If your idea of Los Angeles includes an endless parade of vapid, self-centered, superficial twentysomethings whose ambitions no doubt outweigh their talents, I Love LA is ready to prove that parodic vision of the city correct. Creator and star Rachel Sennott is clearly having some fun offering up these caricatures of Gen Z Angelenos (or rather, recent transplants who live in L.A.) and putting them through outrageous and wholly unrelatable situations—like, as in the start of episode two, when a quick coffee chat about how best to make an NYC It Girl into a full-blown Middle-America-courting leisureware influencer gets derailed by a fight over a stolen Balenciaga bag.
Yes, Maia (Sennott) may have made up with Tallulah (Odessa A’zion) and taken the reins as her manager again, but that is clearly not going to be an easy thing to navigate. Not when Tallulah’s New York City life comes at her fast in the shape of Paulena (Annalisa Cochrane), a disgruntled fellow influencer who cannot believe her L.A. vacation is upended once she sees Tallulah sporting the Balenciaga bag she’d stolen from her. Yes, there is cussing (“Go fuck yourself!”) Yes, there is screaming. (“I will! With your boyfriend’s cock!”) And, yes, that is only the beginning of this entire Tallulah/Paulena ordeal. It’s not great for day one of being Tallulah’s manager.
Then again, it’s obvious Maia is going to struggle keeping her friendship with Tallulah separate from their work relationship. Which, y’know? Relatable. Who among us, after all, hasn’t had to screen texts from a client we’re managing about how worried they are about possibly having an arrest warrant jeopardize their burgeoning work opportunities in Los Angeles? Wait, never mind. But that is precisely what Maia has to deal with now as she worries Paulena will press charges and tank her friend/client’s career before it’s even taken off.
Then again, both Charlie (Jordan Firstman) and Alani (True Whitaker) are dealing with their own L.A.-specific work problems, which are equally as ridiculous. Charlie, a stylist (of course), is doing that thing where he’s trying to impress his client, music star Mimi (Ayo Edebiri, with a posh British accent) and can only do so by being a feckless yes man. When he hears, for instance, that Mimi wants Zendaya to play her mom in a music video he’s like, “Oh, like in flashbacks?” only to be shut down. Obviously not. “I think you have a brain for clothes and like being gay,” Mimi tells him. “Gay. Clothes. End of person,” he says back. And sure, the Euphoria star may not have confirmed yet but that’s probably, Charlie says, because she’s notoriously difficult to nail down. He’s clearly just saying whatever he thinks Mimi wants to hear but that just means he spends his time later at the gym with his trainer trying to grill Maia over the phone for Zendaya dirt. (Spoiler alert: there is none.) Will that come back and bite him?
Meanwhile, Alani ends up spending her afternoon at her father’s production office (where she’d had a pair of new boots delivered), crashing a meeting (while looking for a foot mirror) and being treated like the precious nepo baby that she is. Namely, while everyone at the company knows her title of “VP Of Creative Projects” is wholly decorative, they can’t well keep her from chiming in as they try to brainstorm what a Gen Z Clueless-esque project might look like.
Is Alani perfectly, uh, clueless about how much unearned privilege she wields in this office and not quite realizing how her own high-school stories (about dating a 28 year old while in eighth grade who was always exhausted because of his newborn) may not be a good fit for the kind of show these execs are working on? Possibly. But there’s a kind of wide-eyed endearing aspect to that sense of entitlement, which Whitaker plays quite well. (It’s also a nice contrast to Charlie and Maia, who have to work so hard to even be in spaces Alani can just breeze herself into.)
As Maia keeps finding out, there are other people (like, say, Tallulah) who don’t quite breeze into spaces like Alani as much as they crash into them like walking and talking tornadoes. It’s no wonder she’s been leaving quite a mess behind her, a mess that now Maia is tasked with cleaning up. (Per her father, a lawyer, Paulena could sue and send out an arrest warrant, but technically Tallulah could still work if she’s not extradited…words no manager ever wants to have to factor into their day-to-day job.)
Thankfully, ever resourceful Tallulah has come up with a solution: She’s lied to Paulena (who, if you must know, designs charm necklaces that are as kitschy as they sound) and told her she was hooked on Ketamine back in her New York City days, which explains her odd clepto behavior. She’s sober now, she told her, and what better way to bury it all than to have dinner at Maia and Dylan’s?
