I Love LA<\/a><\/p>\nThey Can\u2019t All Be Jeremys<\/p>\n
\n Season 1<\/p>\n
Episode 5\n <\/p>\n
\n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n
4 stars<\/p>\n
****\n <\/p>\n
\n Maia and Dylan get a taste of the ambitious life during a dinner at Alyssa\u2019s seemingly picture-perfect Los Feliz home.
\n Photo: Kenny Laubbacher\/HBO\n <\/p>\n
Well, well, well! Is that a flicker of ambition I see creeping into the laissez-faire vibes of I Love LA? Dare I say, even a few flickers??<\/p>\n
After spending a solid chunk of last week\u2019s recap wondering when we were going to see a single character on this show display some semblance of drive, \u201cThey Can\u2019t All Be Jeremys\u201d delivered exactly that. Maia\u2019s gone full speed ahead, pushing Tallulah to any brand willing to cough up enough money for an Instagram post \u2014 preferably both grid and story \u2014 and is crushing it. Charlie\u2019s taking full advantage of his failed hookup with sweetie boy Lukas (Froy Gutierrez) to land himself a (brief :\/) (more on that later) styling gig. Even Tallulah takes a tentative swing at following through after Maia lands her a branding deal with Kia, even if her driving lesson with Alani lasts about as long as one traffic light cycle. Our intrepid influencers are making moves! Kinda, sorta, maybe, finally! Let\u2019s go through them now in order of commitment, shall we?<\/p>\n
First up is Tallulah. Having taken up Tessa (a.k.a. \u201cHot Chef\u201d) on her offer to hang out (aka \u201chave a ton of hot sex\u201d), it\u2019s fair to say she\u2019s distracted from her \u201cwork\u201d duties. When Maia gets Kia to agree to an impressive $30,000 Instagram post, though, even she knows she has to take it somewhat seriously. And so she reluctantly disentangles herself from Tessa and enlists L.A. baby Alani to remind her how to drive. Alani\u2019s advice is mostly for Tallulah to shrug off any accidents as an inevitable byproduct of living in L.A., which is maybe not entirely wrong, but as always with Alani\u2019s casual asides, it is nonetheless concerning.<\/p>\n
After giving driving a go for approximately 12 minutes, Tallulah pivots to an activity that\u2019s much more in her wheelhouse: ghostwriting indifferent texts for Alani in order to ensnare her fuckboy hookup. For all of Alani\u2019s skills and inherent rich girl confidence, she just doesn\u2019t have the sexy kind of nonchalance that fuckboys chemically cannot resist. Tallulah\u2019s solution? Immediately following up a nude with, \u201cSorry, wrong person.\u201d Because nothing is more predictable or disappointing than a fuckboy, this move obviously works in under 30 seconds.<\/p>\n
Onto Charlie, who\u2019s successfully befriended Catholic TikToker Lukas, but now must adjust his stylist persona from a \u201cWERK, queen! Slay mama!\u201d pop star approach to something more bro-friendly. Luckily, \u201cit\u2019s gonna be epic?\u201d does the trick. But he\u2019s still completely out of his depth when it comes to socializing with Lukas and his band of merry sober men, especially once they start talking about keeping each other \u201caccountable\u201d while confronted with various pornographic sins in Vegas. (Charlie: \u201cSo you send each other the videos, or\u2026?\u201d) Jordan Firstman hasn\u2019t gotten much of a chance to flex his acting muscles to this point, but he finally does here while embodying Charlie\u2019s confusion, intrigue, and even relief at how nice they all are. Not even Charlie\u2019s projectile vomiting before a run, nor his subsequent insecure freakout, can dent Lukas\u2019 pleasant enthusiasm. Everything he throws at Lukas, from daring his bros to make fun of the \u201cdisgusting\u201d gay guy harshing their hike buzz to the aforementioned vomit, just bounces right back off his placid face.<\/p>\n
And so, exhausted and embarrassed \u2014 and, not for nothing, coming down off molly \u2014 Charlie accepts the warm embrace of the Accountability Bros, who don\u2019t even want to roast him in the group chat! What do they even talk about if not each other\u2019s flaws?! Since we haven\u2019t seen Charlie really socialize with other gay guys outside of hookups, it\u2019s probably safe to assume here that Charlie\u2019s reference point is his snark-heavy dynamic with Alani, Maia, and Tallulah. It could be interesting to see how shifting his outlook with Lukas might\u2019ve affected his friendships with his girls; unfortunately, this episode ends with Lukas\u2019 untimely death by ATV accident. It\u2019s very sudden and sad, and yet my first reaction was, \u201cWhere was the Accountability Squad when Lukas got on an ATV without a fucking helmet??\u201d<\/p>\n
