Ryan Murphy's ALL'S FAIR: A Review of Questionable Actions and Artistic Intentions
The Hulu series received negative reviews from critics despite being renewed for a season and achieving "record-breaking" milestones.
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Business school taught me a deceptively simple truth: there is, quite literally, a market for everything. Ecosystems are built around gamers, homemakers, moviegoers, and the restless binge-watcher whose schedule changes week by week. Once a clear audience is identified from the data, companies act quickly, designing products and experiences to attract attention, monetize desire, and turn idle interest into a habit.
Some enterprises chase the cultural zeitgeist, offering fleeting fixes or content that burns bright and fast. Others exploit aspiration, nostalgia, or even complacency, tailoring their strategies to demographics with unconventional expectations—audiences willing to overlook inexperience, for instance, if a project features a beloved public figure. That approach allows a series to cast a non-actor in a leading role, as long as the target viewers have both a low tolerance for storytelling risk and passionate loyalty to female media personalities.
Enter “All’s Fair,” Hulu’s newest show, which has captured widespread attention—whether through admiration or criticism—because of its fashion choices, unusual casting, unpredictable storytelling, and often jarring dialogue. The show’s mixed reactions, a combination of fascination and frustration, have already led to a second season. At the same time, that renewal raises the key question beneath its shiny exterior: what exactly is this series trying to be—and who is it aiming to please by lowering or redefining standards?
What initially attracted me to this show was not its premise or platform but the sheer number of commentary videos flooding my YouTube homepage. Of the three breakdowns I watched, all reached the same conclusion: the dialogue and story are so muddled they are hard to follow, and the production budget seems to have been spent mostly on wardrobe, casting, and locations rather than on writing or direction. I will concede, however, that the on-screen mistakes did not reflect the publicity campaign. The marketing effort and the buzz it created have clearly helped the producers.
I eventually surrendered to my own curiosity, partly because of Kim Kardashian’s highly publicized involvement, even if it turned out to be minimal, but also because of other behind-the-scenes intrigues. Halle Berry’s departure from the project before filming even started raised initial questions. At the same time, Ryan Murphy’s involvement and his usual reliance on a familiar creative team added another layer of intrigue. Having now willingly watched the first episode, I have gathered not only initial impressions but also a growing list of reservations.
I also cannot—for the life of me—ignore the conspicuous choices made by the executive producers, whose spending priorities prioritize appearance over substance.
My immediate reaction is that the performances are nearly impossible to overlook due to their ineptitude. The line readings lack nuance, rhythm, or emotional shading; every exchange feels as flat as a cold table read. Even if I were to close my eyes and focus only on the audio, the delivery still sounds as if the actors are encountering the script for the first time.
The first thirty seconds were pure hell, a barrage of sensory assaults mixed with horse shit and radish. The cinematography and framing were, admittedly, visually elegant, with each shot carefully composed to please the eye. Nevertheless, that delicate illusion shatters the moment anyone speaks. The dialogue hits with a jarring thud, making even the already weak performances seem almost forgivable, especially when you realize how much a particular celebrity’s influence permeates the series, right up to the executive producer credits.
Kim Kardashian and Sarah Paulson deliver performances so affectless and constrained that they drain the characters of depth, flattening emotional stakes and obscuring the viewer’s grasp of the narrative’s alleged thesis: that men are relentless antagonists to women. In reality, however, the show implies that women use their social power and institutional access as tools of quiet destruction, employing status as a quick fix and a blunt instrument rather than a means for nuance or justice.
If the continuity possessed even a modicum of coherence, I could attend to the characters’ genuine grievances. Instead, I am conscripted to reconstruct the story beat by beat, sifting through over-enunciated yet underfelt exchanges—dialogue that tries to sound essential but only shows how empty the whole thing really is.
I also cannot—for the life of me—ignore the conspicuous choices made by the executive producers, whose spending priorities prioritize appearance over substance. The budget seems to be directed toward highly noticeable line items: a polished director of photography, a marquee name for publicity, and a structure meant for immediate cultural buzz and rapid returns. Kim’s character, wrapped in luxury branding, acts less as a person than as a moving advertisement: she wears designer labels, moves around in a Bentley, and lives in a mansion that’s currently on the market. She functions as a walking, talking billboard for aspirational consumption.
The dialogue, meanwhile, feels as if the cast were given pages just minutes before shooting, lacking the calibration and nuance that even a basic table read provides. Lines are delivered as isolated slogans rather than as part of a cohesive dramatic fabric, highlighting how the series is built around cross-promotional opportunities rather than narrative integrity. Storytelling becomes collateral damage, sacrificed so each scene can serve as a brand showcase or lifestyle pitch.
We are reminded of the characters’ wealth not through layered characterization but through outrageous, almost farcical legal threats, such as lawsuits that remain conveniently outside the courtroom and are supported by neither logic nor ethical inquiry. These contrived conflicts highlight why many critics see the production as a case study in wasted potential: a project that abandons even basic narrative craft in favor of superficial tactics aimed at capturing fleeting attention rather than fostering lasting engagement.
