. It doesn’t spend nearly enough time with legal cases, which pose zero challenges to the trio and are solved in a matter of minutes. The overarching story is full of holes and, even worse, it evokes zero sympathy. Successful camp is so bad it’s good. All’s Fair is so bad it’s bad.
For a creator that gave us gems such as Scream Queens, Glee and Nip/Tuck, Murphy missed the mark on this one. And he brought several beloved stars down with him.
Rather than being subversive, All's Fair is simply clumsy.Ser Baffo/Disney/Supplied