‘I Love LA’ Review: Rachel Sennott’s New Comedy Nails the Hilarious Desperation of Mid-Twenties in a Big City

Los Angeles gets a bad rap. So does Gen Z. Rachel Sennott‘s HBO comedy, I Love LA, is hoping to shake that up… earthquake style.

In her new show, the Shiva Baby star is not trying to reinvent the wheel, in fact, she’s content to make you laugh, tell you a story about a friend group not so much unlike your own, and give you an existential crisis in the process. Sounds great, right? No, that’s not rhetorical, it is surprisingly great.

The comedy series follows 27-year-old Maia (Sennott), a talent manager living in Los Angeles with her boyfriend (Josh Hutcherson) and best friends — played by Jordan Firstman and True Whitaker — when an old friend from her past (Odessa A’Zion) reemerges and throws everything into a tailspin. Again, the show is not trying to reinvent the wheel here, but it is trying to tell you a smart, funny, and relatable tale about the pains and pleasures of being in your twenties. At that, it succeeds.

As an Angeleno, albeit one for only a few years, I started watching the show in hopes that it would live up to the hype I put on it (possibly unfairly) in my head. I’ve appreciated just about everything Sennott has written or starred in prior to this, so it only felt right that I would find at least something worth falling for in I Love LA. That said, there is always skepticism when a new project set in your city is about to release, as there are a million ways for things to go wrong. On any other streaming service or network, it could have.

What works about I Love LA is everything that is so out of touch, but somehow relatable. Jokes that land in Los Angeles — not the kind that joke about traffic on the 405 or parking costs at the Grove — will hit for Angelenos on numerous levels. Elsewhere, the jokes may not pack the same punch, but they are far from niche. Anyone who has ever had a frenemy, felt lost in their mid-twenties, or developed an unhealthy addiction to matcha and their iPhone will find themselves in stitches at the show’s outrageously funny scenes and storylines.

In this show, Sennott nails finding the funny in the awkward, horrific, and slightly traumatizing experiences of being in the liminal space that is your twenties. The pressure to succeed in your career, your love life, maintain and keep up with your friendships, workout, eat healthy, and stay up to date on everything happening in the world — which is a shitshow, by the way — is encapsulated by the comedian in eight short episodes. Oh, and do it with the world watching you through the small box in your hand. If Girls is a generation-defining comedy for millennials, Sennott may have just made the equivalent for Gen Z in I Love LA. It’s only slightly ironic given that the actress is a millennial, although on the cusp between the two classifications.

Traditionally, I watch a show waiting to find the standout performance, hoping to see a single player emerge from the pack as the clear one to watch. I came into I Love LA thinking it would be A’Zion, hoping it would be Firstman, but secretly questioning if it would be Whitaker. In the end, there is no true winner in the ensemble as each gets their fair share of breakout lines, scenes, and episodes that leave the audience wanting more of their character.

Firstman, who plays a desperate stylist, does come out swinging in Episode 1, as does Whitaker, who plays the daughter of a famous film director, not far from her own real-life experience as the child of Forest Whitaker. Both actors appear and bring down the house in the brief moment they first appear on screen with Sennott, setting an impossibly high bar for A’Zion, who graces the screen with her presence later in the episode.

When A’Zion — who also grew up in Hollywood as the daughter of Pamela Adlon — does finally appears, running out to surprise Sennott’s character on her birthday, she sets it straight that the high bar set by her costars is easily going to be met. In truth, each actor brings a little something spectacular to their character, making the most of every morsel they’re given, whether it’s a deadpan look to camera or a full-on improvised line at the expense of their character or another. It makes a show that could be fun with the wrong cast feel so damn good with the right cast.

Rachel Sennott may not know it but she has struck absolute gold with this group. This ensemble takes excellent writing and hilarious premises to new heights and makes me even more excited to see where the story goes in a second season. It’s a friend group I might not exactly want to be a part of, but certainly one I enjoy watching and think you will too.

I Love LA premieres on HBO and HBO Max on Sunday, November 2 at 10:30 p.m. ET. New episodes drop weekly on Sundays.

If you’re new to HBO Max, you can sign up for as low as $10.99/month with ads, but an ad-free subscription will cost $18.49/month.

If you want to stream even more and save a few bucks a month while you’re at it, we recommend subscribing to one of the discounted Disney+ Bundles with Hulu and HBO Max. With ads, the bundle costs $19.99/month and without ads, $32.99/month.