It disheartens me to see studios and producers give in to shallow business tactics that prioritize fleeting marketing trends and pop culture noise over the art of storytelling.
One concern that overshadows even the narrative missteps is the project’s creative provenance. This series was conceived, directed, and written by three men—Jon Robin Baitz, Joe Baken, and, most notably, Ryan Murphy. Their authorship frames a story that claims to explore gendered power while still filtering women’s inner lives through a distinctly male lens. Then, as the credits roll, Kris Jenner’s name appears as an executive producer, and the whole enterprise suddenly comes into focus: this isn’t just a show; it’s a carefully crafted vehicle for a specific constellation of power brokers. My thoughts started racing, not with curiosity about the characters, but with questions about who stands to profit and why.
It increasingly seems that projects of this size exist less to advance the language of storytelling or to cultivate singular, idiosyncratic characters and more to consolidate wealth and visibility for a very narrow group of stakeholders. To clarify, film and television are commercial products—commodities bought and sold by studios, distributors, and audiences. Yet the balance has shifted so far toward non-artistic choices that the medium’s vitality is in danger. When every decision is made to boost brand growth, cross-promotion, or algorithmic popularity, the artistic quality suffers.
This becomes especially clear in how Kim’s character is portrayed. If she is meant to be a central figure, why must the rest of the cast adjust their performances whenever she appears on screen, changing their delivery and dialogue to cover for her shortcomings? The ensemble molds itself around her, speaking in unnatural rhythms and simplifying emotional moments, as if the script itself must be diluted to accommodate her range. The result is a show that feels less like a collaborative work of art and more like an elaborate scaffolding erected to prop up a less experienced star, at the expense of everyone and everything else.
Speaking of the dialogue, it crystallizes a deeper irritation: the ongoing deference to male creators who assume the authority to script lives they have neither inhabited nor meaningfully studied. Their lines lack curiosity, empathy, or genuine insight; instead, they seem like approximations of womanhood, reverse-engineered from tropes, stereotypes, and market research. Consider the following quotes dissected from the series:
“From cocktails to cock rings all in one 24-hour period — God, I love my job.”
“In honor of your big milestone, 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.”
“You don’t give us what we want, everything we want, those eggs will never see the inside of Allura’s hoo-ha, because I will personally slather them in A1 Steak Sauce and eat them with a side of fries.”
“Piggy wiggly titties, or as they call them on the farm, sow teats.”
“Allura, when are you going to get mad? When are you going to twist off his scrotum and feed it to him in small, raggedy pieces? When are we doing revenge?”
The characters’ lines and their delivery reveal this ignorance with almost embarrassing clarity, making it difficult to concentrate on the narrative the series claims to tell. Every exchange functions as a kind of accidental confession, exposing not only a deficit of lived understanding but also a narrow, often condescending view of who women are allowed to be on screen. Whether the writers intend it or not, their words reveal how they see women: as abstractions to be managed, not as complex individuals to be understood.
Given the scale of the investment behind a show ostensibly focused on women’s experiences, one might reasonably expect that at least a few women would have been entrusted with shaping its script. Instead, the large budget reveals a different truth: no amount of money can hide the creative inertia that persists with an A-list cast when the project itself seems engineered as a simple cash grab rather than a genuine artistic effort. And this is far from incidental. Ryan Murphy and Kim Kardashian are not just distant collaborators; they are professionally connected, and the series features real mutual friends. That network is embedded in the fabric of the production, and it clearly shows.
It disheartens me to see studios and producers give in to shallow business tactics that prioritize fleeting marketing trends and pop culture noise over the art of storytelling. Season 2 of All’s Fair was, according to The Los Angeles Times, rewarded for this very calculus, breaking Hulu’s record for the most successful scripted series premiere in three years—a distinction that seems driven less by genuine enthusiasm than by the churn of online derision, hate-watching, and viral criticism that has trailed the show since its debut.
Yes, the series functions as a commercial product meant for entertainment. Still, it also unintentionally displays the matriarchate’s superficial yet dangerous influence, conveyed through a narrative that bears little resemblance to the complexities of real life. The show becomes a glossy hallucination of power, detached from any genuine moral or emotional grounding. And yet, what do I know? I was not raised inside that empire; my mother, after all, is not Kris Jenner.
FINAL RATING: 2.572/10
Questions to Consider:
How does the text describe the way the entertainment industry uses audience data to shape the kinds of shows and experiences it produces?
What specific criticisms are made about the performances and dialogue in All’s Fair?
How is the show’s apparent allocation of its production budget described, and what does this suggest about the producers’ priorities?
In what ways does Kim Kardashian’s presence function more as branding than as characterization within the series?
How are the male creative team and Kris Jenner’s executive producer credit connected to broader concerns about power, profit, and representation?
What do the sample lines of dialogue (e.g., references to “cock rings,” “Ozempic,” and “piggy wiggly titties”) suggest about the writers’ understanding of women and gendered experience?
Why is the renewal of All’s Fair for a second season presented as troubling, and how is this linked to the role of hype, hate-watching, and online discourse in determining a show’s success?
What do you think? I want to hear what you have to say in the comments!