Copyright The Hollywood Reporter
“So what if I give myself home perms. It’s economical. Fuck you!” snarls Sarah Paulson’s sour divorce attorney Carrington “Carr” Lane when her former mentor, Dina Standish, played with steely-eyed composure by Glenn Close, indirectly calls her an ugly duckling. Carr is the angry outsider in Ryan Murphy’s insanely lurid new legal series for Hulu, All’s Fair, deemed toxic and left behind when three enterprising colleagues flee their boys’ club law firm to set up their own “women helping women” practice. That means Paulson gets much of the choicest dialogue and the most colorful invective. Much has already been written about the overwhelmingly negative reviews for the show, which some critics are ranking among the worst TV of all time. And yes, it’s truly terrible. But it’s also mind-blowingly camp, and there’s been too little celebration of the gob-smacking lines — Vicious! Defamatory! Ludicrous! Baffling! — spoken by its absurdly over-qualified (well, mostly) cast, which will make it essential viewing for hordes of Chardonnay moms and card-carrying gays. A warning if you plan on watching: There will be spoilers aplenty ahead, so read on at your peril if you want to conserve the surprises, such as they are. If you’re just skimming to bone up on fresh insults to hurl at the family over Thanksgiving turkey, enjoy! But before we get to that juicy dialogue, a quick primer for the uninitiated. The three breakaways, who have Dina’s blessing, are attorneys Allura Grant (Kim Kardashian) and Liberty Ronson (Naomi Watts), along with chief investigator Emerald Greene (Niecy Nash-Betts, clearly having the best time here). If those names sound like relics from the Aaron Spelling Dynasty era, they are not the only thing this show has in common with the glam-trashy primetime ‘80s soap. In the 10 years since setting up shop, the women have risen to become the most powerful divorce lawyers in Los Angeles, possibly the country, albeit while seeming to do very little actual lawyering. Mostly they wait for Emerald to get the dirt on their clients’ husbands, then come up with a staggering settlement number commensurate with the client’s suffering. “Add another zero,” advises Allura for every bad memory that comes up. Unlike ghastly Carr, they also have a cozy professional manner intended to suggest an ever-expanding sisterhood, not something tacky and transactional. (The hefty settlement percentage that’s obviously part of the package is never discussed.) To kick off a meeting, Emerald tells a new client played by Grace Gummer: “I know you’re broken-hearted, but girl, you look damn good!” Their cases are resolved with the kind of briskness and remarkable ease that tag All’s Fair as pure high-gloss fantasy. That leaves the women lots of time for champagne “Victory Fizz” toasts, air kisses, self-care talks, slo-mo power struts and whizzing over to New York on their private plane to attend the Christie’s auction of a $40 million jewelry collection clawed out of her marital wreckage by Judith Light’s discarded socialite: “You mean I won’t starve?” Extra time is also essential for the attorneys to get around their massive homes, especially Allura’s fully staffed chunk of real estate porn, where it seems to take her 20 minutes to get from the front door to her walk-in closet to slip out of red carpet-ready office wear and into red carpet-ready dinner-at-home wear. A word about wardrobe: Allura and Emerald appear to be in a contest for who can show the most miles of cleavage at work, while Dina favors crisp suits and Liberty wears a lot of wool capes and jaunty fedoras. Her style goals seem mostly to have come from Faye Dunaway in Eyes of Laura Mars. The dinner occasion is Allura’s fifth wedding anniversary to considerably younger football superstar Chase Munroe (Matthew Noszka), who surprises her with a whopping great rock that once belonged to Elizabeth Taylor. But the ring doesn’t prepare her for his announcement that he wants a divorce and is seeing someone else. That someone’s identity is played as a shock reveal at the end of the pilot, but it’s given away much earlier. The law firm’s supermodel-league receptionist, Milan (magnificent panther Teyana Taylor), is clacking down the marble halls in her heels and chic mini trench coat dress when a text from Chase comes through, reading: “I can still smell you on me.” Aww, sweet. Justice for Allura becomes the dominant plotline as Emerald traces a string of women Chase has been seeing on the side, including a trans former sex worker played by the divine Hari Nef. Allura keeps a lid on her reaction to every fresh revelation. But that’s partly because there’s only so much emotion Kardashian’s face can express. Let’s be kind and just say she is not going to be playing Medea anytime soon. As the awful truth sinks in, Allura sighs, “I feel like I’m in a dream. How is this even happening? Am I that stupid?” Oh, girl. But enough background, let’s get to that fabulously tawdry dialogue, 20 magic moments that I have ranked from lowest to highest — or worst to even worse — adding any necessary context. In the words of Emerald, “Pin your wig down Allura, coz this might blow it back.” 20. “He knew how to do things with his fingers that would make Itzhak Perlman jealous.” Spoken by Dee (Elizabeth Berkley), a spurned wife swindled out of her business and getting shafted because of an iron-clad pre-nup. Don’t get too attached to Dee though, she doesn’t stick around long. 19. “You know me, I’d do anything for you … except represent you. Which I wouldn’t do even if I were penniless and starving on a street corner, forced to blow a priest with chlamydia for a bowl of refried beans.” Spoken by Carr during Allura’s attempt at a