Before that TMZ alert hits, though, Charlie and Maia have a moment to bond over their shared ambitions before she and Dylan go to Alyssa\u2019s for dinner. For Maia, getting a double date invite from her boss is just as much of a coup as landing the Kia deal. Having made a solid case for becoming Alyssa\u2019s favorite (this show really is a case study in the benefits of strategic sucking up in the entertainment industry), Maia\u2019s now angling for becoming Alyssa\u2019s go-to in more ways than one. Enlisting Dylan into her charm offensive is a risky step, but if she wants to become more of a power player at work, it is a crucial one.<\/p>\n
The tricky thing is, Alyssa\u2019s seemingly picture-perfect Los Feliz (I\u2019m assuming) life is actually a deeply depressing black hole of myopic despair. Her husband, Jeremy (\u201chey, it\u2019s Ben Feldman!\u201d \u2014 me seeing Alyssa\u2019s husband, Jeremy), is a pompous tool who probably hates Alyssa180 as much as he resents Alyssa herself for being more successful than he is. Even the story of how they met \u2014 Alyssa insulting a Beck song that he apparently produced \u2014 is depressing. By the time Jeremy excuses himself with a headache allegedly induced by Maia\u2019s perfume and Italian conversational gestures, I was relieved to see him go.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately for us all, but especially Maia, Jeremy didn\u2019t go to bed at all. No, no. Instead, Maia\u2019s trip to the downstairs bathroom ends with her seeing him in a rec room fully jerking it to the most basic of porn videos. Meanwhile, Alyssa\u2019s spending her evening complaining about Jeremy losing his work ethic after a ski accident (he took his helmet off to look cool \u2014 unfortunate foreshadowing for Lukas), drinking too much wine, and wrinkling her nose at Dylan\u2019s valiant efforts to save dinner with a GORGEOUSLY MEDIUM RARE steak. Jeremy and Alyssa\u2019s \u201cpower couple\u201d life is an absolute lie \u2014 and yet Maia still kinda wishes she had their aesthetic life, anyway.<\/p>\n
I truly felt like I was watching a horror movie as I watched Maia\u2019s face change as she started to reconsider her relationship by the end of this episode. It\u2019s one thing when Dylan vents about people who \u201clive to work\u201d and are too ambitious without picking up on her hesitation to agree. Like she says, it\u2019s not a bad thing to have some kind of goal for your life; if their ultimate visions of life don\u2019t line up, they just may be incompatible, and that\u2019s okay! But it\u2019s still so rough to go from this episode\u2019s opening scene, where they have an easy camaraderie Alyssa and Jeremy probably never had, to Maia gnawing on a fingernail in their kitchen with her boss\u2019 condescending disapproval ringing through her head.<\/p>\n
They can\u2019t all be Jeremys, and having had a decade more experience with Jeremys than Maia, they absolutely shouldn\u2019t all be Jeremys. But Maia may still find it easier to slot a Jeremy into her visions of big deals and Forbes photo shoots than a Dylan, and as the viewer strapped in for that potential car crash, let me just say: nooOOoooOOOooo\u2026\u2026.!<\/p>\n
\u2022 I Love LA\u2019s sudden vomit counter: 2. Any bets for where we\u2019ll be by season\u2019s end?<\/p>\n
\u2022 Maia at Alyssa180 feels like what might\u2019ve happened if Broad City<\/a>\u2019s Ilana actually cared about her job and her coworker didn\u2019t hate her fucking guts.<\/p>\n\u2022 Justice for Courtney and her extremely on the nose cat vest! Enjoy your biking apple tour, Courtney! It sounds LOVELY!<\/p>\n
\u2022 Every piece of disturbing lore Alani drops, unfortunately, I\u2019m so sorry, hits even harder and funnier than the last. This week, that honor goes to the revelation that her gorgeously lit nudes were taken by her dad\u2019s former DP (\u201cit\u2019s messed up what happened to him, everyone overreacted\u201d).<\/p>\n
\u2022 Leighton Meester continues to crush in this role, and I would absolutely kill to know the L.A. nightmare people she\u2019s basing Alyssa on. Her whining line delivery alone when she apologizes for not clocking Maia\u2019s perfume because \u201cI have COVID\u201d? Divine.<\/p>\n
\u2022 See also: \u201cDo you know how many times I could\u2019ve fucked Jon Hamm at Speranza?\u201d<\/p>\n
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