In its two-episode finale, All’s Fair drops the facade that anyone other than Carrington is our protagonist
Photo: Ser Baffo/Disney
All’s Fair is the best show on television and I’ve never said otherwise. I know, you may be thinking that my cognitive ability is declining just as much as Dina Standish’s allegedly is. But finally, in season one’s two-episode finale, this insane show clicked into place. At long last, the All’s Fair leaned in, embracing the marriage between its campy tone and absurdly soapy plot points. But what was it that finally did the trick? Was it the mention of bludgeoned genitals minutes into the episode? Or Niecy Nash-Betts orgasming during a massage on a private flight to Fashion Week? No, the moment I realized this show finally knew itself was the gratuitous scene of Carrington Lane and her gay baby daddy reciting Shirley MacLaine and Meryl Streep’s dialogue as they watched Postcards from the Edge. Hearing Sarah Paulson as Carrington screech, “I did not lift my skirt, it TWIRLED UP,” isn’t just representation, it’s perfect television.
But another reason this show has finally found its groove is because it’s dropped the facade that anyone other than Carrington is our protagonist. I’ve known this from the minute we met her, but now, finally, the show officially hands over the reins by making Carr’s story the one that we follow through this finale. But before we get to the plotting she’s doing career-wise, Sebastian asks her about her dating life and tells her he pictures her with a Hugh Grant or Hugh Laurie type. “People named Hugh are, 90 percent of the time, swishy queens,” she says, a line of dialogue that I think we should all sit with. Instead, she says, her most recent person of interest is Chase Munroe, whom she says reminds her of her first crush: Jesus Christ. “I used to rub one out to Jesus,” she says. “Sunday school was my steam room.” Do you now understand why this show skyrocketed to five stars?
Given this divine crush, Sebastian gives Carr a new mission, daring her to see it through and sleep with Chase. He may still be determined to win back Allura, but luckily for Carr, it’s not that difficult to get a sex addict to sleep with you. So she successfully summons him back to her office for what she calls, “Inserting that big hard dick of yours into my lady hoo-ha.” Emmys aren’t enough, we need the Pulitzers to take notice. While Carr hilariously remains fully clothed for that first tryst — gloves, turtleneck, and all — the reprise calls for some role-playing. Chase arrives at her office for round two dressed as a firefighter and finds her in an insane nurse costume, and then, with zero foreplay nor lube apart from a licked palm… puts it up her butt. I screamed out in horror. I thought for a moment I was accidentally watching American Horror Story: Double Fissure. But through the magic of television and the suspension of disbelief, it works. Or maybe it was an act of divine intervention, given that she’s making him refer to himself as Jesus. (I guess the sex shop didn’t sell carpenter costumes.) But in all this name roleplay, he accidentally calls her Allura.
Ultimately, that mixup is apt foreshadowing. Despite an entire season in which she’s the sworn enemy of Allura’s firm, they now find themselves considering whether to invite Carr on to be a partner — a move first suggested by Dina, to scoffs from the other partners. But in the event that her skill outweighs their personal beef, they hold an interview. Rather than suck up, Carr doubles down on their feud by hiring a stylist to dress her up in full Allura Grant drag for the occasion, but why show up at all if she planned on mocking her interviewer and bragging about sleeping with her ex? “Closure,” Carrington explains, adding that after years of being haunted by their initial rejection, she’s savoring this moment. And even given these antagonizing theatrics, she still impresses them when she sits in on a mediation and presents dirt she dug up on their client’s ex.
Despite making Chase a beef bourguignon out of cold cuts, he pulls the plug on things, and the episode ends with Carr reuniting with Sebastian for another Meryl Streep movie night. This time it’s The Devil Wears Prada, during which she waxes poetic about how Miranda Priestly is the real hero and sad little Andy is the psychovillain — which sounds a lot like me talking about this show. Then Carr hauntingly reveals her own deliciously villainous plot: She’s going to infiltrate the law firm, make it bigger than ever, then blow it up from within to destroy them all.
