Today is Maya's birthday, and she will make peace with her friend, the powerful girl Tallulah, if she wants.
Photo: Kenny Laubbacher/HBO
When I first moved to Los Angeles, everyone told me to give it “at least two years.” They said that's how long it would take to find out if I could live there. But loving it, let alone loving it? Who knows! Everything was perfect and nothing seemed real. The spinning Rachel Sennott puts it in bizarrely compelling terms. 2020 video This is essentially a summary of the thesis of the thesis that is her 2025 HBO show: “Come on! This is Los Angeles! Haha!” What?! This is Los Angeles! Bottom line: girls who get it, get it. Girls who don't do it, don't do it.
I did until I didn't. However, the breakup was much more painful than I ever expected because I truly learned to love Los Angeles so much. Food! Art! Biodiversity! Vibration! Los Angeles can rule! But seeing some of his most introverted instincts through Sennott's eyes (and through the eyes of pilot director Lorene Scafaria) also feels more familiar than I expected. As much as I love Los Angeles will inevitably be compared to Lena Dunham GirlsI want to say that its true ancestor is HBO – Entouragewith all the desperate social climbing and dirty Hollywood truths that come with it.
The first episode begins with Maya (Sennott) waking up on her 27th birthday. She climbs on top of her sweet boyfriend Dylan (played worthily by professional screen cutie Josh Hutcherson) and tries her best to have a great time amidst the ongoing earthquake because “if we die, I just want to come.”
Once this noble mission is accomplished, she begins the traditional birthday tradition of whining about getting old. Dylan does his best to fight her blues, quickly realizing that the wonderful feeling of “every year you become more yourself” is not as convincing to his girlfriend as “and you are thinner now, and I know what you love.” Yes, yes, she does it. Thus, one accident has been avoided, she opens Instagram and immediately goes to another. Her ex-best friend Tallulah (Odessa A'tzion) just posted a photo from a campaign they worked on together in New York before Tallulah apparently dumped Maya for a more famous manager.
Fueled by a new rage, she heads out to meet her friends Charlie (Jordan Firstman) and Alani (True Whitaker) for a brisk coffee stroll around the Silver Lake Reservoir, a classic hangout for anyone in Los Angeles vaguely committed to “healthy living” but not enough for the hiking. Maya soaks up a torrent of compliments about her new hairstyle before going after Tallulah because she's on the verge of ending a friendship when she needs everyone around her to agree that the friend in question sucks. Ever since Tallulah went from It Girl to #influencer, Maya's resentment has become a bitter pill she refuses to swallow. She According to her, it was he who turned Tallulah's wildness into something marketable. “I'm not going to sit around and do nothing while she reaps the rewards of my hard work!” So, with Charlie's enthusiastic support, Maya blocks Tallulah and senses her insistence. amazing.
Unfortunately, this brief surge of righteousness quickly wears off when she begins her thankless job as an advertising assistant. It disappears forever when her #girlboss Alyssa (Leighton Meester, always welcome on my screen, even when she's playing someone who gives me hives) turns down her offer for a promotion. The close-ups of Scafaria on Sennott's face throughout the pilot, such as in this scene where Alyssa mumbles and mumbles in the background, are very good. As Maya grits her teeth and talks about her experience managing Tallulah, now known to thousands as It Girl Tallulah Steele, it's clear how much it pains her to pull that card.
Imagine Maya's shock when she returns home from work only to be attacked by a tornado that is a half-naked Tallulah herself, screaming “Happy Birthday!!!!1” as if nothing had happened. Apparently, Alani brought her to Los Angeles as a birthday surprise. (Gotta love daddy's Oscar money!) Sennott has always had such irresistible charisma, so it's telling that A'tzion immediately makes Tallulah so incredibly attractive – and, it must be said, incredible hair – in comparison, it’s easy to understand Maya’s insecurities. Having a girlfriend who is sexy and fun so naturally she can just do anything happen It is a blessing when it benefits you and a curse when you inevitably get left behind.
But Sennott's script is smart and doesn't make Maya such a carefree straight girl when paired with Tallulah. All I need to understand how these two were friends is their conversation while they're standing in line at the club Maya swore she didn't want to go to:
Talullah: “Remember how I got busted in Mister Purple?”
Mayan: “Yes, that night was insane. They used to put roofs on people here, and then they fixed them.”
Tallulah: “Ugh, bummer.”
Mayan: “Yes, I know”.
These two, to quote a long-gone HBO show, really were once Disgusting Brothers.
We don't see what happens after Tallulah somehow meets the club owner in the 30 seconds it takes Maya to humiliate herself by trying to cut the line. But it's enough to leave Maya hungover the next day to eat the supposedly great bagels Charlie waited in line for, or to join Tallulah when she insists they have abandon other plans and go to the beach. (What?? It's Los Angeles!) Well-fed and exhausted, Maya leaves Tallulah and Alani to go on an idyllic montage—themed to Randy Newman's I Love L.A., apparently—getting high, visiting Erewhon and vintage shops, and looking hot in swimwear. Maya, meanwhile, spends the entire day desperately trying to book her fancy birthday dinner so she can accommodate a fifth person at the last minute.
But by the time she and Dylan get to dinner, the reservation doesn't matter anymore because Tallulah has pulled out another Tallulah. The extremely unimpressed hostess leads them out of the restaurant and into a nearby hotel room that Tallulah has somehow managed to accommodate for a mini-surprise party. Even Charlie is now “totally obsessed” with her, to Maya's obvious annoyance. What's even worse is that Talullah also invited Alyssa because Maya told her they were “basically best friends” instead of admitting she didn't get the promotion. But the biggest humiliation of all? Tallulah got a room in return, telling the hotel she was celebrating. her birthday. When the cake flies up to Maya and the words “Happy Birthday, Talullah!” the focus of attention is, of course, Maya 13th reason day.
Maya leaves her party to be alone; Tallulah, refusing to read the room, follows her. Although Dylan tries to follow him, Charlie and Alani know better than to let him. It's time for girls to finally be honest in the most sacred place of friendship: the bathroom.
Tired of pretending she's okay, Maya tells Tallulah the truth: “Having you here just reminds me of how well you're doing without me, and I'm a complete failure.” However, fortunately for her ego, they both fails! Tallulah reveals that not only is she broke, but she caught the rich guy she was dating DMing women for “titty pics.” At this, Maya instantly returns to her side. “Ugh! Sorry, just Google “boobs.” Look, it might not be Cute instinct, but sometimes all you need to get over a grudge against someone you really love is to realize that you're on the same level (and apparently some men are rude and unoriginal).
After this, Maya and Tallulah returned. With only a Balenciaga bag to her name and an incredible business card, Tallulah decides she might as well stay in Los Angeles – with Maya as her real manager. When Peaches' song “Boys Wanna Be Her” starts, they scream in each other's faces “we're going to fucking KILL THIS” and run back to the room, where the male stripper is already partying on Alyssa's lap. After talking to him, Maya grabs Tallulah's phone and directs her into the spotlight instead. As long as they're a team again, she doesn't mind being the brains of the star – until she inevitably doesn't.
• Being a Gemini moon (iykyk), I can safely say this well Tallulah – Gemini. Happy Saturn Return, kids!
• Dylan is a guy whose day is almost ruined by a bookmark falling out – a small but perfect detail.
• “I can't get another UTI. The doctor said if I get another one, I can no longer use Zoom to get my medications.”
• “You don’t see me hanging out with Avicii anymore, do you?” “Yes, because he died“
