RIOTUS

A lot of the recent popular HBO shows haven’t been that interesting to me. I watch and pay attention to the genre shows – stuff based on video games or DC Comics, but the Successions, White Lotuses, and the ilk of what I call “terrible rich people” shows are not the appointment TV that has kept me subscribed to linear HBO since I was in high school. They cancelled my RAP SH!T and eventually Industry will return, but I’ve definitely been missing something in the TV diet. So I decided to try Rachel Sennott‘s new half-hour comedy series, I Love LA. A show about a group of young people trying to make it in a large city, especially NYC or LA, always seems to work, and that’s what we have here.

Sennott plays Maia, a young talent agent working for Alyssa (Leighton Meester), at her agency. Wanting to prove herself to Alyssa and get more responsibilities and make a name for herself, while hitting a wall, Maia is also still figuring out living in LA after moving from NYC a few years ago and living with her schoolteacher boyfriend Dylan (Josh Hutcherson) in a very stagnant life for two Gen-Z twentysomethings. In much of the first episode, Maia and Dylan feel very much like the adults in Maia’s friend group, as her life is so much more stable than the rest. You can tell pretty early on how much this bothers Maia even as she doesn’t talk about it.

Maia’s main friends when the series starts are Alani (True Whitaker) and Charlie (Jordan Firstman). Alani is a very young, flighty rich girl who has a job at her famous actor father’s production company, where she never goes to work. All of her advice makes no sense and has no basis in reality. This character ended up reminding me of Dionne in Clueless, as I don’t think we always get to see Black girls like this in shows, especially ones that are “Black” shows. It’s refreshing, and she ended up giving some of my biggest laughs throughout my watching of the series. Whitaker is excellent in her performance as Alani, never came off as stupid to me, just almost like she’s from a completely different reality visiting ours like she’s on a solo expedition of humanity.

Now, Charlie, I think this character throughout the series has some of the best plots, the deepest human moments, and easily the best quips every episode. Firstman steals scenes in this for me with just how much Charlie goes through in terms of professional and personal loss, yet is always still there to help and many times save his friends throughout many crises, yet he is never saved himself. I always ended up wanting to see a bit more from him, but that might just be me missing the old HBO series Looking that I liked so much. Firstman plays the character with a very sarcastic and cynical nature, but on his face, you can see the sensitive inner self.

The central relationship in the series is between Maia and her best friend from NYC, Tallulah, played by Odessa A’zion, who is a chaos agent. She visits Maia on her 27^th birthday and completely upends Maia’s life. She brings up a ton of insecurity for Maia that eventually blows up between the two, and brings Tallulah to LA. From there, these two are as thick as thieves. Like, whatever the girl equivalent of Bro energy is, those two. Sometimes they have ideas, and it’s like you’re watching Stepbrothers with Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly. They are the best thing for others and the worst. As the season goes on, Tallulah gives Maia her NYC energy and drive back in the more slow-moving and laid-back Los Angeles scene. This causes more conflict for Maia in her life, as Tallulah is kind of along for the ride.

Through Tallulah, the show does well to explore what celebrity is now through the world of influencers and how some of that world works, and how foreign and completely made-up that part of the mainstream culture is. Like, y’all really paying thirty bands for a Ritz cracker ad on social media? It works well with the idea of how people feel LA is fake and shallow versus other cities, especially in comparison to cities further east like Chicago, Boston, and, of course, New York. While not an example of this, having Hutcherson’s Dylan being the most grounded character in Maia’s life, and how having her best friend back shatters the life he was happy living, while Maia is slowly leaving and pushing him away, was handled very well, especially by Hutcherson, who does well in the doting boyfriend role.

A pleasant surprise was seeing Moses Ingram here as Tallulah’s love interest, and she plays the coolest character in the show, a rising star chef in the city. She’s another grounded character in the absurd happenings around Maia and friends. To me, great sitcoms, even the elevated ones you’ll watch on HBO or a streaming platform, need those characters that feel more like the viewer, that can have reactions to the main characters’ extreme reactions and ideas that drive the plot of the show. Here, the love interests fit that role and do so well because Maia and they really do have some big IDEAS that will have you sitting there like “huh,” but you’ll want to see how it all ends up.

I Love LA feels like a previous era of HBO comedy on the channel or a more “2010s” style. The show could be compared to GIRLS, but these women and characters don’t feel as privileged as those in that show. I can see some comparing it to Insecure as both take place in Los Angeles, but it’s different in its friend dynamics, even though both shows focus on what type of career the main character wants to pursue. It can feel shallow, but some of that works with the humor and just how different this generation of young people is from the previous ones, and just how much the journeys feel familiar. I liked season one of I Love LA a lot. The eight-episode season felt a little short, but I hope it gets more seasons with more episodes.