Pop Culture Happy Hour - I Love LA

Episode Date: November 6, 2025

Rachel Sennott’s next project, the HBO series I Love LA, has finally arrived. And like plenty of shows before it, it’s about young people trying to work and socialize in a big city while screwing up in every conceivable way. Sennott stars as an ascendant employee at a boutique talent management firm with a very online crew played by Josh Hutcherson, Jordan Firstman, Odessa A’zion and True Whitaker. Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus at plus.npr.org/happyhour See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Over here, we're big fans of comedian actress Rachel Sennant, she of Bodies, Bodies, Bottoms, and Shiva Baby Fame. And now her next project has arrived, I Love L.A., an HBO series created by and starring her. Like plenty of shows before it, it's about young people trying to work and socialize in a big city while screwing up in every conceivable way. And all those mistakes are magnified when you live most of your life online and in the public eye. I'm Ayesha Harrison.

And today we're talking about I Love LA on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. Joining me today is NPR music reporter Isabella Gomes Sarmiento. Hey, Isabella. Howdy. And also with us is the former host of Slate's Internet Culture Podcast, I see YMI, and former Pop Culture Happy Hour producer Candice Slim. Hey, Candice. Hello. Lovely to have you both here.

This is going to be a fun conversation, I think. So I Love L.A. stars Rachel Senate as Maya, an ascended employee at a boutique talent management firm. Her world is rocked when her estranged bestie Tolula, played by Odessa Azion, drops in from New York out of nowhere. Tallulah's a model influencer with a growing following and Maya used to manage her, but the two had a falling out. Now that Tallulah's back in her life, they rekindle their personal and professional relationship to varying degrees of success. L.A. is hard for a lot of people. Like, I've been here. It's really isolating and it sucks. And you have to drive everywhere.

and like having you here reminds me how you're doing so good without me and like I'm a flop. Like you're rich and famous and you're killing it and I'm an assistant. Maya's inner circle also includes her school teacher boyfriend Dylan played by Josh Hutcherson, celebrity stylist Charlie played by Jordan Firstman, and Neppel Baby Alani played by real-life Nepplebaby True Whitaker. I Love LA is airing on HBO and streaming on HBO Max. Candice, as the resident L.A. person here, do you love L.A.? As Randy Newman once said, I do love L.A.

On top of that, the Daughters just won the World Series. So there's a lot going on. Now, I think it's really funny, Aisha, that you mentioned Forrest Whitaker's daughter, because there is another Nepo baby in this cast. Guess who Odessa Zion's mom is? Oh, well, Pamela Adlon. Yeah, I didn't know that. Yes.

But anyway, so I like this show. I am in Gen Z. So I'm kind of in the zone, and I live in L.A. I'm from Orange County. So I would say it's pretty accurate. They go to the same spots I do. They walk the same streets I do every day. And I think there is something very lived in about it in terms of like the tone and the cinematography and like what you do when you're in L.A. I think there are parts that are refreshing. There are also parts that I find very derivative of other millennial comedies that came before it. And I think my one thing is that I feel like they take from a lot of shows like honestly, insecure or even like you're the worst. And I think those shows do it better. However, in my head, I was like, well, what if you didn't watch those shows? Like, maybe this is kind of your entry point into those types of comedies as well in a way that's kind of like honoring it, but also trying to make it very relevant. But to me, I think the litmus test of whether you like this show, it's actually not a really like East Coast, West Coast thing. I think it's how you feel about

influence or culture. Because this show is so much revolved around the legitimacy or actually the fallacy of influencer marketing culture and if you're someone who is like me I cover internet culture and you know like how ESPN covers athletes influencers are my athletes so I have to buy into the sauce if you're not into it

and you really think influencers are like not real people and their work is not hard I don't know if you will really buy into the show however if you do I think you will find it funny the way that like the other two is kind of funny in that way you know yeah I'm so glad you mentioned the other two because that was for me like the biggest reference point.

