All’s Fair Season 2: Cast Breaks Silence on the Brutal Season 1 Backlash
Ryan Murphy’s All’s Fair promised a scorching legal showdown; critics say it barely simmers. With a bruising Rotten Tomatoes verdict making the rounds, the cast is pushing back and arguing the series deserves its day in court.
Ryan Murphy launched a glossy, star-powered legal show and the critics greeted it with a shrug and a tomato. The cast, meanwhile, is unfazed and very publicly backing their series. It makes for a strange split: rough reviews, big viewership, and a renewal already locked.
Critics vs. audience: two totally different shows
All's Fair rolled out with hype and immediately ran into a wall of pans. The Rotten Tomatoes critics consensus even went with: "Too awful to love, too boring to war over." On paper, that should be game over. In reality, people showed up anyway. A lot of them.
- Hulu performance: Debuted at No. 1 on Hulu's Top 15 Today list the day it dropped
- Views: 3.2 million in the first three days, making it Hulu's biggest scripted series premiere in three years
- Renewal: Hulu has already ordered Season 2
- Scores: 3% on Rotten Tomatoes from critics, 66% Audience Score; 3/10 on IMDb
- Buzz: Over 10 billion related social impressions so far
- Episodes left this season: Four more to go, with one directed by Anthony Hemingway
The cast is not rattled
Teyana Taylor told Variety she’s thrilled about the audience turnout, genuinely likes her coworkers, and thinks people should give the show time to find its groove. Her biggest point was simple:
"It’s our first season. Give us a little bit of grace."
She also called out the 'sisterhood' on set and said she’s excited to see the characters grow. The gist: everyone’s entitled to an opinion, and the team is fine either way.
Kim Kardashian took a different route: full-on cheeky. She posted an Instagram carousel mixing good pull quotes with the bad, including the show’s 0% Rotten Tomatoes debut slide, and captioned it: "Have you tuned in to the most critically acclaimed show of the year?!?!?" If unbothered had a face, that would be it.
The director’s defense: taste is taste
Director/producer Anthony Hemingway kept it blunt in The Hollywood Reporter: you simply cannot please everybody. He argued that while some viewers have complaints, plenty of others are having a great time, and the show is deliberately pitched as entertainment first. His read is that All's Fair reflects back whatever you bring to it: if it connects, great; if it doesn’t, that’s fine too. Not everything needs to be for everyone.
So why a Season 2 already?
Because the numbers justify it. Hulu’s not in the business of renewing shows nobody is watching, and All's Fair clearly found an audience despite the critical pile-on. The early data looks strong, the social chatter is enormous, and the streamer loves a buzzy hit led by Kim Kardashian. The divergence here is messy, but the math isn’t.
Where things stand
Season 1 is still rolling with four episodes left. The show comes from Ryan Murphy, Jon Robin Baitz, and Joe Baken, produced by Ryan Murphy Productions, Kris Jenner Productions, and 20th Television. The critical drubbing is real. The viewing is also real. And Hulu just turned the key for another round.
All's Fair is streaming now on Hulu.