The fact that Kim Kardashian was given top billing on "All's Fair" has garnered much attention, and I have to agree that there is a more deserving recipient of that status: the hats. The real star of the show isn't any of the esteemed actresses listed below Kim on the call sheet, but rather the exquisite hats that the costume department adorns them with. Everything that transpires in terms of character development and plot progression on this show is simply a vehicle for these hats to shine, and they do so brilliantly - particularly on the head of Emerald Greene (played by Niecy Nash-Betts), who wears what feels like dozens of large fedoras throughout this episode alone.
She is also the central figure of this week's story. As we know, Emerald has no interest in finding a partner, instead valuing her lavish solo nights, such as the one we see her have at the beginning of the episode with caviar and vibrators (which sounds like the title of a Real Housewife's dance single). Despite the fact that everyone in her life, from her sons to her co-workers, keeps insisting that she get out there and start dating, the women at the firm even encourage her to go to a friend's singles mixer over one of their "Sex and the City" lunches in that bizarre, windowless break room. It looks like the turret from "The Traitors" if it was designed by Nate Berkus.
Allura even takes her shopping for the occasion, and it's here where I notice one of Kim's strengths as an actress - her fake laugh. Kim is plagued by one of the classic ailments facing beautiful people: a weird, honk-like laugh. We know this via years of watching her on reality television, but thus far what I'm most impressed by on this show is her ability to bring forth that genuine laugh anytime Allura has a chuckle of her own. It's also one of the few times that the otherwise flat Allura feels like a real person.
With the encouragement of her girlfriends, Emerald heads out to the mixer, dressed so glam that her weird 25-year-old high-school sons tell her she looks "bangable." But it's at this mixer that the episode takes a dark turn. Emerald arrives, spots a suitor from across the room, they start to have a nice night, and then something bad happens. "Everybody Dance Now" comes on, but no, that's not the bad thing. It's then that Emerald begins to black out, and it becomes apparent that she was drugged. We cut to her waking up the next day with ripped, bloodied stockings as she has spotty flashbacks of fighting this man off. As these disturbing flashbacks play out, depicting an attempted rape, the show bizarrely decides to keep playing "Everybody Dance Now." It even doubles down on the song by making it the title of the episode. Yet again, I can't believe that this is a real television show.
As she struggles to piece together the fragments of her life, she turns to her friends and colleagues for support, both as she endeavors to seek justice and in the midst of her own trauma. However, even amidst this turmoil, they have cases to work on. This week's client is Cheryl Goodfader (played by the talented Jennifer Jason Leigh), a successful tech entrepreneur whose husband is attempting to drain her financially in their divorce because she refused to conceive a child for him. The choice of "Goodfader" as a name for a man who wanted a child is truly out of this world, but the problem with this show's case-of-the-week format is that the cases themselves are often the least interesting part of the episode. They're either too mundane to care about, or when they do become interesting, we breeze through them so quickly that we don't even have time to get invested. We have Jennifer Jason Leigh here, the woman whose real divorce inspired Marriage Story, and we're wasting her on this anti-climactic dud of a case? This entire dispute about wanting kids versus not wanting kids is meant to hold up a mirror to Allura's own secret insemination that she did without her ex's consent. That secret isn't even explicitly brought up, but at one point she pensively holds her stomach, which is this show's code for "pregnant."
One bright spot in this case, however, is that Mr. Goodfader is being represented by America's Sweetheart, Carrington Lane. After greeting Allura and Emerald with endearing nicknames like "Beef Curtains" and "Black Mae West" (all she's missing is a track suit and slushie to throw), Carrington explains to them that her leverage is Cheryl's secret abortion ten years ago. But before things can get messy, the case is wrapped up in a neat little bow after Mr. Goodfader gets his new girlfriend pregnant. With his dream coming true elsewhere, he has no need to punish his ex anymore and drops the case. I wonder if any of these cases will ever make it to an actual courtroom, or if production can't afford a courtroom set after blowing the budget on various fireplaces.
Meanwhile, Emerald is focused on tracking down her attacker with the help of the other women. Though they keep hitting dead ends, she eventually gets a text from an unknown number with photos of her bound and gagged. Allura cleans up the images and one of them reveals an envelope with an address on it. They're able to identify the man, and it's revealed that his father killed himself after Dina went after him for a Ponzi scheme — meaning this attack may have been just the first step in getting revenge. With this information in hand, Emerald goes to meet up with her old police partner at a classic detective meet-up spot: an empty parking lot with parked driver's-side windows facing each other. Best of all, this former partner is played by Cedric Yarbrough, who played Deputy Sven Jones on Reno 911! alongside Nash-Betts as Deputy Raineesha Williams. If only the hair department had brought back Raineesha's sideburns for the occasion. Unfortunately, he seems to be playing just as bad of a cop as he did on Reno 911!, because he breaks it to her that there isn't enough evidence for them to take any action.
However, in a later turn of events, he appears at the law firm with a shocking revelation: the man who drugged and attacked Emerald has been found dead, with a single gunshot wound to the head suggesting suicide. But he cautions her that until a homicide investigation is ruled out, she should expect to hear from the investigators. But if it was murder, who could it be?
Up until now, every twist in this show has been painfully predictable, almost as if designed to be a cliché. Given that we just saw Emerald confide in her triplets about the attack, one might assume that one of them took justice into their own hands. But even that seems too obvious for this show, especially since Emerald herself entertains the same thought upon returning home. She confronts her brothers directly, all of whom deny involvement and offer varying degrees of alibis.
The person I find most intriguing as a potential killer is Dina Standish. After all, she likely feels a sense of responsibility given that her case brought about this attack (and Emerald seems to agree, as seen in her sharp response at the end of the episode). But is this show interesting enough to give Glenn Close a gun and make one of its leads a revenge killer? Or will it go with the obvious choice and make the one triplet who was alone that night watching YouTube videos the perpetrator? Or worse—what if after all this, it turns out to have just been a suicide? Given this show's tendency for the anti-climactic, that would be the safest bet. In any case, I hope the investigation requires the expertise of a full team of detectives played by Kerri Kenney-Silver, Thomas Lennon, and Wendi McLendon-Covey.