détente call, the opener and closer of which top this list. It’s a mouthful of tortured nonsense but Paulson gets through it in one savage breath, bless her. 18. “He never fucking made you wear a strap-on?” Spoken by Milan to Allura while waiting for STI tests from a doctor supposedly not accepting new patients before 2040. Nuggets like that, evidencing Allura’s clout, are dropped in conspicuously the same way the camera lingers long enough on various handbags for us to identify them as Chanel, Valentino or Hermès. (Allura appears to have a different Birkin bag to match every outfit, which could make for an excellent drinking game.) 17. “You know, I’m surprised your ancestors were actually allowed on the Mayflower. But I guess that’s one way to rid the place of half-wits, mouth-breathers and perverts.” Spoken by Carr to Dina during a confrontational meeting. “Now you may think I’m being a greedy little pig bottom,” Carr adds as she lays down her terms, one of many instances — OK, the entire script — in which the words of gay men are put into the mouths of women. 16. “Don’t forget to worship his sagging balls and gray pubes. Oh, honey, and wait until you get that anal! Has he cum all over your face yet?” Spoken by Lee-Ann Hunt (Jessica Simpson) to a new flame of her nasty rock star husband Tommy Keith (Rick Springfield) right before she throws sulfuric acid in his face. He had it coming after forcing her to get a bunch of botched cosmetic surgery and then shouting at her attorneys: “There’s no way that I’m paying $100 million to that reptile-faced, bat-winged motherfucker!” There’s possible feminist messaging embedded in the irony that while Tommy has been venomous about his still-attractive wife’s appearance, he looks like Alice Cooper. 15. “Once Dr. Roemher reverses Costa’s hatchet job, you’ll be so much hotter than Zendaya.” Spoken by Allura while reassuring Lee-Ann that her face disaster can be fixed and she’ll be drowning in cash to cover it. For the record, Jessica Simpson is 45 and Zendaya 29, but whatever Allura says goes. 14. “You’ve become a loathsome person. I thought I raised you better.” Spoken by “Mother” Dina to Carr. Not an especially memorable line compared to others here, but Close’s delivery gives it a tingle, selling it like Mildred Pierce pouring scorn on that ingrate Veda. 13. “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 and then maybe you can all give the Ozempic you’re mainlining a rest, you fat, treacherous lawn chairs. Fuck all the way off, douchebags.” Spoken by Carr or, to be specific, written in a letter to Allura and Co. on the 10th anniversary of their firm. But girl, why warn them? Did you learn nothing from Octavia Spencer delivering that poo pie in The Help? Fecal matter requires a stealth move, not an announcement! Also, “lawn chairs?” 12. “Girl! You know why they call me The Big Dick!” Spoken by Emerald to Allura after the investigator starts following Chase. 11. “You been stringing that man along for two years. He’s wonderful, and you said the dick is good. Lock him in!” Spoken by Emerald to Liberty, who’s hesitant to accept the proposal of her hot doctor boyfriend (O-T Fagbenle). 10. “From cocktails to cock rings all in one 24-hour period! God, I love my job.” Spoken by Liberty after evidence surfaces that a client’s husband, Lionel Lee (poor Steven Pasquale), has regular sessions with a dominatrix, played by Kate Berlant. 9. “An anal stimulator, a favorite of your client’s. And just for size comparison, here it is next to a traffic cone.” Spoken by Emerald during a slide show presentation, in response to Lionel’s crusty lawyer bellowing, “What the fuck is that?” Liberty elucidates further, explaining that it’s a butt plug: “Your talented client is capable of hovering his whooseewhatzit over the apex of this device and performing a full squat all the way to the floor.” Impressive. 8. “Now here he is in fantastic full fetish mode, dressed as a filthy piggy-piggy. Those people under him are suckling on his piggly-wiggly titties. Or, as they call them on the farm, sow teats.” Spoken by Emerald as commentary on another slide of Lionel, this one mercifully left to our imaginations. 7. “Oh, Dina Standish, you old plow horse. I thought for sure they would have shipped you off to the glue factory by now.” Spoken by Carr, obviously, one of many digs at Dina’s age, like “Take your Geritol and muse on that!” 6. “Carr, do you ever think how much happier we’d all be if your mother swallowed?” Spoken by Dina, who gives as good as she gets when she — or the writers — can be bothered. 5. “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?” Spoken by Liberty when her colleague’s passivity threatens to hold up legal proceedings against Chase. 4. “Somebody has a revenge vagina!” Spoken by Emerald as Allura talks them through the procedures she’s just had done to erase the indignity of a broken marriage. They include the injection of a long-lasting filler formulated from salmon sperm. Eww. She also gets graphic about vaginal PRP, a plasma treatment involving “lots of tiny needle pricks in and around your vagina. Afterwards, I swear to God, you have the most smooth, plump… perfection.” And yes, of course they all roar with laughter over the “pricks” double entendre. 3. “Little Allura-dorable can’t have a wittle baby of her own in that cobweb dusty womb of hers. Boo-hoo.” Spoken by Carr when Dina tries using the embryos that Allura and Chase had frozen years earlier as settlement leverage. “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.” Uh, cancel dinner at Carr’s house. 2. “Never mind me, how are you holding up, you poor discarded cum rag?” Spoken by Carr at the start of that phone call in which Allura attempts to play nice.