That's, of course, the HBO Max series about two millennial siblings whose younger brother becomes sort of like a Justin Bieber like type of famous person. And so they're trying to sort of leach off of his fame. And there's a lot of like leech, well, leach feels maybe that's a harsh word. Maybe pulling from. Yes. Profiting, reaping the benefits of that fame. There's a lot of that in this show too. But in a way that's a little less icky because it's not like a younger person. It's like your peers in the way that you expect your peers to sort of help you out in that age. So I'm glad you mentioned that reference point. Isabella, I'm curious to hear if you love, I love L.A. or like it. I do. I do like I love L.A. I think my litmus test for the show is like

how online are you? And unfortunately, I am extremely online. I was there for the Rachel Senate Renaissance on Twitter like in 2019, 2020, which was making her famous like, it's L.A. We all have eating disorder, like parody clips. I've always rooted for it. her. I think she has the sauce. I think she has the leading lady like Carrie Bradshaw, Lena Dunham, sort of like problematic. You're not a great person. You're not really a great friend, but you're really entertaining to watch quality. And I think she does for the most part really carry the show. I also really love Jordan Firstman. Like to me, every single time Jordan Firstman was on the screen as her friend Charlie, like his one-liners, his style of humor, his comedic pace just really does

it for me. So that was a really big highlight of the watching experience. And also just the amount of like Instagram comedians and TikTok people that would like pop up here and there and, you know, who were then in the writing credits for certain episodes. Like that's the kind of content I consume all of the time. So it was really fun to watch those people in an actual TV setting, like going off, doing their thing. Yeah. It's funny because I'm a little bit older than both of you. And the shows we've already mentioned were very formative for me and reflective of definitely not all or even most of my experiences. But, like, that was my humor and those are the reference points I can understand. Another show I think of is something like search party, which, you know, like very

self-absorbed people who can't get out of their heads and also kind of, codependent, but also kind of frenemies, like all of those things. Like kind of bring each other down as friends. Yeah. Yeah. Toxic. And so it's interesting to me to watch this because I consider myself very online, but also very online for me now looks very different than what it does. for people maybe 5, 10, 15, even years younger than me. And so I didn't recognize pretty much any of the people who I imagine are TikTok stars or social media stars. But I did sort of recognize the relationships that this friend group has. And I really did enjoy watching the relationship between Tallulah and Maya kind of evolved in a way that I wasn't expecting.

The first episode, it was a little rough for me. And it's like, I didn't laugh once. And I'm just like, okay, I kind of know where this is going. But I think it gets better as it goes on and as these people become more than just, you know, these blanket sort of caricatures. And that's what you expect, right? Like, sitcom pilots, generally speaking, are very hard to land right. You have to know these characters. You have to establish these relationships.

And I think it does a good job of sort of navigating those relationships while also bringing out something that feels a little bit fresh. I also have to say I'd ever watch Gossip Girl and I know Layton Meester is, I know she's a person who exists, but I didn't recognize her. And then, you know, watching it, I was like, oh, this person is funny. So Layton Meester is playing Alyssa, Maya's boss. And that dynamic, the fact that she's this boss and she is both supportive of Maya, but also sometimes not supportive of her in many ways, like the way that unfolds, I really liked seeing that dynamic because now. Now it's not the, you know, Gen X women or the boomer women who are the bosses. It's like a millennial. It's someone who's like in their late 30s. And that dynamic, how much has changed and how much hasn't? Like, it's less overt, but it's still there, the sort of women not supporting women. Totally.

And how slippery the boundaries are, right? And like how fake we are in the workplace. And I think it really grapples with some of the like wanting your boss to be your BFF, but also your boss shouldn't be your BFF thing. And I think how bad our generation is at those boundaries sometimes. Exactly. That was a really interesting relationship to watch that, like, play out between them. Something I really like, and what I think is separating this show from, I'm going to say, like, overcompensating, adults, which I kind of put in this category, but not really. Yeah.

Is I think this show really quickly dispels the fake out because at first, the first episode makes you think this is clearly about Tallulah and Maya's falling out and about female jealousy and that. But in the first episode, there's this really good, like, cathartic, girl so confusing type of conversation. that Odessa and Rachel have about how like it's not that, you know, they're jealous of each other. It's the fact that Tallulah's broke and this show then kind of really takes off to get into what I think the show is really about, which is kind of like the precarious hunger of being young, but also not really knowing how to feed that hunger. I think that's why like the influencer culture is a perfect foil for this because what we kind of realize as the episodes go on is that there are bigger influencers who come into the show. For example, Quinlan Blackwell, someone that. that I love and I know, but I fully understand some people do not know her.

She's kind of seen as this bigger, successful influencer. And I think her episode specifically, which by the way reminds me a lot of the studio, like the Seth Brogan show at the studio. 100% it does. Right? Like I think what that episode's solidified for me is that this show is kind of trying to say that like influencers and maybe L.A. people sometimes are kind of mislabeled, right? Like they are hungry, but some are voracious social climbers.

Others are on drugs. and others use those drugs to social climb. But the issue is no matter how successful you are, no matter if you're Maya or a pop star or Layton Meester, your hunger never stops and you will never feed that hunger. And the question is, like, how much are you willing to sacrifice to stay in that loop? And I think a good example of that is like Josh Hutcherson and how he's just like a normal teacher.