As the next and final episode of the season begins, we get an even deeper look into Carr’s psyche, as she tells her therapist about her homicidal thoughts that include hanging the women with their Hermes scarves. This master scheme even has a notebook, as all good schemes do, titled “Final Revenge.”
The first step of this mission is winning over Liberty, who has been adamantly against Carr joining the firm through this entire process. So she pays her a visit and artfully sows the seeds of discord between her and her fellow partners — preying upon Liberty’s pre-established paranoia that being British makes her an outsider. The idea of a wealthy white lawyer feeling marginalized because of her posh accent entertains me to no end, and I hope the show never drops this plotline. And it’s because of this insecurity that Carr strategically gifts Liberty a first-issue Princess Diana plate, a gift that screams, “This is what British people like, right?” She also helps her pick out a set of traditional British bridesmaids dresses knowing that the other women will hate them, and sure enough, they do. The dresses make her colleagues look like haunted Victorian dolls with Juvéderm, and Liberty takes offense when they can’t help but laugh at how hideous they are.
The plot all goes according to plan, and when it comes time for the partners to cast their secret ballot deciding whether or not to hire Carr, she receives not one but two votes in her favor. A tie still isn’t enough, though, so that means they’ll vote again in 48 hours. And while they can deliberate in that time, they’re forbidden from disclosing how they voted.
But we do get some insight into the ballot breakdown when Carr sits down for lunch with Dina. “Are we celebrating? Did I get the part Mr. Demille?” she asks, a meta reference to Sunset Boulevard given Glenn Close’s own connection to Norma Desmond. But a twist comes when Dina, who was previously considered to be Carr’s only champion, reveals that she didn’t vote for her, and doesn’t want her at the firm in any capacity. Dina says she clocked that the drama over bridesmaid dresses was Carr’s doing, and won’t allow her to continue poisoning the firm from within. “My love for the other three is deep and maternal, but for you, Carr, I realize now I only ever felt pity,” she tells her in a devastating, fatal blow. With that, Carrington throws her glass of wine in Dina’s face — yet again an example of this show finally finding itself. There should have been three tossed wines per week! A wet Dina excuses herself, vowing to campaign against Carr, who is left alone sobbing.
But Carrington Lane doesn’t give up easily, and if she gets hit with a bomb, she’s ready to fire back with a nuke. After all, this is a woman with a revenge journal. So in a masterful move, she goes to Alura to share her concerns about Dina’s cognitive decline, who initially brushes her off. But being the excellent lawyer she is, she’s prepared with evidence and lays out her case — which includes lies, presumably fake text messages from Dina, and testimony from her housekeeper. Given that Allura is very dumb, she falls for it hook, line, and sinker, and an all-partner meeting is called to confront Dina about these concerns. All’s Fair has shown us plenty of the “in love” part of this show, but now it’s time for “and war.”
In one of my favorite line readings of the finale, Dina cheerfully mutters, “What the hell is this?” upon being handed the texts she claims she was hacked into sending, but as more and more evidence piles up, things get more serious. Carr turns the tables and says that Dina was the one throwing wine, claims that there was dementia medication in her bathroom, and brings out her housekeeper Esperanza, who accuses Dina of violently choking her — an accusation Dina says Carr procured by either threatening to deport her family or offering her money. But no amount of money could compete with what Carr says Dina left Esperanza in her will, paperwork that Dina has no memory of amending. That inconsistency makes her start to question herself, and the more she doubts her own memory, the worse she looks.
But the partners don’t even need to be the ones to drive the nail into Dina’s coffin, because as this scene plays out, they’re interrupted. “Dina Standish, you’re under arrest,” a detective says, booking her for the murder of Emerald’s attacker. Within seconds this show went from gaslighting Dina into thinking she has dementia to arresting her for murder, and I couldn’t be more ecstatic. But did she really do it? And if not, was this police error or is Carr even more of a mastermind than we could have imagined? It’s tough to say for sure, because Sarah Paulson maintains a perfect poker face through it all. In any case, this show is finally where it was always meant to be: fully and unabashedly off the deep end.