This is a peak sitcom A-plot—only, of course, you’ve never seen a dinner party gone wrong quite like this one. For starters, Tallulah was already trying both Maia and Dylan’s patience (turns out she loves having phone sex in their bedroom with a guy named Ludwig who needs to come three times for it to count), so the idea of hosting a litigious/vengeful necklace designer for dinner on short notice sounds like a nightmare. Which it is, because Paulena is the kind of “girl’s girl” who is all too happy to leverage dirt on anyone to get her way. She’s also not above being vindictive. Why else would she bring coke to a dinner where she knows (even if it’s a lie) that one of the guests is sober only to then pressure the one teacher in the group (that’d be Dylan) to keep partying lest she decides to talk to his principal and tell him all about his drug habits? In a word, she’s trouble. She’s someone who may well know she’s not liked but uses blackmail to get her way, all while thinking she’s simply being just and kind. She might be a sociopath, actually.
It’s what leads Maia to do the one thing she and her munchie (Tallulah) have long learned works when faced with such crazy: You gotta outcrazy them. And boy, does she go crazy, accusing Dylan of eyeing Paulena’s breasts, of enjoying walking in on Tallulah having phone sex, and even of watching porn. (How dare he!) By the time she grabs a knife and threatens to kill herself (which, wow, that would be bad for Paulena considering it was her coke that would get her killed), Paulena understands it’s best she leave ASAP. Phew. Crisis averted, even if Maia almost gave Dylan a heart attack while doing so.
Oh, were you wondering how Charlie fared with his whole “I need to come up with dirt on Zendaya so Mimi still trusts me to style her and I can keep randomly ordering clothes on her account that I then keep” strategy? It blew up in his face, of course. For the Euphoria star did agree to star in the music video and word got back to Mimi that her stylist was trying to ruin her bestie’s reputation. She couldn’t well have that stay, and so, while out celebrating the music-video news, she fires Charlie and gets him to return the clothes he’s wearing, leaving him naked in Eagle Rock texting his friend with benefits who may enjoy his romps with Charlie but is, at that very moment, having a lovely time on a date with a boring-looking man at Din Tai Fung. It’s humiliating all around, no?
But wait, that’s not all. Before hopping on her ride, Paulena has a change of heart. Maybe she should make a poor person’s dreams come true and leave them her Balenciaga bag…except, when she tries to do so stealthily outside the door to Maia’s apartment, she hears how the craziness she witnessed was just a ruse. (They’re all too happy to never have to see her and her ugly necklaces ever again.) And that’s enough to kick her own crazy back up: As she’s being driven away, she records a video to her followers about—wouldn’t you have guessed it—a girl she has to talk about. “So strap in.” This won’t end well.
Stray observations
- • If you wanted to start creating your very own I Love LA tour of Los Angeles, I’m happy to help add one location from this episode: Cafe Nido, which does have a very cute outdoor area where you, too, can get into a shouting match with a frenemy from New York City.
- • Last week, Maia sported a Bob Baker Marionette Theater hat; this week Charlie donned a Jumbo’s Clown Room one. (If you’re wondering, yes, that is the name of a Hollywood strip joint.) What perfectly ironic cap will Alani or Tallulah get to wear in next week’s episode?
- • Alani casually dropping she went to Crossroads gives me an excuse to offer the following (non-exhaustive) list of Crossroads nepo-baby alumni: Kate Hudson, Jack Quaid, Maude Apatow, Jason Ritter, Liv Tyler, and, of course, Gwyneth Paltrow.
- • After hearing Josh Hutcherson beautifully (lisp and all!) say “Eres una persona muy peligrosa,” I’m going to need the show to find more excuses for him to say more things in Spanish, please.
- • Which movie produced by Alani’s dad are you most curious about: Have At It (“a story about commitment/a new comedy from the director of By The Straps”) or Detroit Florida (“The bust of both worlds”)?
- • Most Gen Z line of the episode? Without a doubt, it’s Maia’s “Who even does music videos anymore? Like film a TikTok and move on?”