Stream It Or Skip It: ‘All’s Fair’ On Hulu, A Star-Studded Dramedy About A Female-Owned Law Firm That Specializes In Nasty Divorces

Ryan Murphy can’t help but make his shows outrageous and showy, even if they’re heavy dramas about serial killers or bloody horror-fests. But “outrageous and showy” works best on shows that know they’re both of those things, like the star-studded legal dramedy All’s Fair.

ALL’S FAIR: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: An overhead shot of a room in a posh legacy law firm. “Ten Years Ago.”

The Gist: At the law firm in question, two attorneys, Liberty Ronson (Naomi Watts) and Allura Grant (Kim Kardashian), bemoan how the old, white, male partners at the firm just belittled them in a meeting. They’re pretty much done with this bullcrap, and they go to the only female partner, Dina Standish (Glenn Close), that they’re going to go and start their own firm.

Dina actually encourages them, mainly because she scraped and clawed her way to her position over decades, being the only female attorney for much of that time. She thinks the time has come for Liberty and Allura’s vision of an all-female firm, helping women get out of terrible marriages. She even encourages them to take people from the firm with them. The first person they think of is chief investigator Emerald Greene (Niecy Nash-Betts), to whom they offer a 1/3 stake. The attorney they don’t ask is Carrington Lane (Sarah Paulson), one of the firms top billers, because, well, they don’t like her.

Ten years later, Grant, Ronson and Greene is a well-respected firm and its partners have amassed generational wealth. Allura’s husband, NFL player Chase Munroe (Matthew Noszka), celebrates their wedding anniversary by giving her a huge diamond ring once owned by Elizabeth Taylor. And, while Carrington has been successful after starting her own firm, she’s still angry and bitter that Allura and Liberty didn’t bring her in. The firm’s top paralegal, Milan (Teyana Taylor), has everyone’s trust, but she’s hiding a secret that may break that trust.

A new case comes in: Grace Henry (Grace Gummer) is in a miserable, emotionally abusive marriage to billionaire Lionel Lee (Steven Pasquale). He brought in a second woman for sexual purposes, but Grace and the other woman ended up falling in love with each other. She wants out, but his prenup is so airtight that she’d barely leave the marriage with the clothes on her back.

Liberty then gets a call from Sheila Baskin (Judith Light), whose powerful cosmetics magnate husband Theodore (James Remar) wants to divorce her over an affair. They got married in California, so Liberty flies to New York to take the case, and advises Liberty that any gifts given in the marriage are considered personal property and nut subject to the prenup. And, boy, did he give her a lot of expensive gifts.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Created by Ryan Murphy and Jon Robin Baitz, All’s Fair is a Murphy-ized take on legal shows like Reasonable Doubt.

Our Take: When you cram a show like All’s Fair with so many top-notch actors (and, while Kim K. isn’t exactly Watts, Nash or Close-level in the acting department, she holds her own), and then stuff each episode with cases involving huge guest stars, you can’t help but make a show watchable. Yes, that’s even when said actors are saying stilted, campy dialogue that doesn’t at all feel like real human conversation.

There were a bunch of lines in the first episode of All’s Fair that we rolled our eyes at, but there were some that made us laugh out loud. Much of that has to do with who’s delivering those lines, but some of that also has to do with the general outlandishness of the show in general.

The first episode demonstrates in no uncertain terms that Allura, Liberty and Emerald — three of the most unique character first names we’ve ever heard — are great at their jobs. Not only do they know how to make sure the wives seeking to get out of their marriages get what they deserve, they often use unorthodox methods to get it. They deal with settlements in the hundreds of millions of dollars, which may explain how they have such posh lifestyles — Emerald gets driven around as she tails and photographs Lionel Lee, and Liberty takes a PJ to New York to talk to Sheila Baskin. But their wealth is purposely over the top, and we’d love to see an episode that shows just how they attracted the clients that led to those massive settlements (and fees).

The cases themselves are entertaining, and haven’t entered the realm of 9-1-1-level ridiculousness yet, and there is enough personal life intrigue — at least with Allura to start — to make for a juicy continuing story arc for the season. Close and Paulson play small parts in the first episode but we’ll of course see more of them, likely with Close’s Dina joining or helping Grant, Ronson and Greene, and Paulson’s Carrington opposing them. Both should add some more depth to a show that doesn’t dig all that deep during its first episode.

Sex and Skin: There is a steamy scene at the end of the episode that will upend Allura’s personal life as well as the camaraderie at the firm.

Parting Shot: Yes, someone says “All’s fair in love and war” at the end of this episode.

Sleeper Star: Teyana Taylor is billed as a star of the show along with the heavyweights that are above the title, and her character Milan will definitely be one of the more disruptive factors during the season, mainly because she’s gained so much of the partners’ trust.

Most Pilot-y Line: “What we have here is knowledge, and knowledge is the key in the lock. All we have to do is turn it just the right way.” That line from Allura to Emerald is one of those lines that sounds more explanatory than like real dialogue. It doesn’t help that it’s one of Kim K.’s most clunky line deliveries in the episode.

Our Call: STREAM IT. All’s Fair is over the top and campy as hell, but it also knows it’s both of these things, which is why the show and the cases the firm deals with are going to be fun to watch.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.