Against the advice of my better angels, I decided to check out Ryan Murphy’s new Hulu show, “All’s Fair,” which dropped its first three episodes on November 4. Immediately, I had questions. What is Teyana Taylor doing here, and why did her team make her do this? Why is Sarah Paulson talking in a bizarre, booming accent I can only describe as “Transatlantic adjacent?” Is that E from “Entourage?” (Yes, it is Kevin Connolly.) Also, why are we still pretending that Kim Kardashian can act?
Kardashian is many things. She’s a shapewear maven, an original reality TV star … honestly, one could call her a reality TV pioneer. She is not, however, an actress. Kardashian’s character on “All’s Fair” is, without question, the protagonist, even though the ensemble cast includes luminaries like Niecy Nash-Betts, Glenn Close, Naomi Watts, and the aforementioned Paulson. That protagonist, the absurdly named Allura Grant, works at the female-led divorce firm Grant, Ronson and Greene, which helps women get away from their horrible, cheating, and openly vile future ex-husbands. After being overlooked by male colleagues, Allura and her fellow lawyers and collaborators — Liberty Ronson (Watts), Dina Standish (Close), and firm researcher Emerald Greene (Nash-Betts) — start their own firm where women represent women, which is, I guess, a nice idea.
To say Kardashian is out of her depth on this show is to be kind. Watts, Close, and Nash-Betts — alongside supporting players like Ed O’Neill as Dina’s loving husband and Paulson as a rival lawyer named Carrington Lane — also struggle with the show’s script, which isn’t good, and its trajectory, which is abjectly silly. I need people — people like Murphy — to stop pretending, though, that Kardashian is an actress. She’s not!
