Kim Kardashian and Glenn Close Court Controversy in Hulu’s Wildest Drama Yet

Max Sterling, 11/25/2025Kim Kardashian and Glenn Close star in Hulu's controversial drama "All’s Fair," which defies critics with its low ratings yet captivates audiences with millions of streams. The show, blending legal drama and camp, explores the chaotic world of divorce law, proving that buzz often trumps critical acclaim.

Here’s the lay of the land: "All’s Fair," the latest confection from Ryan Murphy— a man who never met a melodrama he couldn’t gild—spins a tale of fierce, glammed-up female divorce lawyers breaking away from the old guard’s smoky dens and chain-link rules. The casting is both inspired and, perhaps, a dare: Kim Kardashian sitting shoulder to shoulder with Glenn Close, Naomi Watts, Sarah Paulson, Niecy Nash, and Teyana Taylor. Call it "The Good Wife" on martinis, or "The Kardashians" for folks who’d rather trade influencers for depositions.

Now, the reception. There’s no gentle way to put it. Critics sharpened their knives—then, evidently, forgot to stop sharpening. Lucy Mangan at The Guardian didn’t mince words, opening the floodgates: “I did not know it was still possible to make television this bad.” The Hollywood Reporter’s Angie Han compared Kardashian’s line readings to an overworked metronome, stiff and—let’s be honest—unmoved by human emotion. Slate’s David Mack, rarely a man for subtlety, likened Kardashian to “a piece of drywall” with the haunted eyes of someone seeing daylight for the first time. It reached a strange kind of nadir when the show hugged a zero percent critics’ score—not so much a badge of honor as proof that the platform’s algorithm doesn’t check with taste makers before it anoints a hit.

Yet the audience showed up—fast, and in numbers nobody can ignore. On release, "All’s Fair" overran Hulu’s charts, racking up 3.2 million streams in a matter of days. The streamer announced the feat with giddy abandon, punctuating the press release with all-caps and exclamation marks only a social media manager could love: their “best original scripted premiere in three years.” To the world of Emmys and Peabody awards, perhaps an irrelevance. To Hulu, a blinding win.

The premise spins faster than a TikTok trend: Kim Kardashian’s Allura Grant leads this alpha-wolf pack of attorneys as they navigate cutthroat breakups, backroom betrayals, and more exes than a Calabasas country club. A love triangle slips into the mix—yes, there’s an NFL star and a scheming assistant—and every week is guest-star bingo: Grace Gummer, Jessica Simpson, Brooke Shields. Glenn Close’s queen bee mentor flexes against Sarah Paulson’s ice-cold rival. Over on the side, Teyana Taylor’s Milan might be stirring the soup or stirring up trouble—depends on your reading.

Still, it’s the spectacle outside the script that holds everyone’s attention—or maybe it’s all part of the act. Kardashian played it gleefully meta, clapping back at the chorus of jeers on Instagram: “Have you tuned in to the most critically acclaimed show of the year!?!?!” That’s knowing self-parody, the smirk of someone who’s been both punchline and power broker. Meanwhile, Glenn Close, channeling echoes of her seminal "Fatal Attraction," doodled a cast portrait gathered around a bubbling cauldron of critic bunny stew. A subtle jab, perhaps, or just the rare TV set where nobody takes the bad press too seriously.

Interestingly, there’s respect beneath the camp. “She always knew her lines. She never was late. She always was prepared. She had no pretensions that she was a great actress, but she was smart enough to have people around her who she could learn from,” Close told Variety—a tidy bit of praise, and not just the party line. It’s almost literary, Kardashian’s reinvention: a pop culture mainstay who famously couldn’t pass the bar, cast as a legal Svengali on a show that critics beat up—only for the whole thing to go viral anyway. The fourth wall fell over and nobody bothered to pick it up.

Behind the scenes, the series owed its existence to a dinner, not a pitch deck. Disney’s Dana Walden spun together Murphy and Kris Jenner, with Murphy supposedly proposing a reality riff, Jenner countering with the sharper “Why not scripted?” gambit—a classic dealmaker move. That scene, if it ever gets dramatized, will probably play itself in the show’s third season, with four angles, two flashbacks, and a voice-over.

All season, there was the sense of something odd afoot. Hulu waved off critical headwinds and hit “renew” before the finale. Production for round two begins in spring 2026—no matter what reviewers scrawl in their notes. Don’t expect a reversal of fortune from the gatekeepers; that’s not part of the script.

In an era where “prestige TV” once seemed to set the tone, "All’s Fair" barrels ahead with a different promise: take the jeers, toss them in the blender with wild viewership stats, toast the meme economy, and serve the frothy result cold. Spectacle over substance? Maybe. But something about the deliberate audacity feels, in its upside-down way, perfectly of this moment—a bit like Kardashian herself.

Streaming, as 2025 rolls in, isn’t about critical consensus; it’s about who can dominate the conversation, meme the loudest, and ride out controversy until it’s just more free PR. The jury’s not out—they’re binging. Love it, hate it, meme it, ignore it at your cultural peril. Like it or not, this show’s going nowhere.

A new year, another season. In television as in life, sometimes the court of public opinion is merciless—but every once in a while, it returns a verdict nobody saw coming.

