I Love NY
Season 1
Episode 8
Editor’s Rating
3 stars
***
Photo: Kenny Laubbacher/HBO
I can’t stop watching I Love LA like it’s a horror movie. Watching Maia barrel towards her goals with blinders on — not to mention Tallulah breezing through life as an influencer who can afford to disdain a $100,000 deal — makes for a nauseating trip at the best of times. And in the worst of times, as we see in “I Love NY”? Well, let’s just call Maia Tracy Jordan, because this shit’s Hard to Watch (Based on the Novel Stone Cold Bummer by Manipulate).
The season finale immediately throws a curveball by decamping to New York, the city where Maia met Tallulah and Alani… and, unfortunately for her and us all, her sleazy former boss, Ben. Flush with the victory of landing Tallulah a spot at the Formé dinner, but also fresh off getting fired and going on “a break” from Dylan, Maia is feeling, shall we say, un petit peu insane. “She’s just in boss mode,” Tallulah says unconvincingly, as Maia stomps off to find more cigarettes to chain smoke. Alani, echoing my thoughts exactly, just sighs, “Girl, she’s not good.”
Alani and I are correct. Despite Maia’s best attempts to paint this New York week as both an exciting career opportunity and some kind of relationship Rumspringa, she’s clearly melting down. If Tallulah doesn’t nail her appearance at this dinner, she’s fucked. If she doesn’t take Ben up on his offer of employment, she’s broke. And if she doesn’t figure out if she wants to stay with Dylan — and if so, how to stay with Dylan — she’s in for a world of hurt. Basically, everything in her world is on the edge of imploding. But hey, at least Ben’s left his credit card at the bar (as an obvious excuse to swing by Maia’s hotel the next day to get it back, but that’s a tomorrow problem). Obviously, Maia chooses to deal with her demons by drowning them in shots.
Back in Los Angeles, Dylan’s dealing with his relationship anxiety by cleaning out their pantry while listening to music so loudly that he doesn’t hear Charlie walk in to check in on him, at Maia’s request. Dylan insists he’s doing fine, but let’s be real: unleashing the full musty might of your most disorganized cabinet just to have something to do isn’t exactly subtle. Since Charlie’s also bored and lonely, he decides to stay and help, whether that be by wearing a Maia-esque wig to roleplay deep talks (Charlie’s idea) or settling in for a marathon of Ken Burns’ Vietnam War docuseries (Dylan’s, bless him). Jordan Firstman and Josh Hutcherson have a comfortable chemistry that makes these scenes work, even if it’s painfully clear that Charlie and Dylan are only really hanging out because they don’t have anyone else at the ready.
The most important things we learn here are that Charlie really misses his erstwhile ex Andrew, while Dylan’s torn about how much longer he should keep walking on eggshells around Maia’s emotional “landmines.” Dylan doesn’t hesitate to tell Charlie he should just reach out to Andrew; Charlie, though, doesn’t quite know what to tell Dylan in return. The truth is that no matter how much he and Maia care about each other, their lives have diverged enough that Dylan can’t even imagine being on the same road with her anymore — and if there’s one thing he knows for sure, it’s that he’s sick of being stuck in the passenger seat for the ride.
Unfortunately, Maia has once again forgotten that her boyfriend might not just be waiting at home like a nervous puppy for her to return, so the idea that he might be drifting out of her grasp never really occurs to her. Instead, she gets busy being “a pig in the city” (à la Babe, if Babe were a Charli XCX music video). We don’t get to see the night that ensues post-shots, but the morning after is enough of a mess to paint a picture of what went down.
Alani’s morning-after takes her away from her girls, which I hate because I love her and want her more involved in the main action! But we do at least get more background on her family when she wakes up in her dad’s apartment — where a woman who is very much not her mother is taking a shower. Alani’s devastated by the idea of her dad (fittingly played by Forest Whitaker-contemporary Keith David) cheating on her mom, whom he met while cheating on his first wife. In her mind, her parents were soulmates who couldn’t help but come together. Luckily(?), it turns out that this “Denise” (Whitney Rice) isn’t his girlfriend, but an unhinged stalker who promptly stabs him and runs away. I Love LA could never have anticipated that this episode would air at the end of the absolute worst week to see a beloved Hollywood figure get stabbed in his home, but it’s extremely jarring nonetheless.
Elsewhere, Maia and Talullah wake up crusty as hell in their hotel room, where they quickly realize that they got two truly unholy souvenirs from their night out: matching, bleeding tattoos reading “THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE BUSINESS” (my biggest laugh of the episode by a mile). “It’s okay! I like it!” Tallulah lies. “It’s … random!” It’s also smack dab in the middle of her back, which poses a problem for her Formé appearance — especially because Tallulah’s also stolen a tiny backless dress for herself to wear instead of the classy gown Antoine already picked out. This move should surprise no one, least of all Maia. And honestly? I bet Antoine would be kinda gagged that his “bag thief” became a dress thief, too. Still, Maia convinces her to bring it back while she brainstorms what to do. It’s not the best time for her to FaceTime Charlie in a Formé-induced panic while he’s trying to convince Dylan that Maia’s pining for him, but in fairness to her, this is the closest to an actual career emergency as she’s had so far.
