I Love LA: Should you watch or skip the latest HBO comedy? A viewer's guide

Hulu's I Love LA is the latest drama in town, and it's already creating buzz around fans with it's witty plot and refreshing characters. Created by and starring Rachel Sennott, the show drops straight into the chaotic inner lives of a group of friends spiraling through love, ambition, and the very specific emotional rot of Los Angeles.

It is awkward, self aware, sometimes uncomfortably real, and very online in its humor. If you've been wondering whether to tune in to the comedy drama, you're absolutely at the right place. Here's everything you need to know about I Love La and if it's worth streaming.

What is I Love LA about?

I Love LA is a sharp, cringe-leaning comedy about friendship, ambition, and the emotional mess you go through once you hit your late twenties. Created by and starring Rachel Sennott, the HBO series follows a tightly knit but deeply codependent friend group in Los Angeles as they reunite after a time apart and are forced to confront how much they have changed, and how much they have not.

At the center is Maia Simsbury, an anxious, hyper capable assistant who desperately wants to become a talent manager while quietly unraveling. Her life is thrown off balance when Tallulah, her former best friend turned successful influencer, suddenly reenters her orbit. Their reunion reopens old wounds about jealousy, failure, and who actually “made it” after college. Around them orbit friends who feel just as lost, including Alani, Charlie, and Maia’s well meaning but increasingly sidelined boyfriend Dylan.

Each episode tracks the fallout of small decisions that spiral into career disasters, social media scandals, and deeply uncomfortable dinners. The show skewers influencer culture, PR speak, workplace feminism, and the illusion of stability in creative industries, while still treating its characters with enough empathy to make their bad behavior feel painfully human.

Is I Love LA worth watching?

So should you watch Hulu’s I Love LA? That question comes with a warning label, because this is one of those shows that will either feel painfully relatable or deeply irritating, and often times within the same episode.

The show leans heavily into awkward humor, vocal fry and characters who are a little more exaggerated than what they might be like in real life. Many relationships feel underwritten, and characters have a habit of orbiting around Maia rather than being their own selves. That unevenness can be frustrating, especially if you are already exhausted by stories about rich emotional problems in sunny cities. But, if you loved shows like Sex and the City and Gossip Girl, then I Love LA is worth giving a shot.

Sennott’s performance carries an anxious specificity that feels lived in, and the show gradually suggests it has more on its mind than jokes about bad intimacy and social media envy. That said, it is not for everyone. The characters are messy, privileged, and often unlikeable by design. The pacing can feel exhausting, and some storylines deliberately sit in discomfort rather than offering a neat payoff. If you need likable heroes or clear moral wins, this will test your patience. Where the show succeeds is in its honesty. It skewers influencer culture, corporate feminism, and creative industry delusion without punching down.

If you have patience for messy characters, cringe heavy comedy, and a slow burn approach to emotional payoff, I Love LA is worth trying. As long as you know it asks you to sit with discomfort before it earns your investment.

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I Love LA is available to stream on HBO Max.

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