Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Chris Revelle | TV | December 10, 2025
I imagine that going into the second season of the Hulu trainwreck All’s Fair, there’ll be an attempt to recast the series as purposefully so bad it’s good. They meant for the whole thing to feel like AI-generated slop. They wanted a show about lawyers who commit blackmail much more than they argue the law. Kim Kardashian’s line-readings were supposed to be expressionless and robotic.
I find that hard to believe. Make no mistake, it’s the Ryan Murphy Special: a parade of images and moments that are more show-shaped than actual shows. All’s Fair mimics the cadence, movements, and aesthetics of a television show, but feels noticeably off. Though it showed flashes of fun amidst the nonsense, the series’ first season was the same thing in the pilot that it was at the finale: a lazy “legal” “drama” with catty non-sequiters and outre business attire. It may not be AI-generated, but All’s Fair’s first season was slop all the way down.
Let’s start generously with what worked: the two-part finale is largely driven by the mustache-twirling supervillainy of Carrington Lane (Sarah Paulson), the only element of All’s Fair that works. Though she serves up an epic bounty of insanity throughout both episodes, Carrington gives the series its first genuinely sweet moment: while watching Postcards From the Edge, she recites the dialogue with her gay friend/father of her child, Sebastian. Seeing Carrington with someone she doesn’t want to scream at is really nice! It’s especially tender and down to earth for a show that featured Jessica Simpson in plastic surgery prosthesis cackling as she throws acid in her evil ex’s face.
But of course, nothing good can stay. It turns out that Carrington wants to seduce Chase (Matthew Nozska), who is now divorced from Allura (Kim Kardashian). Why? Because he looks like Christ, and back in Sunday School, she “used to rub one out to Jesus.” They have their trysts with mismatched role-play until Chase cries out Allura’s name. He’s too in love with her empty-eyed stares, and so he ends the affair with Carrington. Foiled again by her old nemeses, Carrington plots to infiltrate the law firm and destroy it from the inside. Good thing Allura, Emerald, and Liberty are suddenly open to potentially hiring her!
Carrington’s plot to fracture the firm work because every character aside from her seems to be suffering from a gas leak. Liberty, who is the most resistant to Carrington, is easily turned when Carrington plays on her… insecurity about having a posh British accent? She also sabotages Liberty’s bridesmaid dress fitting by encouraging her to pick horrible frocks for the other lady lawyers. When the blind vote on admitting her deadlocks, Dina (Glenn Close) tells her in no uncertain terms that she will never join the firm and turn everyone against each other. Glenn Close knows what you did, Sarah Paulson!
To retaliate, Carrington makes an elaborate case to Allura that Dina is in cognitive decline. She trots out (presumably faked) texts and even damning testimony from Dina’s housekeeper. Allura calls a partner’s meeting to address it, and Dina is ambushed. Just as she’s beginning to doubt her memory and wonder whether she choked her housekeeper after all, the police bust in and arrest her for the murder of Emerald’s attacker from earlier in the season.
I’ll give All’s Fair this: there’s a glimmer of something unhinged (complimentary) in the finale’s mad rush of soap opera plotting. Otherwise, the show-shaped product is a grating mess that serves to be little but grist for Kim Kardashian’s acting resume. It’s wise to lean into Carrington, the one bright spot of the whole heap, but it’s still a heap. And with that, I’ll see you all in court for season 2.
