All’s Fair Season 2: Glamour, Grudges and the Scorpio Ball

Published November 5, 2026 · A spoiler-free review of episodes one through three only.

All’s Fair is not a quiet show. It arrives in satin, diamonds, sharp insults and grand declarations. The first three episodes of season two keep that heightened style, but beneath the fashion and the feuds, they circle a more grounded question: what does it mean to be a good friend, a good mentor or a good person when no one is willing to tell you the truth?

The new season opened with three episodes on November 4. Grant, Ronson & Greene—the all-female divorce firm at the centre of the series—has money, influence and a very polished public image. Its partners are less certain about how to handle the private tensions between them. The show’s season description places those relationships at the heart of the story: changing loyalties test the women’s friendships as well as the firm they built together. (Disney+ season guide)

There’s a special birthday detail tucked into that launch date. November 4 is co-creator Jon Robin Baitz’s birthday. Fellow co-creator Ryan Murphy’s birthday is November 9, and executive producer Kris Jenner’s is November 5. Those dates all fall under Scorpio. The season premiered on Baitz’s birthday, and the opening episode’s Scorpio Ball arrives in a week surrounded by birthdays for several of the people behind the series. (Hulu lists the creators and executive producers; Playbill on Baitz; Television Academy on Murphy; Biography on Jenner)

I watched only the first three episodes, so this review stays with that opening stretch and avoids later-season developments. My favourite parts were not necessarily the most realistic ones. They were the moments when the larger-than-life characters let their pride slip long enough for something honest to come through.

The Scorpio Ball sets the season’s mood

The first episode is called “The Scorpio Ball,” and that title is more than a party theme. Allura’s celebration gives the season an opening image that feels entirely All’s Fair: a room full of extravagant clothes, old grudges, powerful women and just enough danger to make the glamour feel unstable.

There’s real fashion and pop-culture history behind the idea. The Scorpio Ball draws on Grace Kelly’s famous 40th-birthday party in Monaco, a scorpion-themed event where Elizabeth Taylor wore a dramatic scorpion-adorned cape. Ryan Murphy heard the story and built an episode around Allura hosting her own version. Kim Kardashian later wore the original cape, which belongs to Kris Jenner, to the season’s Rome premiere. (The Zoe Report on the Scorpio Ball’s fashion history)

That connection makes the episode feel like a conversation between fiction and real-life celebrity mythology. The show borrows the glamour of a legendary party, adds its own fictional drama, then brings the original garment back onto the red carpet. It is a very All’s Fair way to tell a story: fashion is never just decoration. It becomes status, memory, competition and a way of announcing who belongs in the room.

The zodiac detail has a fitting real-world echo, too. Baitz’s birthday falls on the premiere date; Murphy’s and Jenner’s birthdays are just days away. It’s a striking cluster for a season opening with a Scorpio Ball. In popular astrology, Scorpio is associated with intensity, loyalty, secrecy, control and transformation. Those qualities suit a story about women who have built powerful public identities while carrying private resentments. The ball is beautiful, but it is also a pressure cooker. Everyone arrives with a version of herself she wants the room to see.

That, to me, is where the theme works best: not as a zodiac lesson, but as a visual language for the season. Allura wants to own the night. Carr wants to unsettle it. Dina wants to make peace. Liberty is trying to move forward as herself. Emerald brings her own world into the room. Milan is stepping into a new professional chapter. One event brings those different ambitions together—and the show’s familiar chaos follows.

Allura: glamour and the limits of control

Kim Kardashian’s Allura is the centre of the firm’s orbit. She is polished, composed and accustomed to making decisions. The season’s opening gives her the kind of lavish celebration that suits her public image, but it also places that image under pressure. For all the security and luxury around her, Allura cannot simply arrange the world into a shape that feels safe.

That contrast is one of the more promising ideas in the first three episodes. Allura has built a life that appears to offer control: a successful firm, an impressive home, a devoted circle and the ability to throw a party that feels like an event in its own right. Yet professional status does not answer every private worry. She can be the person others look to for direction and still need help herself.

The show sometimes moves past that vulnerability quickly. It likes the next entrance, the next reveal, the next sharp line. But when it pauses to let Allura’s confidence and uncertainty coexist, she becomes more than the commanding figure in the room. She becomes a woman learning that independence and invulnerability are not the same thing.

Allura’s role also raises a question about what the firm’s success stands for. The women have built a business around helping clients through painful transitions. They know how to make arguments, spot leverage and win. Their own relationships are less tidy. The first three episodes enjoy that contrast: they are experts at navigating other people’s breakups, while their own friendships require a different kind of attention.

Dina, Carr, forgiveness and accountability

Glenn Close’s Dina carries the authority of a mentor, but the early episodes give her a more tender concern: she wants to make peace with Carr. Her offer of forgiveness is one of the most interesting moments in the opening batch because forgiveness is not automatically comforting to the person receiving it.

That idea stayed with me. Dina may be ready to let go of the conflict, but Carr does not receive the gesture as a simple kindness. Forgiveness cannot rewind what happened, and it cannot demand that the hurt person feel grateful or move on at the same pace as the person offering it. The scene has room for both Dina’s sincerity and Carr’s resistance.

