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Is Kim Kardashian’s Trashy TV Show Actually Brilliant?

Everything we can’t stop loving, hating, and thinking about this week in pop culture.

This Week:

I’m Having a Crisis about Kim K.’s Terrible TV Show

It is the most haunting thought a person can have. The notion alone can send them careening down a black hole of existentialism from which it may be impossible to climb back. It could decimate a person’s confidence and self-worth, turning any presumption they held of a life’s purpose into smithereens of obsolescence and patheticness.

I confronted that thought this week: What if I was……….wrong?

I shrieked again just typing that. Absolutely traumatizing.

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You won’t believe what forced this tailspin this week. I couldn’t believe it myself: I found myself considering that the abomination of a television series All’s Fair, which stars Kim Kardashian, Naomi Watts, Niecy Nash-Betts, and Glenn Close and notoriously earned a 0 percent Rotten Tomatoes score, might actually be good.

It couldn’t be possible. I watched the first season, and wrote what may be the most vicious pan of a TV show I’ve ever published.

“There’s a level of badness to the show that is so astonishing that it feels almost invigorating to watch, a full-body reaction of disbelief that is so intense it’s possibly electric,” I wrote. “It is a nadir of storytelling so deep in the basement that you wonder what innovation had to take place in order to excavate down to such an unexplored layer of the earth.”

The show was that bad!

It went on, however, to become a huge hit for Hulu, and its cast became glamourpuss folk heroes victoriously trumpeting that it’s what the people, not the cranky critics, think that matters. Now, it’s back for Season 2, with a new phenomenon as an accessory. Clips from the show have repeatedly gone viral, each one more unbelievably outlandish and, yet, funnier than the last. I found myself enjoying them. I was laughing—quite hard, actually. Had I completely misjudged this show?

It is deranged new levels of Ryan Murphy madness that had yet to be unleashed.

In one clip, Denise Richards plays a woman in a contentious divorce proceeding who is accused of using peanut butter to coerce her dog to be, um, “intimate” with her. In another, Sarah Paulson recounts that she was supposed to be on one of the 9/11 planes, the missing Malaysia Airlines flight, the plane Captain Sully landed in the Hudson, and that her great-grandmother is Amelia Earhart. At one point, she bellows in a flashback, “May 9/11 forever be known as the day the airlines failed me!”

There’s this delicious spat between Paulson and Glenn Close. Then there’s this line delivery from Nash-Betts that had me cackling out loud for a full minute.

Many of these scenes that have gone viral are, of course, tasteless—but, somehow, in a way that circles back to provocative. Or, at least, interesting, which is more than could be said about any of the vapid drivel that I watched when reviewing Season 1.

Bravely, then, summoning the courage that I might have to admit I was mistaken, I started watching Season 2, ready to discover the show had gotten good. Well, if not good, then at least fun.

And, nope! Not at all. Oh boy, am I vindicated. All’s Fair is still unbearably tedious, a morose pageant of actors swanning around listlessly in garish couture, so incapable of summoning the energy of camp that even the preposterous dialogue and girl-power clichés fizzle like a match tossed in a dirty sidewalk puddle.

These scenes that I saw on social media do exist, of course, and there are several of them in an episode. But they hardly absolve the sins of a series in which it is astonishingly impossible to become invested in any character or storyline, because everything is so thinly written.

I’m intrigued, then, by what has become of All’s Fair. It’s rather brilliant, while also upsettingly dystopian. The show has become incredible entertainment in the precise way I had consumed it: clipped scenes, posted online with no context, meant to be enjoyed as short bursts of standalone delights without it mattering whether or not you actually ventured to watch the full series after.

It’s so cynical: ensuring that awareness of and buzz about the series remains high, regardless of whether anyone invests in an episode’s full running time. The series has landed on a new channel for pop-culture influence. Whether it’s purposeful or not, I’m not sure. But, hell, it’s certainly working.

The Doctors Are In (Again)

I was filling out paperwork at a doctor’s appointment this week, and when I got to the question asking if I had any allergies, I considered putting “TV reboots.”

Obviously, that didn’t happen.

Could you imagine if I pretended I really had that thought while sitting in a doctor’s office? I’m a fairly ridiculous person, sure, but there’s a line.

Still, I needed to figure out a way to introduce this take on the TV reboot of Scrubs, and, with the hospital setting of it all, that dumb story is what I came up with.

I wanted to make the point that, typically, I can’t stand these revivals. Even when they’re not total disasters, they tend to be a creative shell of what the original series was, having the effect of souring the legacy and nostalgia for fans.

I also, to continue the medical speak, have self-diagnosed myself with a harrowing ailment: hypocrititis. Despite my general rule of finding reboots lazy and bad, I make exceptions when it’s a show I love. (Girls 2.0, I can’t wait for you!) And so, it’s a medical television miracle that the Scrubs reboot is as great as it is.

