{"id":2124908,"date":"2025-10-30T15:10:32","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T15:10:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2124908"},"modified":"2025-10-30T15:10:32","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T15:10:32","slug":"rachel-sennotts-very-funny-hbo-comedy-will-win-you-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/rachel-sennotts-very-funny-hbo-comedy-will-win-you-over\/","title":{"rendered":"Rachel Sennott\u2019s Very Funny HBO Comedy Will Win You Over"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u201cCan you just choke me, like, real quick?\u201d Maia (Rachel Sennott<\/a>) asks her boyfriend, Dylan (Josh Hutcherson<\/a>), in the midst of a spirited round of morning sex. The choking Maia likes, and it\u2019s an easy gift to give on her birthday. But the quickness is a necessity. Shortly after things heat up, an earthquake hits. Dylan\u2019s eyes go wide, and he reaches for his buzzing phone to check his seismology app. \u201cBaby, this is the big one!\u201d But Maia is unfazed. She doesn\u2019t stop. She\u2019s focused on what she wants. \u201cIf we\u2019re going to die, I just want to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

As much as I hate to tip the opening scene of an new comedy \u2014 and there are plenty more jokes to appreciate, I promise \u2014 few introductions so neatly incorporate the major motifs that make up the ensuing series. In \u201cI Love LA,\u201d<\/a> there\u2019s a relationship that, in the moment, is mainly transactional, even if it\u2019s also only sporadically working toward the same goal. There are characters who invite judgement from the audience, whether it\u2019s disbelief over Maia\u2019s lack of concern for her own safety (not to mention Dylan\u2019s), or it\u2019s admiration for Maia\u2019s unflappable determination to get what she wants. (You can judge Dylan, too, as I did simply for using a seismology app.) And then there are the satiric quips, the candid carnality, and the love-it-or-leave-it depiction of life in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

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Following her breakthrough in \u201cShiva Baby\u201d<\/a> and the cult adoration of \u201cBottoms,\u201d<\/a> Sennott\u2019s HBO series is easy to frame as the next step in becoming what Hannah Horvath called \u201ca voice of a generation.\u201d The similarities between \u201cI Love LA\u201d and \u201cGirls\u201d<\/a> (including much of what\u2019s mentioned above) make it easy to compare this Gen-Z comedy to that early millennial touchstone, especially as the ensemble fills out and the narrative settles in.<\/p>\n

Still, Sennott\u2019s HBO debut largely avoids the reductive label of \u201cGirls: LA\u201d<\/a> by piling on its own steady (and stealthy) jokes, leaning into influencer culture\u2019s vacuous reach, and embracing its characters with surprising sincerity. The warm, relatable territory where the first season ends up doesn\u2019t fully square with the savage satire promised by the pilot. But the combination of empathy and acrimony is endearing in its own right, making it difficult not to be won over by a tightknit crew out to get theirs before the world comes crashing down on top of them.<\/p>\n

Joining Maia for her pivotal birthday are her two local best friends, Charlie (Jordan Firstman) and Alani (True Whitaker) \u2014 respectively, an on-the-rise fashion designer with a smattering of star clients and the nepo baby of a famous filmmaker who gave her a job (in title only) at his studio. Befitting her privileged, blinkered upbringing, Alani makes for an outstanding airhead, and she regularly shares fascinating glimpses into her curious, calcified mind \u2014 like when she\u2019s out to dinner and suggests moving her uneaten carrots closer to her uneaten rabbit \u201cas a veneration, or a little offering.\u201d Charlie, on the other hand, is sharp. His cutting observations are a regular highlight, like when he slags a frenemy for drawing out her 15 minutes of fame: \u201cShe\u2019s bread-crumbing the posts out like it\u2019s her Midwestern wedding photos.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spoken shade amongst the group is as plentiful as actual shade is absent in LA\u2019s concrete desert, and the trio tosses it around with the casual dominance of Shohei Ohtani. Their online parlance is punctuated by empty enthusiasms, vicious aspersions, and obvious hypocrisies that rarely matter. The group will pump each other up (often, by taking others down), and any reversal of previously stated beliefs are automatically ignored for the sake of the friendship. That, or the past has already been forgotten. Because so much in their professional lives pivot on what\u2019s in and what\u2019s out, day by day, moment by moment, people\u2019s thoughts and feelings can be treated as equally immaterial, even disposable \u2014 the result of growing up terminally online and importing that slippery, spinning world of social media into their real ongoing lives.<\/p>\n

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