If there is a show that I am going to defend due to it getting an unnecessary amount of hate is Rachel Sennott’s I Love L.A. Ever since the series got an official title and a synopsis, it feels like everyone on the internet has jumped on a hate train to tear the series down. Whether it’s Angeleno’s being angry that it doesn’t represent the “true” LA experience or creators declaring the series isn’t funny and that every character is unlikable. Whatever the complaint is, the backlash feels wildly premature. Sure the series isn’t perfect, but people are being harsh not because the show has actually failed, but because many are refusing to engage with it on a basic level.
Maia (Rachel Sennott) just turned 27-years-old and is living her life in LA. She has a great job, an incredibly supportive boyfriend, Dylan (Josh Hutcherson who is underutilized), and two close friends Alani (True Whitaker) and Charlie (Jordan Firstman). Yet despite “having it all”, she feels unfulfilled with her life. She spends her days doom scrolling on Tik-Tok and Instagram seeing her “friends” living their best lives, one of them is her former best friend Tallulah (Odessa A’zion). She is jealous, envious, and constantly rants about her to her friends group as they are all secretly co-depended on each other. One day Tallulah barges into her home as she is broke and has nowhere else to go. Feeling stuck, Maia joins Tallulah as they navigate the complexities of ambition, relationships, and how times have changed them in the city where dreams “come true”, Los Angeles, California.
I Love LA takes its narrative back to basics. At its heart, it’s a situational comedy about aspiring zillennials trying to survive and succeed in Los Angeles. Each episode drops its characters into a new scenario within the hills of fame and fortune, forcing them to juggle their wants, needs, desires and unchecked ambition. Whether it means getting “cancelled” after stealing a Balenciaga bag from a fellow influencer, or Elijah Wood, who is playing an unhinged version of himself, spiraling after Maia and Alani mistake basic kindness for sexual interest, or Maia’s boss deliberately sabotaging Tallulah to steal Maia’s meeting with a high-level entertainment executive. Whatever it is, the series constantly keeps its characters on their toes as they are all on the verge of a panic attack. In that chaos, we watch each of them inch closer to self-destruction as they are blinded by the proximity of fame and the illusion of success. The resulting trainwreck feels inevitable, but also carefully engineered as it finds a balance between cringe comedy, secondhand embarrassment and unpredictability.
I Love LA operates within a very specific comedic lane that is definitely not for everyone. Sennott’s comedy has always lived in the uncomfortable space between cringe, secondhand embarrassment and total unpredictability, and here she pushes that sensibility to its limits. In I Love LA, she dives headfirst into the nightmare of climbing the entertainment ladder in Los Angeles, embracing its absurdity rather than softening it. A common complaint is that the characters are unlikable as they are shallow, performative, and self-destructive. But what many fail to realise is that is the entire point. I Love LA is a satire about people who sell their souls for fame and fortune.
Maia, played flawlessly by Sennott, is so consumed by her ambition and is so impatient for validations that she’s incapable of recognizing what she already has, a blindness that will inevitably lead to her unraveling. Talulah, brought to life by the hysterical Odessa A’zion, is already a walking disaster who believes that moving to LA will magically solve all of her problems. Alongside them are characters like Charlie, a gay man searching for real connection in a city built on performance, and Alani, a clueless, spoiled nepo baby who’s never had to question her own privilege. Each character is marching towards their own self-destruction as they climb the ladder of fame. Sennott takes this dark underbelly of Hollywood and flips it on its head, using dark comedy to expose the dark reality of Hollywood.
However, I Love LA isn’t without its flaws. It takes roughly three episodes for it to find its footing and the series needed at least two more episodes to flesh out its narrative as parts of the series feels undeniably rushed. Still, once you lock onto the show’s wavelength and can understand the sheer amount of secondhand embarrassment you are about to feel, I Love LA reveals itself as a strong, promising debut from first-time showrunner Rachel Sennott. Its brand of comedy will inevitably turn off many viewers, but there’s a crucial distinction between something simply not being for you and something being genuinely awful. Sadly, many people today can’t seem to tell the difference.
My Rating: B+
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