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I Love LA<\/a><\/p>\n Game Night<\/p>\n \n Season 1<\/p>\n Episode 6\n <\/p>\n \n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n 5 stars<\/p>\n *****\n <\/p>\n \n An uncomfortable, flirty lunch with her former New York boss sends Maia into a spiral <\/strong>that traps Dylan and his school colleagues in a pseudo-sexual thriller. For all of I Love LA\u2019s slapstick comedy and vocal-fried banter, darkness has been lurking around its edges like a blossoming bruise. Up to this point, most of it \u2014 Maia\u2019s ruthlessness, Charlie\u2019s insecurity, Alani\u2019s constant reminders that she grew up around many, many predatory men \u2014 has been tossed off in jokes. In \u201cGame Night,\u201d though, the darkness finally becomes unavoidable.<\/p>\n To tell a truthful story about how to \u201cmake it\u201d in Los Angeles (or, more specifically, in the entertainment industry that has claimed Los Angeles as its own), you have to acknowledge the grimy sacrifices most people end up making. Whether by calculation or circumstance, every player trying to win the game inevitably finds themself making choices they\u2019d rather not think about too hard. It was unclear whether I Love LA would stay in a more cartoon zone or let realism creep in, but the second Maia opens that note from her former New York boss, everything changes \u2014 her face, the story, the camera angle, all of it. You don\u2019t even have to see the message to know that it\u2019s from someone who makes Maia both very nervous and a little excited. The fact that it\u2019s addressed to \u201cLewinsky\u201d just confirms why.<\/p>\n When she decides to meet the guy (Colin Woodell) for lunch at a dimly lit restaurant, they catch up, flirt, and drink (she drinks more, at his encouragement). All the while, our girl is visibly anxious. She wrings her hands, giggles nervously, and chases wine with more wine. As he smirk-smiles over his empty glass at her, she starts to shrink. She\u2019s so hyperaware of everything she\u2019s doing that she almost can\u2019t hear what he\u2019s actually saying.<\/p>\n When Maia does tune back in, it\u2019s usually something about how sensitive people are these days and how annoying it is to tiptoe around the workplace. She tentatively tries to push back when he implies that Alyssa was a wimp about getting sexually harassed, but he barely registers it. \u201cShe\u2019s not like us,\u201d he insists. \u201cShe\u2019s afraid for people to get hurt. Like, \u2018Oh no, I tripped and fell down the stairs because my boss grabbed my ass!\u2019 Grow up.\u201d<\/p>\n If that did happen, it\u2019s obviously horrifying. But in the grand tradition of male bosses who decide to make younger women their office playthings, he mostly just wants to tell Maia that she\u2019s Not Like the Others \u2014 and Maia is just enough in his thrall to take that as a compliment.<\/p>\n \u201cFake it till you make it\u201d is a clich\u00e9 so ubiquitous that it\u2019s become almost meaningless; in the entertainment industry, it usually means learning to calibrate your reactions to some truly noxious shit in the name of being game for anything. Maia hasn\u2019t seemed too squeamish about getting her hands dirty while catapulting Tallulah to the top, but watching her acquiesce to this cocky guy\u2019s warped worldview somehow feels different. Whether or not they ever did anything physical while she was his intern, witnessing the forced intimacy of their relationship \u2014 and the undeniable sexual tension humming away at its center \u2014 is enough to understand exactly what their deal is. Rachel Sennott is incredibly good in this episode, but particularly in this scene, which asks her to convey Maia\u2019s conflicted response to this man while white-knuckling her way through every line. Even as the ground seems to shake underneath Maia\u2019s feet, Lorene Scafaria\u2019s directing picks up every shred of tension with laser precision.<\/p>\n And yet, for as tough as that lunch is, the hardest part of this episode to watch is still Dylan\u2019s game night, i.e., Maia\u2019s next stop after accidentally getting shit-faced on Temptation Island. Maia probably wouldn\u2019t have fit in with his teacher crowd even if she were sober, but drunk and horny \u2026? Ooh boy, she never stood a chance. It doesn\u2019t help that one of the teachers is a pretty woman who, Maia manages to realize through her drunken haze, is \u201cyoung, like me.\u201d Her subsequent attempts to uncover some sign of infidelity \u2014 or at least a scrap of emotional cheating to justify her own \u2014 make everyone so uncomfortable that Dylan eventually just calls it and tells everyone to leave.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat the fuck was that?!