I Love LA episode 1.01 "Block Her"

Adults wasn’t for me, Girls wasn’t for me, and I’ve become desperate for a show about 20-somethings that doesn’t depict them as entitled, lazy, or ‘angry young men’. After seeing One Battle After Another, I was left wondering if anyone knows that Gen Z does more than go to protests and correct people’s pronouns.

I Love LA is the modern-day comedy I’ve been waiting for. I wasn’t in the Rachel Sennott fandom before- and I know we’re only one episode in- but I think this show is such a breath of fresh air. I’m going to unpack the pilot episode and why I liked it so much, but please give it a watch yourself and support LA-based productions.  

This episode follows Sennott’s Maia as she embarks on her lowkey plans to celebrate her 27^th birthday. First, she has morning birthday sex with her boyfriend Dylan (Josh Hutcherson) in their Los Feliz apartment. He seems to be a genuinely sweet guy, and they have a palpable comfortability around each other. As they get ready for the day, Maia steels herself to ask her boss for a promotion.

Rachel Sennott and Josh Hutcherson in "Block Her". Image courtesy of IMDb.

But before work, she does a quick lap around the Silver Lake Reservoir with friends Alani and Charlie. Maia is all disgruntled because her former friend and current influencer Tallulah has posted a big brand partnership on Instagram. It’s unclear at this point what exactly Maia’s beef is with Tallulah, but Charlie encourages her to block her, while Alani argues that that will bring bad karma. Maia blocks Tallulah.

Maia gets to work at the talent agency, Alyssa180, where she works as an assistant. She knocks on her boss, Alyssa’s, door and delivers an articulate and well-supported argument advocating for her promotion. In the pilot of Adults, one of the main characters attempts to capitalize on someone else’s #MeToo moment to blackmail her employers into promoting her (and ends up getting herself fired). It really rubbed me the wrong way. Maia’s genuine professionalism and competence make for a much more compelling, relatable, and likable character- and pave the way for scrappy storylines that actually speak to what young people in entertainment have to do.

Which is exactly what happens next. Alyssa, mid-manicure, is clearly not planning on advancing Maia any time soon, so Maia finally sucks up her pride and name-drops Tallulah. We learn that Tallulah, based in New York, was formerly managed by Maia, until Maia moved to LA and Tallulah flaked on joining her, instead signing with a bigger management company in Manhattan.

Leighton Meester in "Block Her". Image courtesy of IMDb.

Maia takes things a little far when she tells Alyssa that she and Tallulah are still best friends; Alyssa quickly points out that Tallulah doesn’t follow Maia- a result of this morning’s block.

But we soon learn that the emotional distance between Tallulah and Maia exists only on Maia’s end- Tallulah has flown in to celebrate Maia’s birthday.

Tallulah is a great character; I think everyone in this town knows one. She’s the effortless main character, taking up all the space in the room, and somehow always managing to get the whole group to do exactly what she wants to do. It drives Maia crazy, and for good reason, but it’s also clear that Tallulah really does love Maia and wants to give her a great birthday.

Maia begrudgingly agrees to go out with Tallulah that night, even though the big birthday plans are the following night. The next morning, Tallulah turns her nose up at Courage bagels that even Maia is too hungover to eat, bringing Charlie, who got the bagels, onto team Maia (it takes hours to obtain Courage bagels).

Rachel Sennott, True Whitaker, Jordan Firstman, and Odessa A'zion in "Block Her". Image courtesy of IMDb.

Tallulah then decides that she wants to go to the beach, which everyone, including me, balks at. Alani, who flew Tallulah out in the hopes that she and Maia would repair their friendship, agrees to go. But Maia fakes a work emergency while Charlie says outright that he won’t be sitting in two-hour traffic to go to the beach in the middle of a random day.

What Maia actually does with her day is email, call, and argue with Resy in an attempt to add Tallulah to her birthday dinner reservation- and push it an hour, in case there’s traffic coming home from the beach. When dinner time comes, she and Dylan happily check in at the front. But instead of being taken to their table, they’re led to a private suite already bustling with a party.

Surprise! Tallulah has managed to score something even better than a table at this restaurant, so forget dinner. Everyone is happy, even Charlie, so no one understands why Maia is upset that “all they have to do” is pretend that it’s actually Tallulah’s birthday and post a photo carousel celebrating her instead of Maia.

True Whitaker, Jordan Firstman, and Odessa A'zion in "Block Her". Image courtesy of IMDb.

Tallulah and Maia finally have a heart to heart where Tallulah admits that she’s not thriving as Maia thought she was. She’s barely getting by. But her confidence and energy is how she gets the things that she does have. She even admits that she made a mistake in not coming to LA with Maia and asks if she can stay- and if Maia will manage her. They make up and have a great time at the party.

While Maia and Tallulah are really grinding, getting overlooked, and getting older without the things they thought they would have to show for it, the show doesn’t at all have a ‘woe is me’ energy. With remote work and tax incentives elsewhere, it feels like LA-based productions are dwindling by the minute. It would be easy for this show, with this premise and this setting, to take on an embittered tone.

But as a proud east-sider, this was more than the excitement of seeing your neighborhood on TV. The effort to not only shoot here but to embed the endearing character of LA into every element of the story couldn’t come at a better time.  Stylized montages honor LA that are most comparable to the homages The Bear pays to Chicago. It’s clear that Sennott really does love LA, and the way it warmed my heart showed me that I do too.

We'll get a new episode of I Love LA every Sunday at 7:30 pm PST on HBO Max.