Spoiler note: This article discusses I Love LA episodes 1-7
I Love LA had bear wranglers as part of its production team.
If you aren’t among the nearly 2 million average viewers per episode, the new series is not a survival thriller or forest-set drama. Rather, it’s a Los Angeles-set comedy about a group of late 20-somethings navigating ambition, love, careers and the chaos of the city itself. With season one coming to a close on Dec. 21, HBO notes the show is among its fastest growing original comedies and second top freshman comedy in platform history.
And as the name suggests, the series filmed all across Los Angeles (aside from the upcoming stint in the finale’s New York City-set episode). Much of the show rolls around the Eastside at hotspots in Silver Lake and Echo Park, but filming also took the crew into Los Angeles County’s less urban terrain, like the charming town of Sierra Madre on the edge of the San Gabriel Mountains. These foothills happened to have the perfect house for an episode set at an influencer party taking place at Elijah Wood’s home.
“We had probably four or five [black] bears patrolling the property trying to get onto the street and knock over trash cans,” says location manager Jonathan Jansen (Barry), who recalls that there were also deer, coyotes and a couple of rattlesnakes. “They were more focused on the trash cans than on what we were doing up there.”
Rachel Sennott and True Whitaker in episode four.Credit: Kenny Laubbacher/HBO
Elijah Wood, Rachel Sennott and True Whitaker in episode four.Credit: Kenny Laubbacher/HBO
Over the course of eight episodes, I Love LA creator, writer and star Rachel Sennott — whose profile first rose on the internet and in the alt-NYC comedy scene before earning laughs in applauded comedies like Shiva Baby,Bodies Bodies Bodies and Bottoms — weaves a transplant’s earnest love letter to Los Angeles.
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“I love that every neighborhood is its own world,” Sennott shares over Zoom. “You never feel like you know the whole city. It’s changing and moving, and you get to keep exploring.”
I Love LA positions its version of L.A. very specifically as a place where people go to execute big city dreams, particularly ones with goal posts like 5 million TikTok followers and giftings from Balenciaga. In the show, the city is (for its focal characters, as it is for many people) a projection of ambition and fantasy. Even when it knocks you on your ass.
Credit: Kenny Laubbacher/HBO
The comedy follows Maia (Sennott), a newly 27 aspiring influencer talent manager battling a reckless best friend/ client (Odessa A’zion), a drifting-away boyfriend (Josh Hutcherson), an impossible boss (Leighton Meester) and the turmoil of her Saturn Return (an astrological milestone that, as touched on in the first episode, throws your life into chaos before you achieve an authentic version of yourself around age 30). She also has her best friends — stylist Charlie (Jordan Firstman) and Alani (True Whitaker), the daughter of a famous director born-and-raised in Los Angeles — by her side.
While I Love LA makes the occasional drop into the likes of Hollywood and Beverly Hills, it, at its core, is an homage to the Eastside, which Sennott considers home. Maia and co. make a showcase of the region from the Silver Lake Reservoir to Tenants of the Trees, Capri Club and Canyon Coffee (though we love the nods to Dan Tana’s, Katsuya and Din Tai Fung).
Jordan Firstman, True Whitaker and Odessa A’Zion in episode 1. Credit: Kenny Laubbacher/HBO
The show forgoes tackling traditional Hollywood for the more timely world of content creators and their adjacent bubbles (“I think that a lot of today’s artists are artists online,” Sennott says.), so it only makes sense that I Love LA unfolds in be-seen locales for affluent Angelenos (and the aspiring-to-be affluent).
This is perhaps most notable in the pilot’s montage of Erewhon, described by Charlie as “an experience, not a grocery store.” Sennott recalls that she loved to go to the Silver Lake location (where they filmed) when she first moved to L.A. from New York. After smoking a joint, she’d walk around for hours, enjoying the beautiful products and colorful juices, but not buy anything. “Shooting it and make it feel how it feels when you go in there and you’re high was fabulous.”
After Jansen, the production manager, spent a few phone calls convincing Erewhon executives (and, eventually, the president) of their vision, the Erewhon shoot took place in the wee hours of the night between the store’s operating hours. The mid-day-set scene required lots of lights, cranes and rigging (and therefore the covering up of nearby apartment windows). “We didn’t get any complaints from the residents,” Jansen says. “There’s a lot of moving pieces on that one, but we made it work.” The result is an approximately seven-second technicolor kaleidoscope of (no doubt organic) produce, juices and pre-packaged meals. “I understood why Rachel really wanted to shoot there because it’s such a symbolic place,” adds production designer Yong Ok Lee (Minari, The Farewell, Drive-Away Dolls).
Joining the masses at trendy, pretty places — even if you can’t buy more than a smoothie — can be a balm when navigating uniquely L.A. punches to the gut while on the turbulent path to achieving life’s greatest ambitions. An expensive parking ticket, a grueling crawl up the 405, a stolen catalytic converter, a smashed car window or sudden fender bender (What is SoCal without cars?) can be cured by the tranquilizing effects of a rooftop happy hour drink, a glorious breakfast burrito on a sunny morning at the beach, dinner where the Rat Pack used to feast, strolling a world-famous museum to look at world-famous artifacts or even waiting in line for free sample designer products and matcha at a Melrose Avenue pop-up — depending on your vibe, of course.
Credit: Kenny Laubbacher/HBO
Credit: Kenny Laubbacher/HBO
These sorts of salves can become more frequent and gratuitous as one’s star (or star adjacency) rises. If you can’t afford health insurance, at least you can get free outfits to wear to Coachella. Whether a micro-influencer or A-lister, events overflowing with bites and drinks and goody bags are abundant. Free omakase goes from a privilege to an expectation.
As I Love LA season one comes to an end, Maia is on the cusp of a potential career game changer: getting her client/BFF Tallulah to a high-profile fashion dinner in New York City. The world around Maia is getting prettier (even despite fumbles like accidentally stabbing herself through the foot with a knife) as she also becomes a worse version of herself, mimicking the flourishing, sunny paradise and industrial wasteland reputations of Los Angeles itself.
Credit: Kenny Laubbacher/HBO
Credit: Kenny Laubbacher/HBO
This duality is among what Sennott loves most about the city. “L.A. can be so glamorous but so dark or feel haunted, and I love that juxtaposition,” she says. Co-writer and executive producer Emma Barrie, who sits next to Sennott while on Zoom, reminds her of a photo she first took when she got to L.A.“You thought it looked really beautiful,” Barrie says of the hotel rooftop pic, even with the DaVita dialysis billboard in frame.
For newcomers, understanding and getting to know the good parts and people of Los Angeles can take time, just as it takes a bit of willpower to not be drowned by power, money and fame (both real and cosplay). “You realize some people — not everyone, of course — but the people who look fake [do so] actually because of their vulnerability,” says Lee. “They are lovely and kind people.”
Barrie, who is from L.A., was excited to romanticize her hometown. “It turns these places you’re at every day into this more cinematic experience… It’s so exciting to be able to show other people like, ‘Yes, this place means something to me’ and now we get to see it, and it can live on forever in a way.”
“[Los Angeles] feels like a living, breathing thing,” she concludes. “L.A. just constantly is changing for better or worse.”
I Love LA is streaming on HBO Max.