And he's like a good guy, but you can kind of see leading up like, oh, he's going to be that moral moment for Maya, that coming to Jesus moment of like, like honestly, Maya, like, what satisfies your hunger? The gummy worms of, like, being an influencer manager or, like, the stable, like, bread that Josh is, you know? Yeah. I think it also raises the question of, like, what are you hungry for? And I think it's really refreshing to see that being posed to the influencers, too.

Like, we're in a generation where everyone wants to have a platform and everyone wants to be seen and everyone wants to have a big following and everyone wants to matter. But it's, like, for what? Like, what are you trying to say? What are you trying to do? And I think the question of, like, what are you even trying to influence? Like is she a fashion girlie? Is she like a comedian? Is she like just kind of raising the question of like, you're so ambitious and you're so hungry.

But like what is your ultimate goal or what do you care about moving forward other than like your own platform and your own popularity? I thought that was a really fascinating way to explore like what's on the other side of that hunger or that ambition. And do you even know what it is? Or is it just ambition for like ambitions sake? Yeah. Yeah. I mean this is where I put on my sort of like old crank hat, which is that like watching the show sort of reinforcing. for me, my belief that influencing is not a real career and I don't consider it a real, like,

thing. Yeah. And I'm sorry, like, I can understand people who are influencers, but they also have, like, a job or, like, they use whatever their career is to be an influencer, if that makes sense. So I'm not saying we should be following doctors who actually have Instagram pages, but I understand that, like, need to get things out there and use that platform. Whereas, For this younger generation, I think it does seem as though it's just influencers purely, I just need to sell you something. Right. And we all just turn into basically baby capitalists and people who are pushing that. And the fact that some of these characters have conflict over that desire and are wrestling with it and some have none.

Like I think Charlie, the celebrity stylist character, he kind of straddles that line. Or sometimes it's just like you just want to be there and be with the most famous people. versus like how do you do that. That struggle, I think, is really fascinating. And even though I feel that way about that, I still liked the show, even though these are people who I like, in real life, I'm not sure I would take seriously if that makes sense. Yeah. I think, like, in terms of the L.A. of it all, the reason why I find it pretty accurate to what it's like to live in like a Silver Lake or Los Files is because the thing about L.A. is that it's not that you know a celebrity. It's that you're the stylist, hairdresser, social media manager of a celebrity.

and the adjacency to that fame is your ticket to like a privileged existence that you would make like a vlog about. And I think there's a later episode where Jordan Firstman, the stylist, he like cuts the line at a coffee shop. But then they find out that, you know, he actually just lost a job. Therefore, they say you can't cut anymore. And like that's such a physical representation of kind of how like you're tied to community in L.A. And how much you feel like you belong is your proximity to celebrity culture. And influencers, I would say, are a side door to celebrity culture. But, like, I don't know.

Do you guys think the show is funny? At times. Okay. I think it got funny. Yeah. I, like, grew to find it funny and to love it, but I think it took me a while. I wasn't, like, ha-ha laughing. Like, I didn't laugh the first episode either, as I used to say.

Yeah. I think for me, the episode where the influencer, Quinlan, Blackwell, when she shows up in that episode, we won't spoil it. But, like, essentially, it involves a party at a celebrity's mansion. And it felt like the Rachel Senate of Bottoms. It felt like the Rachel Senate that I have, grown to love and appreciate and it felt less obvious, if that makes sense, than the first few episodes before that.

I really like the studio comparison for that reason, because I do think there is a lot of self-awareness in just pointing out how fake so much of the entertainment industry is, is like, at least fake in the sense of, like, if you're just someone watching an influencer's video on your phone, and you think this is just someone who, like, picked up the camera and started recording themselves talking, and it kind of shows you, like, all of the mechanisms around it the same way the studio does with Hollywood. Right. And I think that was really refreshing too because I think it is in a way a critique of that industry, even if all of the characters are these very self-absor people who are participating in it.

I think the show is trying to sort of reveal to us what we might not already understand about this sort of new version of Hollywood that's emerging through influencing an online culture, which is now like for younger generations, for people younger than us, I think it's like they see influencing as a legit career and they see this as a legit form of entertainment. And that's its own question. But I think this is the first show to really sort of tackle that. So it does feel very much in conversation with the studio in that way. Yeah. I mean, I also think it's just interesting to me. And I think this is true of other shows, like insecure, especially. But it is interesting to me to see a friend group where everyone's kind of on different way links, like in terms of financial situations.

