I Love LA drops its best episode yet

For weeks, I’ve been making two (somewhat related) arguments about I Love LA: that it’s a remarkably classic sitcom when you pare down its Gen Z sensibility, and that it’s mostly been hampered by a sketch-like approach to its storylines. Enter “Divas Down,” which takes a page out of Friends (yes, you won’t convince me otherwise!) and gives us the kind of stakes we needed in order to make Maia (Rachel Sennott) finally have to grapple with the (awful) person she’s becoming.

Well, “becoming” is perhaps debatable. For if there’s anything we’ve learned over the past seven episodes is that Maia and her friends are maybe not as nice as they all think they are. But nice, in their world (of likes and fame, connections and clout) doesn’t get you far. The one person who is nice in the show is Dylan (Josh Hutcherson), who is, perhaps, starting to see his girlfriend in a new light. I mean, at the start of the episode when he’s trying to put up a shelf up in their living room, he finds himself knowing by heart her little acerbic quips about L.A. (“I kind of hate the beach. It’s like, sand is just dirt, and we’re all pretending that it’s not”) and rolling his eyes at her performative (and repetitive) brand of cynicism. 

Not that she notices. Maia is way too focused on Antoine (Tim Baltz), the organizer of the Formé dinner in New York City. Unlike Dylan, you may not know what that is, but to hear Maia and Alyssa (Leighton Meester) talk about it, it is the tastemaking event of Fashion Week. Getting Tallulah (Odessa A’zion) on the guest list is a must—for Maia. Alyssa is intent on pushing her own client, Camilia, for when Antoine visits the Alyssa 180 offices.

But when Antoine and his (gay, French, prissy) assistant show up, he’s enthralled by the Ritz photo Alyssa put up: “She loves ze cracker,” he says. That’s all Maia needs to jump in and hijack Antoine’s chat with her boss, all while wearing the same top. “You are like a mini Alyssa,” he says. “It’s like little nesting dolls.” It shows us once more how driven she can be—and give us a taste of the kind of manager she can be and why Alyssa should be worried about her.

It’s settled: Tallulah will meet with Antoine to discuss the Formé dinner. You’d think Tallulah would be thrilled. Instead, the chill vibes of Mar Vista (and her girlfriend, Tessa) have clearly gotten to her. So she asks Maia if she can just skip it. After all, last time they rushed into something it was that flop of a Ritz campaign. But Maia wants Tallulah to understand how much more elevated this is: This would change their lives. It’s why she needs Charlie (fresh off a hair transplant) to find her a killer outfit for it and meet her at Alani’s, where she’s trying to talk sense into her friend all while opening up all the many boxes of swag Tallulah’s had delivered to Maia’s apartment and which symbolize, in that moment (as she holds a knife) all the frustrations about how their friendship and their business dynamic is suddenly out of sync. 

Which brings us to the Friends moment—or what I’m insisting is the show’s Friends moment. (Watch “The One With All The Thanksgivings” to know what I mean.) For the knife suddenly drops onto Maia’s foot (!). It’s a moment as shocking as it is hilarious. Because, career woman that she is, Maia is less concerned about the blood slowly pooling around the knife and more about what this’ll mean for the Antoine meeting. 

Next thing we know, she’s grabbing the knife out of her toe, poorly bandaging it and heading to Good Samaritan, the closest hospital to the Antoine meeting. Talk about having one’s priorities all mixed up, right? 

The scene does offer my favorite shot of the episode, which helpfully illustrates the tension between Maia and Tallulah with not even an ounce of dialogue: As they arrive at the hospital, director Lorene Scafaria holds the shot from inside the car as we watch Maia haul herself onto the floor and then onto a wheelchair, while Tallulah is seen caressing and cooing at Tessa, not realizing how hard all of that is for her friend.

Soon, that tension is hard to avoid. It turns out there’s been an accident (involving a school bus full of Orthodox Jews) that’ll keep Maia from getting any kind of immediate treatment. This is unacceptable to her: They need to make the meeting. Everything is riding on it. Even if Tallulah remains quite disenchanted with it—and with Maia, in turn. Why won’t her friend admit that Ritz was a flop? That Tallulah has every right to want to take a beat before they make a big move like this? Maybe this entire scenario is the universe telling Maia to chill.