Ryan Murphy, the mastermind behind American Horror Story‘s campy horrors and The Politician‘s satirical bite, has always thrived on excess—over-the-top twists, glittering ensembles, and a gleeful disdain for subtlety—but his latest Hulu venture, All’s Fair, squanders that signature flair in a tepid tale of legal intrigue and marital mayhem that feels less like a divorce courtroom thriller and more like a glossy infomercial for high-end alimony, starring Kim Kardashian as Allura Grant, the impeccably coiffed head of an all-female LA law firm that champions scorned spouses with the ferocity of a tabloid headline, yet delivers dialogue so stiff it could star in its own starch commercial.

The premise, penned by Murphy and co-creator Brad Falchuk, holds promise: Allura, a beautiful, powerful, and filthy rich attorney at Grant, Ronson, Greene & Associates, specializes in high-profile divorces for women, her life a whirlwind of depositions, designer power suits, and the kind of unapologetic feminism that would make Gloria Steinem nod approvingly—until her own husband, a slick tech mogul, bails for a younger flame and hires her arch-nemesis, the impeccably venomous Margaret Ronson (Sarah Paulson, straight from American Horror Story‘s wardrobe of wardrobe malfunctions), turning Allura’s world into a vicious cycle of courtroom catfights and cocktail-fueled vendettas that should simmer with the intensity of a Big Little Lies beach bonfire, but instead simmers like overboiled tea, tepid and forgettable.

Kardashian, 45, steps into her first scripted lead with the poise of someone who’s spent years perfecting the art of scripted spontaneity on Keeping Up with the Kardashians, her Allura a vision of calculated glamour—long legs striding through marble lobbies, red lips curling into predatory smirks—but the performance, while earnest, lacks the spark to elevate the trite tropes; she’s beautiful, yes, but bland, her line deliveries landing with the thud of a designer heel on linoleum, a sincerity that’s touching but insufficient to carry a show that demands more than a pretty face and a pedigree of reality TV savvy. Surrounding her is a dream cast squandered in a fever dream of formula: Naomi Watts as the firm’s icy strategist, her Oscar-winning gravitas reduced to quips about prenups; Niecy Nash-Betts as the sassy underdog attorney, her comedic timing muffled by material that feels like it was generated by an AI with a grudge against punchlines; and Glenn Close as the enigmatic senior partner, her commanding presence a beacon in the fog, yet even she can’t salvage scenes that play like a bad Legally Blonde reboot, where every divorce is a diva-off and every deposition a diva-down.

The writing, a Murphy-Falchuk hallmark of melodrama laced with social commentary, aims to skewer patriarchal privilege and the commodification of marriage, but it lands with the subtlety of a prenup in a soap opera, the “abysmal” dialogue coiling like a snake eating its own tail—cheesy one moment, horrendous the next, a ChatGPT fever dream filtered through a naughty lens that promises feminist fire but delivers feminist fizzles, where women in power suits trade barbs that could have been scripted by a disgruntled ex-intern. Sutter’s “hit-or-miss” record rears its head here, the series’ glossy production values—cinematography by Jan Kiesser evoking the sun-drenched deceit of LA’s underbelly—unable to mask the narrative’s narrative flab, a frenzy of frenzied feuds and fractured families that frays under scrutiny and fails to forge the emotional forge that Murphy’s best work wields like a weapon.

Yet, in its sincerest moments—Kardashian’s vulnerable breakdown over a lost custody battle, Watts’ steely soliloquy on the cost of ambition—the show glimpses the potency of its premise, a frantic feminist fable that, if honed, could have howled with the ferocity of The Morning Show. As it stands, All’s Fair is a divorce from delight, a bland divorcee of a drama where the only high-profile split is between promise and delivery, leaving viewers to wonder if the real custody battle is for our attention in a year stacked with sharper scandals. For Kardashian, it’s a bold step from reality to reel, but one that reminds us: Not every lead shines; some just sparkle under the wrong lights.