**This article contains spoilers for I Love LA**
Riding on the coattails of HBO Max’s The Pitt and Crave’s Heated Rivalry comes Rachel Sennott’s new comedy, I Love LA. If you’ve liked some of Sennott’s past projects, like Bottoms and Shiva Baby, be prepared for something completely different.
The Plot
I Love LA follows Sennott’s character Maia as she experiences the girlhood canon event of one life-ruining friendship, while the rest of the ensemble cast gives her abysmally bad advice.
Maia is a talent agent working a dead-end job, where she resents her old friend Tallulah (Odessa A’zion) for getting rid of her for greener grass many years earlier. Her resentment grows when Tallulah shows up on the day of Maia’s birthday to move in with her and makes herself the center of attention.
Early in the season, the two characters resolve their issues and become best friends again, which strains Maia’s relationship with her boyfriend Dylan (Josh Hutcherson) for the rest of the season. This leads to a dual cheating plot, which makes the most unbelievable part of the entire show the fact that any sane person would cheat on Josh Hutcherson.
The Issues
This new HBO original seems to take some inspiration from other 2020s comedies like English Teacher and Adults, with the main character being similarly egotistical and career-focused, but I found the humor much less enjoyable than those other shows, and to be honest? The funniest bits are the ones they show you in the TikTok ads.
Additionally, the most interesting storyline belongs to side character Alani (True Whitaker), and we don’t ever really see how the plot of the show affects her individual plotlines until the very end of the season.
I Love LA also falls victim to the streaming era effect, with only eight episodes of about 30 minutes each. Most sitcoms and comedy series lend themselves well to 12 or more episodes per season, and cutting your season short for a weekly streaming release keeps it from spending enough time in culture to gain any audience traction.
The Highlights
While I don’t have many compliments for I Love LA, I’ll admit that the acting from the entire cast is spectacular, and their comedic timing is impeccable. The performances that stood out the most to me are Rachel Sennott herself as Maia, Josh Hutcherson as Maia’s long-suffering teacher boyfriend, and Odessa A’zion as Maia’s returned BFF, Tallulah.
The side characters were also written very well, with several plots that mixed up the groups each episode and showed the versatility of these comedic actors. Multiple guest appearances from well-known celebrities like Elijah Wood, Quen Blackwell, and Ayo Edebiri also help bolster the star power of this cast.
Another outstanding element of I Love LA was the unique needle drops that I think fit really well with the show. Among my favorites were “It Never Rains in Southern California” in the fourth episode, titled “Upstairs,” and Tame Impala’s “Elephant” in the eighth episode, titled “I Love NY.”
Despite the cliffhanger ending of the season, I don’t foresee HBO picking it back up for a second one. However, I Love LA has garnered some positive ratings, but this eight-episode pilot season sits at a 55% on Rotten Tomatoes.
While I wasn’t all that won over, despite how much I like Rachel Sennott, you should add this show to your watchlist and give it a try if you really liked Adults and English Teacher.
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