If you’ve been paying attention, then you’re well aware that Rachel Sennott‘s been carving an impressive career for herself over the last five years, with each project smartly showcasing her skills both in front of and behind the camera. Shiva Baby, the tight, razor-sharp indie darling that Sennott led in 2020, perfectly captured what it’s like to navigate life in a world where you feel misunderstood. 2023’s Bottoms cemented her broader comedy skills both as a writer and performer. Those two standouts, paired with fun, dynamic turns in Bodies, Bodies, Bodies and I Used to Be Funny, showed off her undeniable range as a performer.
It feels especially fitting, then, to see Rachel Sennott not only lead an HBO comedy series about messy, privileged, 20-somethings in Los Angeles, but to have created, written, and produced it as well. I Love LA is as funny, absurd, and outrageous as you’d expect, while serving as an impressively grounded and realistic portrayal of a generation that’s grown up staring at screens, stuck under the oppressive rules of social media, and is simply trying to figure out who the hell they are and who they want to be.
What Is ‘I Love LA’ About?
I Love LA follows Sennott’s Maia, whose ambition is both a blessing and a curse. She’s an assistant at a growing talent agency, a position that many trying to break into the industry would kill for, but she’s no longer satisfied and understandably wants to get on the junior manager track. She has a nice house with her boyfriend, Dylan (Josh Hutcherson), a teacher who couldn’t be further removed from Maia’s egocentric world if he tried, and a degree from NYU. Maia might have a lot going for her, but she’s also incredibly hardworking, determined, and as anxious and insecure as everyone else.
Back in New York, she helped kickstart the career of an influencer and internet personality, Tallulah (Odessa A’zion), whom she lost touch with, but is still frustrated at how her career is growing without her. (A subway stunt of theirs during COVID went viral and put Tallulah on the map.) Rather than try to reconnect or properly work through her feelings, Maia decides to block her on social media per the advice of her chanting bestie, Charlie (Jordan Firstman), much to the chagrin of her other BFF, Alani (True Whitaker), who doesn’t think that’s the right move. Problem solved, right? Unbeknownst to Maia, Alani goes ahead and flies Tallulah out to LA to force the two to reconnect and celebrate Maia’s birthday, leading to Maia’s life being turned upside down — for better and for worse.
‘I Love LA’s Sharp Writing Lays a Strong Foundation for the HBO Comedy Series
Strong writing is at the core of every great piece of comedy, with the hopes that the performers will be able to do every joke, idea, or character quirk justice. I Love LA‘s dialogue is so tuned in to how people in their late twenties communicate and behave in 2025, and its ensemble manages to not only match the quality of the writing but elevate it.
Admittedly, one could argue that the end of Episode 1 concludes a bit too conveniently, with Maia going from outright disdain for Tallulah to giddily convincing her to stay in LA and agreeing to be her manager. While it’s a slight storytelling leap to get the engine of the show really running, it also smartly reflects the impulsivity of these characters and how quickly one is willing to forget about past wrongdoings when their future — which is largely steered by status and competition — is suddenly starting to look a little more in their favor.
Tallulah isn’t, in fact, as rich and successful as she tries to make it seem, and actually needs Maia’s expertise and friendship more than ever. They love the internet one minute and hate it the next, and want the worst or best for their friends, depending on how it will inconvenience them. Their “big” problems are so detached from reality and, consequently, they are totally numb to the things that they should be taking seriously.
Odessa A’zion Is a Force To Be Reckoned With in ‘I Love LA’
Part of what really makes I Love LA work as well as it does is A’zion’s Tallulah. When you hear that one of the main characters is an internet personality or influencer, your mind likely has a pretty clear — albeit unfairly stereotypical — idea of what kind of person that’ll be. Self-obsessed, vain, and extremely entitled feel like safe bets, and to a certain degree, they very much are, but in Tallulah’s case, she’s far more complex, boasting a personality that’s lined with jagged edges and a fragile ego in search of confidence.
On paper, Tallulah could easily have been a one-note character with no real growth. Does she always want to look hot and get a lot of likes on social media? Absolutely. She quite literally excitedly shrieks her way onto the screen upon seeing Maia return home. That’s followed by Tallulah’s thoughtless comments about how small Maia’s house is while still quickly making herself at home, unintentionally emphasizing her need for constant attention, instant gratification, and how out of touch she is. But Odessa A’zion manages to make her character way more dynamic than you’d expect her to be.
Part of the appeal for Tallulah’s followers is that she is far from “perfect” and doesn’t want to curate a persona that feels superficial. A’zion’s screen presence is extremely scrappy and magnetic, and her frenetic energy further highlights those quieter, more vulnerable moments when Tallulah realizes she might not want to make the sacrifices one needs to make in order to rise to the top of a market saturated with people finding fame through TikTok and Instagram. How bad does she want this, and who is she removed from her brand? A’zion is able to make this character completely and uniquely her own, with Tallulah’s raspy retorts at impatient LA drivers and total meltdown upon reading a comment from someone saying she has “shark eyes” being among her many, many standout moments.
‘I Love LA’s Ensemble Cast Gets Better With Every Episode
Next to Sennott’s Maia and A’zion’s Tallulah, Charlie and Alani stand completely on their own. Charlie is an aspiring stylist to the stars and is perhaps the most narcissistic and status-reliant of them all. Firstman plays his witty character to perfection, leaning into Charlie’s performative self-branding and ability to attach himself to whoever can make his star rise the fastest. Yet the presence who will likely make you laugh the hardest is True Whitaker’s Alani, who manages to be both relatable and one of the most unrelatable characters you’ll ever meet. Whitaker’s timing and delivery of lines that are ultra-specific to Alani’s “nepo baby” upbringing (her father is an Oscar-winning executive) in an effort to relate to her peers is a hilarious highlight, and shows how deliriously out of touch she is with even those in her friend group. You likely won’t be able to identify with how Robert De Niro taught her how to swim, but you’ll certainly see yourself in her when she awkwardly tries to woo a crush.
You might not expect to see Josh Hutcherson pop up in an HBO comedy series, but it’s an utter delight that he does. The Ken Burns-loving Dylan is far and away the most “normal” of the bunch, who loves the simplicity of his life and can’t begin to understand the chaos of his girlfriend’s world. He’s the show’s palette cleanser who helps keep the series grounded and also functions as a much-needed reality check for Maia. Hutcherson, unfortunately, feels underused, though his character does become more integral in the back half of the season, with the finale teeing up an interesting direction for his character in a potential Season 2.
Rachel Sennott’s HBO Comedy Series Is Deeply Funny, Sharply Witty, and Completely Outrageous
There’s a Seinfeld energy to I Love LA, in which it’s easy to argue, “all these people are terrible, but I love them, and I am rooting for them anyway.” The title is at times ironic, with the core four hating everything about the city that typically refuses to love them back. What the show does especially, well, though, is reflect a generation and what they are up against, both in their perceived flaws and their underappreciated strengths.
The story may be told through a very specific lens, but it still speaks to the type of culture we are all living in. One of its most revealing and heartbreaking moments is when Tallulah’s phone breaks, and she frantically stutters, “What am I supposed to look at?” By the end of its 8-episode first season, I Love LA has immersed you in a world you both want to live in and stay far away from in the best way possible. All of Sennott’s honed comedy and drama chops come together magnificently to carry a series that is hopefully just getting started.