Television likes to think of itself as the pulse of the zeitgeist. Every so often, though, a show peels out in a blaze of neon and derails that pulse completely—blasting through the noise, smoke trailing, with the critics struggling to keep pace. Right now, that turbocharged vehicle goes by the name "All’s Fair," Hulu’s brash legal soap that—against every critical atom in the air—just locked down a second season. Consider, for a second, what it means that the streaming service renewed a series whose Rotten Tomatoes score dipped so low, it triggered safety protocols.Here’s the lay of the land: "All’s Fair," the latest confection from Ryan Murphy— a man who never met a melodrama he couldn’t gild—spins a tale of fierce, glammed-up female divorce lawyers breaking away from the old guard’s smoky dens and chain-link rules. The casting is both inspired and, perhaps, a dare: Kim Kardashian sitting shoulder to shoulder with Glenn Close, Naomi Watts, Sarah Paulson, Niecy Nash, and Teyana Taylor. Call it "The Good Wife" on martinis, or "The Kardashians" for folks who’d rather trade influencers for depositions.Now, the reception. There’s no gentle way to put it. Critics sharpened their knives—then, evidently, forgot to stop sharpening. Lucy Mangan at The Guardian didn’t mince words, opening the floodgates: “I did not know it was still possible to make television this bad.” The Hollywood Reporter’s Angie Han compared Kardashian’s line readings to an overworked metronome, stiff and—let’s be honest—unmoved by human emotion. Slate’s David Mack, rarely a man for subtlety, likened Kardashian to “a piece of drywall” with the haunted eyes of someone seeing daylight for the first time. It reached a strange kind of nadir when the show hugged a zero percent critics’ score—not so much a badge of honor as proof that the platform’s algorithm doesn’t check with taste makers before it anoints a hit.Yet the audience showed up—fast, and in numbers nobody can ignore. On release, "All’s Fair" overran Hulu’s charts, racking up 3.2 million streams in a matter of days. The streamer announced the feat with giddy abandon, punctuating the press release with all-caps and exclamation marks only a social media manager could love: their “best original scripted premiere in three years.” To the world of Emmys and Peabody awards, perhaps an irrelevance. To Hulu, a blinding win.The premise spins faster than a TikTok trend: Kim Kardashian’s Allura Grant leads this alpha-wolf pack of attorneys as they navigate cutthroat breakups, backroom betrayals, and more exes than a Calabasas country club. A love triangle slips into the mix—yes, there’s an NFL star and a scheming assistant—and every week is guest-star bingo: Grace Gummer, Jessica Simpson, Brooke Shields. Glenn Close’s queen bee mentor flexes against Sarah Paulson’s ice-cold rival. Over on the side, Teyana Taylor’s Milan might be stirring the soup or stirring up trouble—depends on your reading.Still, it’s the spectacle outside the script that holds everyone’s attention—or maybe it’s all part of the act. Kardashian played it gleefully meta, clapping back at the chorus of jeers on Instagram: “Have you tuned in to the most critically acclaimed show of the year!?!?!” That’s knowing self-parody, the smirk of someone who’s been both punchline and power broker. Meanwhile, Glenn Close, channeling echoes of her seminal "Fatal Attraction," doodled a cast portrait gathered around a bubbling cauldron of critic bunny stew. A subtle jab, perhaps, or just the rare TV set where nobody takes the bad press too seriously.Interestingly, there’s respect beneath the camp. “She always knew her lines. She never was late. She always was prepared. She had no pretensions that she was a great actress, but she was smart enough to have people around her who she could learn from,” Close told Variety—a tidy bit of praise, and not just the party line. It’s almost literary, Kardashian’s reinvention: a pop culture mainstay who famously couldn’t pass the bar, cast as a legal Svengali on a show that critics beat up—only for the whole thing to go viral anyway. The fourth wall fell over and nobody bothered to pick it up.Behind the scenes, the series owed its existence to a dinner, not a pitch deck. Disney’s Dana Walden spun together Murphy and Kris Jenner, with Murphy supposedly proposing a reality riff, Jenner countering with the sharper “Why not scripted?” gambit—a classic dealmaker move. That scene, if it ever gets dramatized, will probably play itself in the show’s third season, with four angles, two flashbacks, and a voice-over.All season, there was the sense of something odd afoot. Hulu waved off critical headwinds and hit “renew” before the finale. Production for round two begins in spring 2026—no matter what reviewers scrawl in their notes. Don’t expect a reversal of fortune from the gatekeepers; that’s not part of the script.In an era where “prestige TV” once seemed to set the tone, "All’s Fair" barrels ahead with a different promise: take the jeers, toss them in the blender with wild viewership stats, toast the meme economy, and serve the frothy result cold. Spectacle over substance? Maybe. But something about the deliberate audacity feels, in its upside-down way, perfectly of this moment—a bit like Kardashian herself.Streaming, as 2025 rolls in, isn’t about critical consensus; it’s about who can dominate the conversation, meme the loudest, and ride out controversy until it’s just more free PR. The jury’s not out—they’re binging. Love it, hate it, meme it, ignore it at your cultural peril. Like it or not, this show’s going nowhere.A new year, another season. In television as in life, sometimes the court of public opinion is merciless—but every once in a while, it returns a verdict nobody saw coming.