If last week’s I Love LA was all about positing that this specific subset of Gen Z Angelenos might have no way of understanding genuine intimacy between two people without a transactional exchange, “They Can’t All Be Jeremys” just assumes that’s the baseline everyone here is operating under. It’s hard to be real, let alone find authentic chemistry with another, when you’re chasing Kia deals, viral fame, or, worse, just the approval of your boss.
I’ve long suggested I Love LA is, at its heart, quite a conventional sitcom that’s simply dressed up as the kind of female-led TV we all grew to love a decade or so ago like Broad City, Insecure, and Girls. And really, all you have to do is look at its subplots: What is Dylan (Josh Hutcherson) and Maia (Rachel Sennott) going to dinner with Maia’s boss if not the kind of storyline you’d catch on, say, Bewitched or I Love Lucy? Sure, the work Maia does is aggressively contemporary (the start of the episode finds her in full Glengarry Glen Ross-mode as she negotiates a killer social posting deal for Tallulah, clearly impressing Alyssa of Alyssa 180), but everything around her seems stuck either in old-school sitcomland or embalmed in a kind of mid-2010s era way of crafting comedies.
Nevertheless, I do think we’re seeing an inkling of what I Love LA has to say, which is that ambitious, aggressively online, jaded youths can be their own worst enemies—especially every time they come in contact with “normies” around them. Cases in point:
Tallulah and Tessa
Yes, the chef and the influencer are still dating. And it’s clear Tessa (Moses Ingram) is the kind of calming energy Tallulah needs. I mean, she feels so at home that they’re chatting all things Hannah Montana while still in bed. Only Tallulah has a big day ahead, as Maia getting her a Kia sponsored post means she has to learn how to drive. Thankfully, she’s shacking up with Alani, who’s been driving for what feels like forever.
Alani and Garrett
And on that ride they get to assess what’s happening between Alani (True Whitaker) and her new fuckboi Garrett. Ditzy Alani wants more, and thankfully Tallulah is a skilled sexter (and negger). While they drive around L.A., she manages to get Garrett not only to send a dick pic but to commit to having a date the next day, all because Tallulah made Alani play it cool and aloof. Boys…so easy to read, no?
Charlie and Landry’s bros
Charlie has nabbed a chance at dressing Landry, and he’s not about to waste that shot. Why he chooses to show him an archive Westwood is beyond me (I’m thinking Landry is a bit of a Benson Boone type?), but the young Christian boy is so nice and so charming that he was never not going to give Charlie the job. More than that, he’s eager to make Charlie one of his boys. Yes, he walks around with the kind of entourage worthy of its own HBO show. Only, as Charlie soon learns, these are friends who are there for one another no matter what.
Yes, they’re all each other’s accountability partners: Whenever any of them is even thinking of sinning (like, say, looking at porn), they text one another and get the support they need. It’s all too Pollyanna for Charlie and a bit ludicrous altogether. But that’s because Charlie’s been schooled in the art of aloof indifference: His friends show affection by making fun of him, belittling him, and sarcastically dragging him. It’s how, in turn, he’s learned to show kinship. It’s why this weird world of boys who cheer him on is so foreign to him.
When he’s up to join them all for a morning jog and he throws up in front them, having been up all night doing drugs, he braces himself for the playful bullying: “Say it, ‘Fuck this fag. Fuck Charlie!’” he eggs them on. Instead, though, Landry stays behind with him and lets him know they’re all there for him, a lesson in kindness Charlie begins to internalize. Later, when his boys are all about to zip around in ATVs (without him because he’s precious cargo), he tries to use that kind of language with Alani, dispensing with his mean one-liners and telling her, instead, how much he loves her. Maybe there is a different way of relating to the world that’s not caustic and blunted by irony and doesn’t sacrifice care for the whims of your career. Which brings me to…
Maia and Dylan
I know: You’re probably thinking I should match Maia with her boss, Alyssa, and her husband, Jeremy (who gives the episode its title). As it’s becoming clearer with every episode, Maia’s whole world keeps pulling her away from trusty, dependable Dylan. He skips influencer parties and apparently gladly agrees to threesomes without him; he bakes cookies for his students and comes up with songs to discourage littering. He’s as solid a boyfriend as anyone’s able to get in L.A., so it makes sense that this would basically alienate these partners from one another.
When the two arrive at Alyssa and Jeremy’s home, Maia is intent on impressing her boss. She’s wearing a lovely perfume, a nicely-fitted dress, and is more than happy to play up her charm to make sure she has an in with Alyssa that’ll get her into a Forbes photo shoot at the end of the month. She’s heard so much about Jeremy that she’s a little concerned, and her nerves start showing right away, especially when she sees Dylan is not quite the conversationalist Alyssa would prefer. (Why is he bringing up that Nazi book he’s reading again?)
But then, the evening very quickly goes south: Jeremy suffers from migraines (prompted by loud sounds, like Maia’s voice, and harsh smells, like Maia’s perfume) and so he has to excuse himself, which leaves the young couple needing to entertain Alyssa and cobble together the grilled dinner they were promised.
Dylan steps up, of course, making a delicious steak Alyssa nevertheless finds some issues with (she’s clearly drunker and drunker as the night goes on, airing her disappointment about not having Jeremy upstairs with them all), and it would all be quite okay as a wash of an evening were it not for what Maia finds as she exits the bathroom: Jeremy…jerking off to porn…while standing, unaware he could be seen across the glassed french doors in their bedroom. It’s awkward and odd and further proof that the picture-perfect world of Alyssa and Jeremy is all a show, even as Maia finds she’s now been nudged to think of Dylan as a kind of disposable boyfriend her boss thinks she should dump.
By the time they’re back home and Dylan is clearly articulating his life philosophy (“we work to live”), Maia starts to realize they might not be as aligned as she’d thought. Not that she has time to process that because she soon sees a news post about Lucas Landry having died in an ATV accident. Talk about a cliff-hanger!
Stray observations
- • Was that intro scene, with Dylan and Maia talking gun control and self-defense that pivoted into a moment where Maia loses her cell phone only to then be threatened with an actual (unseen, off-camera) gun, strike anyone else as a bit too YouTube sketch comedy circa 2018?
- • Is Odessa A’zion running circles around I Love LA, both elevating the material she’s given and, perhaps, unintentionally illuminating the ways in which the show cannot seem to keep up with her effortless charm, cutting wit, and all around talent? Perhaps.
- • There are so many thrifted/ironic tees to keep up with this episode, including Tallulah wearing a Wi Spa one and Garret sporting a Viper Room shirt. But kudos goes to Charlie’s Cher tweet tee (“Whats going on with mycareer”).
- • Do we think Dylan will ever finish reading The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich?
- • Will Alani ever share a totally non-bananas story from her upbringing that doesn’t involve some shady things her dad’s friends and colleagues did?
- • Speaking of, how fitting is it that after sitting in on a meeting all about creating a Clueless reboot, I Love LA stages an update to Cher’s driving fiasco in 2025 with the arguably much more level-headed Tallulah behind the wheel?
- • If you enjoyed the Landry/entourage bits here, may I suggest you seek out Lurker, which offers a probing exploration of fandom and friendship in the L.A. world of online fame.
- • This wouldn’t be an HBO show if we didn’t have some full-frontal male nudity, and we finally got some, with Garret’s blink-and-okay-just-pause-and-you-won’t-miss-it dick pic.