At this point, it bears repeating: I Love LA is about the bizarre lives of often vapid people trying to work in an often surreal and even disgusting industry. It’s a satire that nevertheless takes its subjects seriously; even when it falls short of true insight, I always appreciate the attempt to thread its caricatures with some nuance. But if you’re looking for a complete condemnation of its characters for making selfish choices, you’re watching the wrong show. The show you are watching is one in which a woman wants everything — money, influence, a hot boyfriend, and an even hotter group of friends — and will do almost anything to get it.
So, no use avoiding it anymore: It’s time to talk about Maia and Ben.
It’s fair enough if you saw his note addressed to “Lewinsky” and assumed that meant they’d already hooked up, but I never thought so. Ben’s particular brand of cocky smarm — so viscerally portrayed by Colin Woodell — has all the hallmarks of a man whose two favorite things are (1) power and (2) reminding people how much power he has over them. It’s not that he wouldn’t sleep with Maia. It’s that making her feel special through some moderate-to-severe sexual harassment scratches an entirely different itch. This (married!) man gets off on knowing he could fuck his hot intern; he just also knows that he’d be giving up a sort of leverage if he does. So instead, he gives Maia just enough encouragement to keep her hooked on his ever-tightening line.
That takes us back to Maia’s hotel. Just a couple hours before the Formé dinner, Ben shows up to “pick up his credit card,” which Maia assumes is code for “have hot sex” that, she reasons, she’s technically allowed to have while she and Dylan are on their break. (Whether you believe that’s true or not probably comes down to whether you agreed with Ross or Rachel.) Ben does go in for the messy makeout, but to Maia’s intense frustration, he stops short of undressing. He just takes her hand — and spits in it.
“Touch yourself,” he says. She does. His smirk widens in a horrible way you might recognize from any given Criminal Minds serial killer, but Maia isn’t turned off just yet. It takes Ben straight up telling her they’re not going to have sex (“not today”) for her to do a double-take. That he only presents a job offer once she’s orgasmed and disheveled is all part of his plan and power trip. It’s a life-changing offer ($380,000 starting salary?!), and it’s completely humiliating. It’s so tough to watch that I was relieved when the credits rolled and revealed the episode was both written and directed by Rachel Sennott. I missed Lorene Scafaria’s touch, but for this scene in particular, it’s maybe for the best that Sennott was firmly in the driver’s seat.
“Imagine what I’ll get you to do when you’re working for me,” Ben, a cartoon villain, concludes. Finally, Maia gets it. This man doesn’t like or “see” her at all; he’s only ever wanted to fuck with her head.
So what now? As she tells Charlie (who has parachuted into NYC with a new Tallulah outfit via Mimi Rush’s private deus ex machina jet), one thing she knows for sure is that she can’t work for Ben again. She also decides, at Charlie’s encouragement, not to tell Tallulah the whole truth of why. I don’t totally buy that Tallulah would be disappointed in her for making that choice. If anything, the main reason not to tell her would be that she might burn Ben’s office to the ground. Either way, we can put a pin in that lie for now, because it’s sure to boomerang back Maia’s way come season two.
In the meantime, Tallulah’s on her way to the Formé dinner in a whole new outfit, Maia’s only barely keeping herself together, and Dylan’s … sleeping with Maia’s nemesis, Claire?! I want to yell that we were rooting for him — we were all rooting for him!!! — but in truth, next season’s going to have a hell of a hill to climb if it’s gonna convince me that Dylan wouldn’t be happier living a life of blissfully boring Saturdays with Claire. Then again, there might also be a part of him that perversely loves the thrill of being with someone like Maia, wild nights and “landmines” included. There are so many versions of L.A. they could live in; the question now is, which one do they actually want?
• Tallulah hates Ben, describing her as “the littlest fish in a very big pond,” and Maia clearly thinks they can do better. But as much as I do not like or trust Ben/Antoine, they probably have a point here. Tallulah and Maia just can’t keep winning by defying all the rules forever. Good luck next season, babes!
• The sequence of Tallulah and Maia sprinting through the subway in formalwear to The Cranberries’ “Dreams” is very fun, and also feels — not for the first or even fifth time this season — like it owes a whole lot to Broad City.
• Dylan cleaning out the pantry in a Celebrity Skin t-shirt feels very “Ben Wyatt making claymation shorts in a Letters to Cleo shirt”-coded. (In that respect, could Ben Wyatt ever be with an aspiring Jen Barkley such as Maia…? Discuss!)
• Charlie, anticipating future Jordan Firstman Discourse: “I happen to be an expert at making people realize why they’re mad — and then making them way madder.”
• Alani: “Wait, he’s wearing a wedding ring! That’s a good sign.” Me, out loud: “Alani, please…!”
• “One of our managers went on paternity leave, so he’s fired.”
• “Sorry, sorry, I’m here. Mimi’s jet had a female pilot.”
• “I think you ladies look beautiful. But my rat thinks you look like sluts.”
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