Once you have lived through a slew of impossibly iconic television comedy series targeted to 20-somethings, it can be hard to welcome new ones into your life. If you came of age with Girls, Insecure, Looking, Broad City, and even Sex and the City, new shows attempting to fit into the same group-of-friends rom-com genre can feel like bad impersonations. But not I Love LA.
The new HBO comedy series from co-creator, writer, and star Rachel Sennott puts a period at the end of a very funny sentence written throughout 2025. This year has delivered three excellent new comedies that reflect the experiences of young people today: Prime Video's Overcompensating, FX and Hulu's Adults, and now HBO's I Love LA. We simply can't stop winning.
Since Insecure ended after five seasons in 2021, we haven't really had an HBO comedy series to fill the void of the "dysfunctional friends figuring their lives and careers out in a big city" on the cable network. However, Sennott's laugh-out-loud hilarious show was worth the wait and has the potential to once again be a generation-defining comedy from HBO.
I Love LA carries the torch for an iconic HBO comedy tradition
The plot of I Love LA isn't anything revolutionary, but it doesn't need to be. Sennott stars as Maia, a 27-year-old marketing assistant in Los Angeles, living with her schoolteacher boyfriend Dylan (Josh Hutcherson), making her way with best friends Charlie (Jordan Firstman) and Alani (True Whitaker), and trying to get a promotion from her tough millennial boss Alyssa (Leighton Meester).
However, Maia's old friend Tallulah (Odessa A'zion) has found continued success as an influencer in New York City. Since Maia helped launch Tallulah's social media fame, she bristles at reminders of her old pal, especially since they planned to move to LA together. On her birthday, Maia decides to block Tallulah on social media, but her surprise arrival in town rocks Maia's world and turns it upside down.
Not to compare I Love LA to other shows of its ilk, but Maia and Tallulah have an almost idential dynamic as Hannah and Jessa in HBO's Girls (or really any of the two girls in Girls). And that's not a comparison that demeans either show because they couldn't be more different. I Love LA's sense of humor greatly differs from others in its category, a uniquely biting humor for the TikTok age.
Still, Sennott's writing and world-building for this friend group couldn't be smarter or more seamless. After only one episode, you completely get a sense for who these people are, even if you don't know their backstories or fully understand what half of them do for a living. We know enough to stand by Maia, become obsessed with Dylan, and give Tallulah a deserved side-eye.
I Love LA's secret weapon might be guest star Leighton Meester as Maia's boss. You can never really tell if she's genuinely nice or secretly mean or some third thing that's indecipherable but still not overtly sinister. Meester has long been known for her comedy chops (Blair Waldorf wasn't given credit for how funny she was), but she hasn't had a chance to shine her comedic timing light quite like this. Alyssa could have been forgettable or severely hateable, but Meester found the sweet spot.
It's clear from the first episode that there will be a portion of viewers who won't "get it." They won't understand the light irony of the title, the slight satire in the writing, or the exaggerated personalities of the characters. (Girls was also misunderstood in its time. It's pretty much a rite of passage.) I Love LA keeps getting better in season 1 and with time will only realize its full potential more and more. HBO comedies are at their best when they're irreverent and daring, and this is HBO comedy at its best.
You'd think that after Overcompensating and Adults achieved viral success and earned season 2 renewals, there wouldn't be any room left in 2025 for another comedy series about flawed young adults. I Love LA makes the case that not only was it essential, but the major comeback to this style of comedy was in desperate need right now. Young or old, these shows transcend age.
I Love LA releases new episodes Sundays at 10:30 p.m. on HBO and HBO Max.