Over the course of Hulu’s “The Kardashians,” the series explored the central question of the family’s dissonant fame: Can the Kardashian-Jenners, who rocketed to notoriety through baring all of their personal drama on reality television, leave that drama behind to focus on the businesses it helped them build?
In season four, episode two of the series, which was released on Hulu on Thursday, Kim Kardashian — the most business-oriented, and also arguably the most controversial, member of the family — documents her trip to Boston to speak to Harvard Business School students.
“I also think it’s important to film stuff like this, like, for my show,” Kardashian tells Harvard Business School Executive Matt Higgins after speaking with students. “Because that’s what the audience will see instead of me fighting with my sisters over something stupid.”
“I think that’s why like, we push to even have cameras in places that sometimes people wouldn’t typically have cameras, because I want to show that side,” she continues.
Those remarks illustrate the fundamental issue of “The Kardashians,” which has had difficulty maintaining the balance between business and drama.
Since its inception, “The Kardashians” has been a more elevated take on the family’s reality empire. Compared to its predecessor “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” which aired on E! for 20 seasons before wrapping in June 2021, the Hulu followup is visually more refined, filmed in a documentary style that features glitzy opening sequences and leaves the door open for plenty of fourth wall breaks that make it feel candid, but polished.
That stylistic upgrade also came with a shift in focus: While season one opened with a full-episode rumination on Kim’s sex tape (an unsubtle parallel to the “KUWTK” premiere), season two placed a trying emphasis on Kim’s preparations for that year’s Met Gala and the family’s assorted business ventures.
In the process, it skirted a number of more controversial topics in the family’s orbit, such as Kim’s ex-husband Ye’s social media targeting of her then-boyfriend Pete Davidson.
It’s a departure from the family drama and sheer candor that made the Kardashian-Jenners famous to begin with. Kim, her sister Khloé Kardashian, and Scott Disick grappled with criticism in a very meta season three conversation: After Kim read Variety chief TV critic Daniel D’Addario’s season two review of the show, which described it as “plot-free” and “work-obsessed,” the trio insisted that they do actually share plenty of their lives.
Still, the season that followed seemed to demonstrate that Kim had taken D’Addario’s argument into consideration. As D’Addario himself later noted in a September column following the season four premiere of “The Kardashians,” Kim showed up ready to perform in the rest of season three, easily sliding into a Dolce & Gabbana-fueled feud with her sister Kourtney Kardashian Barker.
And season four’s premiere featured an explosive fight between Kim and Kourtney that was by far the most vitriolic drama the show has seen in its four seasons.
But Kim’s comments at Harvard cast some of the show’s business focus in a novel — and frankly, more empathetic — light. Kim has long since proven herself to be a capable businesswoman. It’s hard to fault her for wanting to infuse more of that work into the series.
Still, Kim is savvy, and also seems to understand that family spats are the grabbiest bits of the series. And despite feeling “underestimated” in the business world, she recently told Fortune that all of her experiences, and all of the elements of her fame, have been crucial to her business success.
That understanding doesn’t mean that Kim isn’t going to leap at the chance to highlight the professional parts of her life, though. When Higgins, the Harvard executive, praises her business acumen for being “on par with the best consumer CEOs,” she doesn’t let it go unremarked.
“Did you hear that?” Kardashian asks emphatically, turning to the camera. “Did you hear that?”
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