It also opens the door to the question I wanted the season to explore more deeply: can people who are used to being praised for their goodness recognise when they have hurt someone? It is easy to believe that being well-liked, generous or respected means we must be treating everyone well. But sometimes people around us are not honest enough to say how our choices affected them. A good reputation can become a shield against self-reflection.

That does not make Carr innocent. Sarah Paulson’s Carrington “Carr” Lane is written to disrupt the room. She has a talent for finding the insecurity underneath someone’s polished surface, then pushing directly on it. Her wit can be funny; her insults can also be cruel. What I enjoyed most was Carr speaking plainly about her own lack of affection and empathy. It is not a charming confession. She is naming a part of herself that most people would try to soften or explain away. That honesty gives her more dimension than the person who simply likes making everyone else uncomfortable.

The series hints that there is pain underneath the hostility. That context matters, but it should not function as a free pass. Understanding why someone became guarded or unkind is different from saying their actions do not hurt people. Carr needs to be accountable for the way she treats others, and the other women need to consider the ways their choices shape the relationships around them.

That is why the group’s treatment of Carr did not always work for me. There are moments when the women seem to attack her as a unit, and the scene becomes less about accountability than about deciding who is the problem. The show has already raised a more thoughtful possibility: that people can hurt one another without seeing themselves as hurtful. It should apply that idea to the entire group.

A better version of this conflict would let each woman name what Carr has done while also asking what she herself might have missed, enabled or avoided. That would not require the women to excuse Carr. It would make their friendship feel more adult and more honest. Accountability is strongest when it is not reserved for the person everyone already expects to be difficult.

Liberty: reinvention and the right to be fully herself

Naomi Watts’s Liberty brings a different energy to the ensemble. She often has a dry wit and an observant presence, but the first three episodes also make room for her to consider what she wants from her personal life. Her story touches on identity, change and the courage it can take to let other people see a part of yourself you may have kept quiet.

I appreciated that reinvention is allowed to be imperfect. Starting over is often presented as a triumphant montage, but real change can be awkward. It can mean disappointing people who have grown comfortable with the version of you they already know. It can mean trying something new without knowing exactly where it will lead.

Liberty’s evolving connection with Carr adds an unexpected tension to the group. It shows that intimacy and conflict do not always follow the neat boundaries we would like. Someone can be frustrating and still have a quality that draws you in. Someone can be vulnerable with you in one moment and hurtful in another. The show is more compelling when it allows those contradictions to remain unresolved for a while.

Liberty also serves as a reminder that the group is not simply a collection of personalities orbiting Allura. Each woman has a life beyond the firm. The series’ strongest scenes are those that let Liberty’s choices belong to her—not merely act as a reaction to Carr or a subplot for someone else.

Emerald and Milan: success, family and representation

Niecy Nash-Betts gives Emerald a generous, grounded presence. Emerald’s family life brings warmth into a show often dominated by high-profile clients, luxury spaces and elaborate social events. Her confidence is part of her appeal, but the episodes also suggest that being the dependable one can come with its own cost. Women who are used to supporting others may need to ask whether they have made room for their own ambitions and needs.

I also want to be clear about what did not work for me in some of the show’s scenes around Black excellence. The idea of celebrating Black achievement is not the problem. I welcome stories about successful Black women, and I liked seeing Emerald’s pride in her family and community. What sometimes felt off was the delivery: a few moments seemed so carefully arranged around a message that the conversation stopped sounding spontaneous.

When dialogue feels too polished, a character can start to sound like a spokesperson rather than a person. The scene tells us what to admire, but gives us less time to understand what the character herself feels. Representation is more powerful when it lets Black women be fully human—ambitious, funny, nurturing, frustrated, imperfect and complicated—rather than asking them to carry an inspirational message in every scene.

That is also why Emerald’s more personal moments matter. Her family relationships and her role in the firm can reveal more about her than a perfectly phrased line about achievement. Let her make a choice, feel conflicted, change her mind or be wrong, and the character becomes more vivid. Black excellence does not need to be made less visible; it needs room to be lived as something more than a slogan.

Teyana Taylor’s Milan is in a transitional position. She is moving forward professionally, and that gives the early episodes a chance to explore what it means to enter a workplace where the most powerful people already have long histories with one another. She is not simply watching the older women; she is becoming part of the firm’s future.

Milan’s position also connects work to family and personal history. The series has plenty of larger-than-life plot turns, but the questions underneath her story are familiar: how do you build a career while managing complicated personal relationships? How much of your past follows you into the office? How do you claim authority when other people still see you through the role you used to occupy?

I would like the show to give Milan more space as a character in her own right. She can be a bridge between the partners, but she should not only exist to connect their storylines. The first three episodes lay the groundwork for a younger professional voice in the ensemble. The season will be stronger if it lets her make decisions that shape her own direction.