Totally. Because, you know, you have Tallulah who was just flailing and basically is able to do things because she's young and hot and has those connections. But other than that, she doesn't have money. She's broke. She's staying with Alani, and Alani is the daughter of a famous director. She has a very important job. She's the VP of a creative project. You're so right.

You're so right. To see them kind of interact with each other. And not that those things necessarily become an issue, like the financial disparities don't necessarily become an issue, but they do play out. And whether or not these characters are aware of it or not, it is interesting to see those interactions and how that sort of colors their dynamic. And as you mentioned, Kansas, the real. relationship with Dylan played by Josh Hutcherson, Maya's boyfriend. He's just kind of on the

outside. And I found that sort of dynamic also very fascinating. He's the only one with like a capital R real job. And no one values him for that at all. Like he's a teacher and he's like, you know, has this very noble profession that he really cares about. And everyone's just kind of like, aw, cute. Anyway, like you're not important. You're nobody. Yeah. Here's a deal, right? Like for eras since the Seinfeld days, A, Seinfeld has many sons and daughters. And so this does fall into the category, a friend show. And I think this year specifically, there have been a lot of friend shows, especially led or starring internet people. I'm thinking of like adults, for example, and it's really funny because, you know, I like adults. I did say that publicly on this very podcast.

And it just got renewed for a season two. And I'm like, great, great, great. I'm a fan. Yeah. But what's really funny is I saw this tweet recently that someone was like, I can't watch adults because I don't have actual friends. And so I don't relate. And I was like, oh, my God. That's so funny. I don't know that sad. But the thing is, I I know, but I think it's like that type of humor and that type of like relatability, I think, is another factor that goes into whether you'll like a show like I Love LA. Because this friend group, they are codependent and it doesn't rub me the wrong way because they have the resources to be codependent.

And it's money, it's time, it's access. It's let's go to Quinlan Blackwell's party just to hang out for a day as if like y'all don't have jobs, but okay. And I don't know. I find it relatable. I unfortunately do sometimes see myself saying things that, like, like Elani or even Jordan Firstman would say, which is a little problematic, but that's fine. Yeah. I mean, it's funny because, like, Relatable is a decent metric to try and judge this show on.

But I think, for me, at least, that's not my entry point into this. My entry point is just, you know, do these characters feel real or as real as like I imagined them to be? And do I feel as though it's going to satisfy me narratively? And I do think as it goes on, And things connect. Like they're running through lines through the show. But it also, you know, I think you could plop yourself into most of these episodes and you wouldn't really be out of the loop. And I think that's to its benefit. And I'm curious to see, you know, if it winds up getting picked up for a second season,

where that goes. Because the last episode is a lot is happening. And there's a lot of tension there in the way that you expect the last episode of a season to be. And I'm curious to see how it play out. But yeah. I don't know. I think this is a show that takes a little bit to get into the groove, but it shows promise.

Does that seem accurate? I think so. I like the show. And I actually, now that I think about it, I was kind of wondering, like, is this an HBO Sunday show, which is when it airs, HBO Sundays? And I was like, well, I think in a weird way, it's kind of supposed to slot into what insecure was culturally. Obviously, there's very thematic things that are different. However, it's supposed to kind of import, like, HBO's version of like, prestige, LA, comedy, 30 minutes. And I think in that case, it sits really easy for me.

I ran through the screeners. And I think part of it's because it's fun. Part of it's because it reminds me of people in my life. But the other part of it is just like, there is kind of this escapist element to it of just like everyone, I think it. I'm going to call people out. I think everyone's had that moment of like, could I be an influencer? And I think it really takes that seat and goes all the way. And I think that's kind of the purpose of a show like this with someone who's a really young creator, Rachel, who I actually think, I think she's.

kind of nailing this and so I want to see more. Yeah, yeah, 100%. Well, tell us what you think about I Love L.A. find us on Facebook at Facebook.com slash PCH. That brings us to the end of our show. Candice Lim and Isabella Gomez Sarmiento. Thanks so much for being here.

This was fun. Thank you. Thank you. And just a reminder that signing up for Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus is a great way to support our show and public radio and you get to listen to all of our episodes, sponsor-free. So please go find out more at plus.

NPR.org slash happy hour or visit the link in our show notes. This episode was produced by Carly Rubin, Jenei Morris, and Mike Katzv, and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy, audio engineering was performed by Austin Arnold, and Hello Kamin provides our theme music. Thanks for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Aisha Harris. We'll see you all next time.