All’s Fair in Love, Law, and Bad Television: Kim K’s Latest Venture Is So Wrong It’s Right
When something is so bad it becomes addictively good, you know you’re in trouble. I must confess and feel free to judge me. I’ve been keeping up with the Kardashians since 2007. That’s almost twenty years of knowing more about Kim than I probably know about my own aunt. Which can only mean one thing: there was absolutely no chance I was going to pass up unlocking the treasure trove of foolishness that is Kim Kardashian’s latest “acting” venture; All’s Fair.
When you and your mother have enough money to produce a show simply because bestie Ryan Murphy convinces you that your daughter can act, just enough to play a full-time Valentino clad baddie lawyer, all while she still hasn’t passed her bar exam in real life (if you know, you know), then all’s fair. Because regular rules clearly don’t apply here. It almost feels as though Jenner together with Murphy built Kim’s ultimate Barbie Career Woman Dream World, complete with the gorgeous office, million dollar mansion, fancy jet, all star bestie cast, and impeccable designer wardrobe. It becomes near to impossible to take seriously.
Let’s just say that the only motion picture of Kim’s I haven’t watched in my two decades of loyalty is her now-infamous sex tape with then-boyfriend Ray J, also known as Moesha’s younger brother for all the fellow noughties kids out there. I’ve stuck by Kim through it all: the fever dream that was Kris Humphries, the lost diamond earring in the ocean (“Kim, there are people that are dying”), the multiple Burberry flip phones, Kimye, Kimono (now the multibillion-dollar shapewear empire SKIMS), those confusing minimalist bathroom sinks, and of course, Pete Davidson. I was convinced there was nothing Kim, media mastermind and press princess, could do to make me doubt her ability to do it all.
Then came All’s Fair, a show so bad not even Glenn Close could save it from a no-star Guardian review. A series so rotten it scored less than 10% on Rotten Tomatoes and an embarrassing 2.9 on IMDb. But what went wrong? Let’s start with everything. The writing is so stiff it makes courtroom jargon sound poetic. The dialogue? A masterclass in secondhand embarrassment. Not even American Horror Story queen Sarah Paulson could land those painful lines. You can almost hear the table read awkwardness through the screen.
The Hulu series marks Kardashian’s first lead role in a scripted project and reunites her with Murphy after last year’s American Horror Story: Delicate. Inspired by her real-life pursuit of a law career, Kardashian stars as Allura Grant, a high-profile divorce lawyer navigating both the personal and professional chaos of her all-female firm, married to a football star resentful of living in her shadow. It’s a role that requires nuance, or at least a facial expression. Kim gives us neither. She’s as expressionless as you might expect, but somehow, she’s also… inoffensively useless. Still, one could argue she’s simply staying on brand. Why stop now?
Naomi Watts, meanwhile, preens and pouts in search of a character. She reminds me of Ally McBeal at her very worst, delivering lines so dry you can almost hear her joints cracking. And the guest stars? Even worse. Niecy Nash, usually an unstoppable force, and one of my absolute favourites manages to find some footing thanks to her natural comedic timing. But the role itself, another Loud! and Sassy! Black woman stereotype, feels painfully outdated.
How, in 2025, are parts for women of color still being written this way? The one good thing And Just Like That… ever did was seem to finally bury that trope. Yet here we are, digging it right back up, slapping on a glossy Ryan Murphy filter, and calling it prestige television.
There’s also a sense that All’s Fair doesn’t know what it wants to be. A courtroom dramedy? A satire about celebrity justice? A glossy feminist manifesto in latex pencil skirts? It’s none of the above, and yet somehow, all at once. Every scene in the first three episodes feels like an Instagram Story highlight reel: expensive, filtered, and emotionally hollow. To think Jessica Simpson’s cameo in episode three was the best thing to happen to this entire series thus far is saying something.
Ryan Murphy’s fingerprints are all over it, the over-saturated palette, the self-aware camp, the celebrity stunt casting but this time the formula just doesn’t work. What made American Horror Story deliciously unhinged or The People v. O.J. Simpson brilliant in its excess, is exactly what makes All’s Fair fall flat: it’s trying too hard to make something iconic out of something inherently unserious.
And that’s really the tragedy of it. Because Kim Kardashian is iconic. She knows how to sell an image better than anyone alive. She’s the reason influencer culture exists as it does today. She’s turned her life into a global brand. Kim doesn’t act she exists onscreen. She poses, she smirks, she lets her contour do the heavy lifting. It’s the same formula that’s made her billions, but in scripted television, it leaves you wanting more than just good lighting and an archival Alaïa dress. And yet… I can’t look away.
That’s the maddening thing about Kim. No matter how many times she stumbles in acting, on camera or in relationships she always manages to turn any sort of failure into content. All’s Fair might be unwatchable by traditional standards, but it’s already a success in the only metric that matters to her: we’re talking about it. We’re watching. We’re writing. Kim Kardashian’s greatest skill has never been acting; it’s making mediocrity magnetic.
So yes, All’s Fair is a mess. A glossy, tone-deaf, spectacularly miscast disaster. But it’s also an unintentional masterpiece in self-promotion and a perfect reflection of the era Kim herself helped create. Ultimately, it captures the paradox of modern fame where the line between self-parody and self-promotion has completely vanished. Kim Kardashian doesn’t need to win an Emmy; she’s already mastered the only art form that matters anymore, being seen. Maybe that’s the real verdict here because in the Kardashian era, even failure looks flawless.