Episode three brings work, food and family into the same room

The opening batch’s third episode shifts the atmosphere toward Thanksgiving. Its case of the week gives the show a chance to think about marriage, domestic work and what happens when one partner’s labour is treated as ordinary until it becomes valuable.

Margo Martindale’s Gloria Bloom adds a welcome new presence. Her character’s story is rooted in food and the work of building a business, which brings a different texture to the legal drama. Cooking can be love, creativity and identity; it can also be invisible labour that a family expects without recognising. When that work becomes a business or an asset, people who once ignored it may suddenly want a share.

That tension gives the episode a theme with real weight. Women’s work inside a home is often taken for granted, while the same skills can be praised once they generate income or public recognition. The series frames the issue with its usual comic exaggeration, but the underlying question is easy to understand: who gets credit for the work that keeps a household or a relationship running?

Food also acts as a kind of emotional shorthand for the characters. A holiday meal carries expectations about tradition, family and who gets to decide what feels “right.” The dinner table gathers people with different histories and moods into one space, where private tensions sit beside the food. It is a good setting for a show preoccupied with performance: everyone has a role to play at the table, but not everyone is comfortable with the part they have been given.

For Emerald, family is part of her character’s centre of gravity, though her independence keeps that from feeling too neat. For Milan, the push and pull between work and motherhood gives her personal history a continuing presence. Dina is thinking about companionship and what it means to stay open to new experiences. Liberty watches the dynamics around her with a sharper eye than she always lets on. Carr brings her own particular mix of provocation and vulnerability into the group.

The episode’s strength is the way those threads sit beside the central case. The weakness is that All’s Fair likes to cram a lot into a short space. A theme about domestic labour, a family gathering, several romantic complications and the ongoing tension among the lawyers all compete for attention. Sometimes the show moves so quickly that an emotional beat is only beginning to register before another one arrives.

The show’s version of sisterhood is messier than its image

The series wants to celebrate women’s power and solidarity. Its characters are successful, stylish and formidable, and the firm itself grew out of women wanting to build something on their own terms. But the first three episodes are more interesting when they show the limits of that ideal.

Sisterhood is not the same as automatic agreement. Supporting a friend does not mean excusing everything she does. It also does not mean a group gets to decide that one person is the sole source of every problem. Real loyalty can require a difficult conversation: “I care about you, and I need you to understand how that affected me.” It can also require listening when the response is uncomfortable.

This is where the series’ themes of forgiveness and accountability meet. Dina’s offer to Carr asks whether reconciliation is possible. Carr’s blunt admission asks whether she can see herself clearly. The other women’s reactions ask whether a group can challenge someone without turning her into a convenient scapegoat. The show does not need to answer all of that in three episodes, but it should let the questions breathe.

When the writing leans too hard on aspirational language, the women can seem more interested in representing empowerment than in practising it with one another. When it lets them be flawed and specific, the idea of sisterhood becomes more believable. Women can succeed professionally and still be emotionally clumsy. They can celebrate each other and also compete. They can make mistakes, repair them—or fail to—and have to live with the consequences.

A glossy, uneven start with more to say than it first appears

The first three episodes of All’s Fair are extravagant by design. The fashion, the wealth and the heightened conflicts are part of the show’s appeal. Some viewers will enjoy the sheer spectacle; others may find the tone too artificial. I found myself most engaged when the series briefly moved past the spectacle and let its characters show what they could not control.

The pacing remains uneven. The legal cases are often less convincing than the personal dynamics, and the show can move from sincerity to farce so quickly that neither gets its full effect. A few conversations feel overly correct or overly scripted, especially when the show is signalling its themes. It is at its best when it trusts the audience to understand the point through character, rather than having a character explain it aloud.

The ensemble gives it plenty to work with. Paulson’s Carr is provocative and difficult, but not empty of feeling. Close brings Dina a mix of authority and vulnerability. Nash-Betts brings warmth and force to Emerald. Watts gives Liberty a dry, shifting presence. Kardashian’s Allura has to balance command with uncertainty. Taylor’s Milan has the potential to stand more fully on her own. Martindale brings grounded wit to Gloria’s story.

My favourite thread is still the question of how people can cause pain while sincerely believing themselves to be good. Carr makes that question loud, but Dina, Allura, Liberty, Emerald and Milan each offer a different angle on it. That is the story I hope these episodes are setting up—not simply whether Carr can be forgiven, but whether these women can be honest about the ways they affect one another.

Through its first three episodes, All’s Fair is stylish, messy and often overstuffed. It is also more engaging when it lets glamour sit beside genuine vulnerability. The Scorpio Ball announces a season of intensity and reinvention; the opening episodes give that promise a few worthwhile emotional sparks. I’m curious to see whether the show will follow them with the same boldness it gives its parties.

Sources and further reading

• Disney+. All’s Fair Season 2 release, cast and story guide.
• Hulu Press. All’s Fair series page and production credits.
• Playbill. Jon Robin Baitz biography.
• Television Academy. Ryan Murphy biography.
• Biography.com. Kris Jenner biography.
• The Zoe Report. The Scorpio Ball’s fashion inspiration.