Scrubs returned to ABC after 16 years last fall. It turned out to be perfectly timed.

In those years since the quirky doctors with tangled love lives and open hearts were last on TV, Scrubs’ creator, Bill Lawrence, became somewhat of an industry juggernaut. Not only did Lawrence’s shows like Ted Lasso and Shrinking become massive successes, but they did so by channeling the warm, sentimental comedic tone that Scrubs perfected almost two decades earlier. It made total sense for Scrubs to be back now; there’s an audience obsessed with the kind of vibes the series always had.

The Scrubs revival is smart to keep the focus on J.D. (Zach Braff), Elliot (Sarah Chalke), Turk (Donald Faison), and Carla (Judy Reyes), rather than reboot entirely around a younger cast—though the new interns are occasionally engaging.

It’s remarkable how the series manages to lean into these characters’ rich history without being navel-gazing or overrelying on past gags. There’s rich material to mine from today’s broken healthcare system and how it affects these doctors, who have always been over-involved with their patients. The writers and actors have done an incredible job of believably showing how much these characters have matured while still keeping hints of the neuroses that endeared them to fans.

If I could write myself a prescription—we’re all going to be glad once this piece is over and I’ll stop with this doctor speak—for how to wind down at the end of the day, it’s a show with a bunch of weirdos who feel like a kind of found family I’d like to be a part of, who make me giggle and then, in the end, give me a cathartic cry. That’s exactly what the Scrubs reboot is delivering.

Where Does RHOC Go From Here?

The milestone 20th anniversary season of The Real Housewives of Orange County—the franchise that launched a Bravo phenomenon—is officially over, and some fans have told me that they think the series itself should also be over, for good.

The argument is that the drama wasn’t explosive enough, some cast members didn’t have particularly exciting storylines, and returning original Housewife Vicki’s behavior was erratic and disengaged. I guess I can see all those points, but I actually really enjoyed this season.

It felt like a throwback to the start of Real Housewives, when casts, save for chaotic blips and quickly resolved arguments, generally got along. Also, when there are currently so many Real Housewives franchises airing and in production, I found the RHOC vibes refreshing. Not every city needs to have Real Housewives of Salt Lake City’s dark drama, Beverly Hills’ constant bickering, or Rhode Island’s outrageousness.

In the same way that the new season of New York City is a treat because it’s so funny, I think it’s a nice respite to watch RHOC and have its tone be so distinct—and, because so much of the cast has been around for so long, so distinctly OC.

Plus, I find cranky Vicki entertaining! Often, I find her relatable, too. Sometimes people are too loud and annoying, and sometimes you’re tired and don’t want to go to unfun parties. I get it!

I think the show should do another season with this cast. It’s an unpopular desire among fans, but in the immortal words of Tamra Judge, “THAT’S MY OPINION!”

Justice for ScarJo

The new mob thriller/family drama Paper Tiger hits theaters this weekend, starring Adam Driver, Miles Teller, and Scarlett Johansson. The movie itself is a bit like light The Godfather cosplay: Driver’s corrupt cop gets his brother, played by Teller, involved in a get-rich scheme that entangles him with the mob and puts crosshairs on his family.

In the middle of all this, and seemingly out of nowhere, is this incredible plot line featuring a truly captivating Scarlett Johansson performance. Everything that happens to her and the big secret she keeps is entirely random, as if plopped in from a different film, just as her thick Queens-by-way-of-Long Island accent is hers alone; no one else in the movie attempts it.

It’s such a great performance, lost in a meandering film. Give me the spinoff!

This Is High Art

I haven’t the slightest idea what on God’s good Earth is going on in this clip of Tyra Banks on the Today show, but I did watch it on loop for a full hour and have spent the rest of the week randomly quoting it. It has incepted my brain. Please, help.

More From The Daily Beast’s Obsessed

Kurt from Glee himself, Chris Colfer, chatted with me about his thoughts on the upcoming reboot. Watch here.

Now that Law & Order: SVU aired its 600th episode—my God!—its showrunner talks about its legacy. Read more.

Ridiculous backlash season has begun, now that the Oscar race is heating up, and I won’t stand for it! Read more.

What to Watch This Week:

Heartland: Jessica Chastain in a cowboy hat, singing country music and solving mysteries. OK! (Now on Netflix)

Victorian Psycho: Ever wonder what Patrick Bateman would be like in a bonnet? (Now in theaters)

Everest: The Other Side: I just watched this documentary, and I don’t think my jaw left the floor the entire running time. (Now in theaters)

What to Skip This Week:

Ebenezer: What if we all just ignored this blatant Johnny Depp comeback attempt? (Now in theaters)

How to Rob a Bank: “A Robin Hood tale for the TikTok generation.” No thanks! (Now in theaters)

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Kevin FallonEditor-at-Large, Obsessed

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