In Defense of ‘All’s Fair’s Carrington Lane

I’m not sure if you heard, but Ryan Murphy’s new “legal” “drama,” All’s Fair on Hulu, is quite terrible. It’s so lazily made that it might as well be an intentional parody of a Ryan Murphy show. Like with The Idol, it’s not so bad, it’s good, but so bad, it’s fascinating.

To watch All’s Fair is to make the mind desperate for greater stimulation than Kim Kardashian vocally frying lines meant not for primetime, but for TikTok and fan-cams. With the bar so low that it’s subterranean, I’ll take whatever scrap of enjoyment I can. Three episodes in, the single scrap I cling to is the series’ ostensible villain, Carrington Lane, played with mustache-twirling verve by Murphy regular Sarah Paulson. As a forked-tongued harpy in aggressively chic looks, Carrington isn’t just the best thing about All’s Fair; she’s the only thing that unironically works.

Despite being played by legends and icons like Glenn Close, Niecy Nash-Betts, Teyana Taylor, and Naomi Watts, the protagonists of All’s Fair avoid being interesting at all costs, as if they all have fatal allergies to character development. Perhaps that’s to make them maximally pliable to the erratic whims of the “plot,” which changes with the direction of the wind. Without wants, needs, or goals, the characters are free to say and do whatever the script requires. Carrington stands out because she has an actual backstory and something that drives her actions. Ten years before the beginning of the series, Liberty (Watts), Allura (Kardashian), and Dina (Close) left a misogynistic law firm to start their own for-women-by-women practice. They rejected Carrington’s attempts to join them, and a supervillain was born. It’s not amazing stuff, but in a show so devoid of dramatic tension and character motivation, its workman-like functionality shines brightly.

If there’s anything Murphy can be depended on, it’s to deliver a spectacularly cruel femme whose only setting is “destroy.” All’s Fair seems to understand that villains are often the most fun characters of the cast when it gives Carrington all the best lines. The Edible Arrangement-style fruit display Carrington sends her enemies on the 10th anniversary of their firm’s founding comes with a note that reads, in part, “I present you with a fruit basket, organic and lightly brushed with salmonella and fecal matter. Eat a melon ball, then maybe you can all give the Ozempic you’re mainlining a rest, you fat, treacherous lawn chairs.” Carrington is hired to represent Allura’s husband and relishes threats to eat Allura’s frozen embryos during divorce negotiations, referring to herself as a “greedy little pig bottom.” Carrington’s elaborate antagonism calls back to another Murphy villain: Sue Sylvester from Glee. Similarly, Sue would lacerate the leads with her sharp tongue and go to extreme lengths to thwart their plans. This character is a well-trod archetype in the Murphyverse, but on All’s Fair, Carrington brings an energy, a tension, and absurdity that the series otherwise sorely lacks.

I feel a sense of resentment when I watch All’s Fair because spending time with grating characters delivering garbage lines is a chore. It leads me to dislike these characters so much that when Carrington lays into them like a demonically possessed thesaurus, it’s the most satisfying stuff the series has. The way that Carrington spits the moniker “Mayor McHead Cheese” at Allura hits like a lightning bolt. Her unrelenting, ecstatic hectoring of the protagonists plays like karmic retribution for their shoddiness as characters. On a show that’s hard to watch, I can’t take my eyes off Carrington’s cruelty.

I cannot recommend All’s Fair, at least not without irony. It’s horrible in a way that’s rarely enjoyable. I also recognize that with all the scathing reviews of the series out there, the series will be must-see television for anyone curious about what could be so bad that it would earn this mass panning. For those who venture into the All’s Fair world, you’ll get the trainwreck that’s been promised, but be warned: the only bright spot to be found is Carrington Lane. Savor her, treasure every mean-spirited look and word she offers. She’s the only fun viewers will get on this desolate bore of a show.