\u201d he finally asks. A completely understandable reaction, all things considered. But Maia\u2019s eyes light up at this flash of fury from her otherwise reasonable boyfriend. \u201cYou\u2019re hot when you\u2019re angry,\u201d she says. He blinks, absorbing the implications \u2014 and then lunges for her face, hungry to satisfy whatever dark urge spurred his girlfriend to fling herself around their apartment like a breathy porn star. When they fuck, it\u2019s fast and furious. For Maia, it\u2019s an obvious relief to scratch the itch that started the second she sat down for lunch opposite her past. For a second, she even imagines her old boss in place of Dylan, which Dylan seems to realize in a moment that leaves him more depressed than fulfilled. He might now know exactly what revved his girlfriend up into such a frenzy, but he does know it wasn\u2019t him.<\/p>\n For as impactful as those scenes are, they\u2019re not the only reasons this episode gets full marks from me. As directed by Scafaria and written by Emma Barrie and Max Silvestri, \u201cGame Night\u201d is an extremely well-balanced episode all around because it\u2019s also really funny. While Maia and Dylan are briefly trapped in a pseudo-sexual thriller, the rest of the cast carries the brunt of the comedy while revealing more nuanced layers of their characters, too. For example: Charlie going from running into his on-and-off ex at Lukas\u2019s funeral (or rather, the second overflow location for Lukas\u2019s funeral) to bringing their sex tape to an electronics store for wiping. On paper, it is hilarious that Charlie ends up sobbing while watching himself have sex. Obviously. In practice, is it also kind of devastating? Absolutely.<\/p>\n Even Tallulah gets a hint of pathos in this episode \u2014 but I\u2019m honestly glad it\u2019s just a hint, because \u201cGame Night\u201d also desperately needs the laughs her story line gives. Maia not only lands her a lucrative partnership with \u201cblue-chip brand\u201d Ritz but lets slip to an exec that Tallulah is currently seeing a woman. \u201cWe love that she\u2019s a lesbian,\u201d chirps the exec after Maia explains that she\u2019s dated both men and women. \u201cCorporate\u2019s gonna flip!\u201d So when Tallulah\u2019s ad goes up, it\u2019s as the face of a campaign about Ritz being \u201cproud to spread queer stories.\u201d (Charlie: \u201cI get why the proud is italicized, but why spread?\u201d)<\/p>\n Tallulah couldn\u2019t be more horrified. It\u2019s not that she\u2019s mad to be outed, exactly. She\u2019s icked out by its cheesiness, not to mention embarrassed for the moment her more experienced girlfriend (?) sees it. Tessa, however, isn\u2019t phased. As it turns out, being a celebrity-ish chef comes with its own humiliating possibilities \u2014 like, for instance, appearing on a morning show to share your Hamilton-inspired brunch recipes. At seeing Tessa rap her way through lines like \u201cHow does a sausage, biscuit, side of some ham in a pancake \u2014,\u201d Tallulah and I both lose it. It\u2019s so stupid and so funny. It\u2019s also, Tessa says, proof that Talullah is far from the only person to make a dumb amount of money ($5,000 for Hamilton, $100,000 [!] for Ritz) by doing something deeply cringe. It\u2019s embarrassing, but as Tessa puts it, \u201cPeople who talk shit about you just want your money. You do that shit, you pay your rent, you move on.\u201d<\/p>\n And so, buoyed by their shared honesty and willingness to get the bag, Tessa and Tallulah giddily sneak up on the Ritz mural armed with a bucket of paint. Is it technically a hate crime for two queer women to deface an ad that\u2019s ostensibly celebrating \u201cLGBTQ+ voices\u201d? Who knows. Probably. But for these two and this episode of I Love LA, it\u2019s a hell of a lot of fun anyway.<\/p>\n \u2022 I can\u2019t say Josh Hutcherson was ever a formative crush of mine (I was #TeamGale) (I know) (I\u2019m sorry!), but for those who had that experience, I hope you enjoyed that sex scene!<\/p>\n \u2022 Alani just might be the best friend\/my favorite character on this show, so I hope she gets a story line worthy of True Whitaker<\/a>\u2019s sharp portrayal soon.<\/p>\n \u2022 Are 2010\u2019s bangers coming back around, or is I Love LA\u2019s music supervisor just catering to my millennial nostalgia centers with cuts like the Knife\u2019s \u201cHeartbeats\u201d? Either way, I was startled (complimentary).<\/p>\n \u2022 Someone get me Tallulah\u2019s funeral fit immediately, please and thank you.<\/p>\n \u2022 \u201cDo I look really gay right now?\u201d \u201cYou have a lot of buckles. You jangle. You\u2019re like a ghost in a play.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 \u201c\u2026.what\u2019s Hamilton?\u201d<\/p>\n VULTURE NEWSLETTER<\/p>\n Keep up with all the drama of your favorite shows!<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n
\n Photo: Kenny Laubbacher\/HBO\n <\/p>\n