LAST NIGHT AFTER dinner with friends, I came home and snuggled with my small dog to watch the first three episodes of Ryan Murphy’s All’s Fair on Hulu—a legal drama about women divorce attorneys representing women clients. Despite serious star power (Glenn Close, Naomi Watts, Sarah Paulson, Kim Kardashian, Niecy Nash, Teyana Taylor) and some stunning jewels, this campy, poorly written show felt like Dynasty and Dallas without the shoulder pads and male-dominated storylines. It also skewed kitschy—think Charlie’s Angels with Birkin bags and designer labels instead of iconic hairstyles, jeans, and fun escapist action.
I barely made it through two episodes. Watching actresses I admire struggle with dialogue that’s neither witty nor dramatic — and characters that never become relatable — was tough. The timely topics of divorce and women helping women could have been perfect for the chameleon acting abilities of Close, Watts and Paulson but falls short due to the show’s general soap opera style.
What didn’t fall short? The jewelry and all the conversation about shiny, sparkly adornments.
In Episode 1, Kardashian wears a jaw-dropping Pasquale Bruni Goddess Garden statement necklace, diamond earrings and ring totaling 40 carats of diamonds and approximately 20 carats of emeralds for an anniversary dinner with her hunk of a husband (played by Matthew Noszka) who pretends he forgot and then presents her with a blingy ring that she exclaims was Elizabeth Taylor’s. As any jewelry aficionado knows, Kardashian is a huge fan of the beloved actress and has bought Taylor’s jewels at auction and wore a pair of Taylor’s girandole diamond earrings (owned by Lorraine Schwartz) at the Balenciaga runway show in June 2025. This wink is one of the highlights in the episode.
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Screenshots from the video below:
Verdura flower brooch
Watts trying on a Jacob & Co. ring
Watts and Light sitting among trays of jewelry
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Then we have daytime soap queen Judith Light’s guest appearance as a woman trying to get a divorce but who has signed an iron-clad prenup. Watts’ character asks if she has jewelry and is brought into a closet and they sit among trays of jewelry to which Watts’ character remarks, “I thought there would be a few pieces but I wasn’t exactly expecting Ali Baba’s cave.” Watts then picks up and identifies a vintage Verdura brooch, which I used in my book The Modern Guide to Vintage Jewellery — a flower motif with pink topaz, aquamarine, diamond, emerald and platinum. Then she touches a diamond heart and asks “Fred Leighton?” and then slips on her finger, what she notes is a Jacob & Co. ring? It’s a dazzling jewelry scene, Watts tells Light’s character that gifts are personal property which she can do with what she wants and informs her that she can probably get around $40 million at auction, perhaps a nod to Christie’s “2006 Magnificient Jewels From the Collection of Ellen Barkin” after her divorce from Ron Pearlman?
But then in Episode 2 when the lawyers attend the auction of their client — either something got cut from the scene, there was a continuity issue, or there was a major faux pas with dialogue. The lawyers all say the want to bid on the JAR brooch. Follow me here. When the one brooch comes up on the auction block, the auctioneer refers to it as the floral Verdura brooch (which it is) and then later on in a scene with Glenn Close’s character refers to it as JAR again.
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As a jewelry enthusiast, these scenes stand out in the first two episodes of the series which otherwise had me shaking my head and asking “really, really?” And it seems I am not alone. In researching reviews while writing this, the first three (of 11) episodes have been panned in numerous media outlets, making me also wonder if this is the new show that people will love to hate? I have seen stills of the characters in some striking jewelry so I will probably continue to watch to get a more close-up look. I will go back and watch Episode 3 and then the next one on November 11. Have you seen the first three episodes? What are your thoughts?
