Earlier than the Kardashian Fan Membership comes at me, please hear this: I needed to love All’s Honest. I actually did. The forged — Sarah Paulson, Glenn Shut, Naomi Watts, Niecy Nash, Judith Gentle, Ed O’Neill — is unbelievable. Plus, it’s produced by Ryan Murphy, whose work I sometimes can’t get sufficient of.
However this ain’t it, mates.
As an leisure editor, I watch loads (learn: in all probability an excessive amount of) TV. Some good, some unhealthy. Hardly ever do I battle as a lot to get by way of the primary three episodes as I did with All’s Honest.
ICYMI, the sequence follows a staff of feminine divorce attorneys who go away a male-dominated agency to open their very own apply. In response to the official synopsis, “Fierce, good and emotionally difficult, they navigate high-stakes breakups, scandalous secrets and techniques and shifting allegiances — each within the courtroom and inside their very own ranks. In a world the place cash talks and love is a battleground, these ladies don’t simply play the sport; they modify it.”
Ermm… OK.
It is prefer it needs to be the feminist model of Fits meets Succession, with a bit Intercourse and the Metropolis thrown in for good measure, but it surely performs extra like a business for the .01%. And watching it proper now feels downright dystopian: We’re within the midst of the longest government shutdown in U.S. historical past, SNAP benefits are being withheld, housing costs are uncontrolled, and grocery sticker shock is our new actuality.
How did nobody concerned right here learn the f*cking room to understand how atrocious the timing is for a present like this?
To Kardashian’s credit score, you possibly can inform she’s doing her greatest. She in all probability invested in some appearing courses, which could do positive in different settings, however when she’s sharing scenes with all-stars like Sarah Paulson and Glenn Shut, it’s clear she’s out of her depth. It pulls the standard of the others’ appearing down, too. They’re making an attempt to fulfill her the place she’s at, and it reveals.
Even when that weren’t the case, the writing doesn’t assist. The sequence smothers its actual expertise beneath layers of designer sheen and vapid storylines. As one reviewer so aptly put it, “It’s a patchwork of clichés.” All’s Honest tries to promote itself as a win for girls, but it surely’s actually simply capitalism in a pastel energy swimsuit. It is giving “sponsored content material” beneath the guise of “girlboss power.”
I’ve seen some protection of the sequence on social media that claims the present is nice as a result of it isn’t afraid to be unhealthy, however I strongly disagree. A part of what makes the present so laughable is that you may inform they haven’t any actual notion of how ridiculous all of it comes off. I can do excessive camp if it is aware of it’s excessive camp; simply don’t give me excessive camp and attempt to persuade me it’s excessive class.
Exhibits like Succession and Billions concerning the super-rich work as a result of they provide a intelligent, skewering cross-examination of wealth. They lean into the inherent absurdity of getting such an obscene amount of cash. All’s Honest unironically worships it. It fails to really critique the world that it glamorizes.
The result’s a present that’s drenched in tone-deaf opulence, fully out of contact with the second we’re dwelling in — a time when most of us are stressing over how one can hold meals on the desk, not questioning which Birkin bag to deliver to work. Watching this sort of wealth porn proper now simply feels gross.
All’s Honest clearly has price range. It has A-list stars and shiny advertising and mega-mansions with closets stuffed with couture. What it doesn’t have is a degree, or the self-awareness to understand that extra doesn’t equal empowerment.
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