Comparison between Rachel Sennott’s new HBO series I Love LA and Lena Dunham’s Girls feels so inevitable as to be boring—it’s you and me on a coin the industry loves to spend, etc. But I have to say, as a spoiled millennial Angeleno currently living closer than I would like to the Scientology Center, watching I Love LA in my 30s and seeing people, places, and things I recognize firsthand holds the same thrill as when I would watch Girls in my 20s and recognize the various third-wave coffee shops, shitty bars, and even shittier men that reflected my Brooklyn life at the time.
So, just how real-to-life is Sennott’s vision of Los Angeles? Below, find a roundup of all of I Love LA’s name-checks, ranging from the outright to the subtle:
Episode 3:
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Is Charlie getting blacklisted from premium service at this Echo Park hotspot because he’s offended the gay barista community strictly realistic? I would say yes—although I’ve actually never seen someone successfully cut the line at Canyon Coffee. (Then again, maybe I’m just not as powerful a member of the LA queer mafia as Charlie is.)
Sennott’s Maia wears a shirt emblazoned with the logo of this iconic Italian spot on Santa Monica where your favorite Hollywood stars may or may not have partied hard in the ’80s, and all I can say is that I’m so jealous of said shirt I could spit.
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Hearing Charlie tell his friends that they need to finish all their food because their server at the restaurant seems gay and “I don’t want him talking shit at Akbar about how we don’t like his food” made me LOL… but babe, as if anyone can hear each other over the music at that longtime Silver Lake fixture! Maybe you could share an actual audible conversation if you were locked in the tiny bathroom doing poppers, but I doubt it.
Episode 2:
Ah, how quickly Los Angeles evolves; this chic coffee pop-up isn’t even at this location anymore. (I happen know this because the new Cafe Nido is on Fountain, directly down the street from the apartment I currently live in.)
Okay, story time: I was at this historic alt-Hollywood strip club just a month or so ago, when one of the most beautiful strippers in its employ complimented me on my scarf top, to which I got flustered and replied, “Thanks! It’s from Knott’s Berry Tarm” (instead of “farm”). All this to say: It’s very real that Charlie would be wearing a Jumbo’s hat!
I laughed out loud at nepo princess Alani’s eyebrow-raising story about dating a much, much older guy as a tween (you know…like, a sex crime!), and as much as I hate to say it, it makes sense that an old creep would take a young Hollywood-royalty girlypop to this Palisades-adjacent, celebrity-favored sushi spot.
You’re so right, Charlie’s sex-app hookup; this legendary Taiwanese restaurant is “kinda fab ;).” And there’s one in New York now!
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Likely place for an up-and-coming British pop star played by Ayo Edebiri to be mean to a gay guy, IMO! (Also, I once saw the Obama girls at this Eagle Rock bar, but that’s neither here nor there.)
Episode 1:
I very much cried here recently! Cinema vérité! My only complaint is that when Maia, Charlie and Alani walk the reservoir, Maia kisses them goodbye and exits on a part of Silver Lake Drive that I would never park on, mostly because it’s way easier to find a spot closer to Duane Street near the dog park. IYKYK!
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I am very scared of this beloved Highland Park theater (I hate puppets!), but enough of my friends have gone on whimsical first dates here that Maia wearing a hat advertising it does make a kind of sense.
The whole LA-based viewing audience at my screening groan-laughed when this exhausting Silver Lake bar’s history with roofies was referenced, but personally, seeing Tenants captured onscreen only made me glad that I’m not in my 20s anymore.
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The concept of Maia saying she and Tallulah should leave Tenants for Bar Seco because “everyone here is, like, 19” makes me feel like The Giver, but I will admit that the vibey Silver Lake wine bar would have been a better choice.
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Is it true that these are the best bagels to be found in LA? Yes. Is it also true that it takes two hours minimum to get one on a weekend, and that it’s a mortal sin not to eat one that’s been thus procured for you? Indubitably. (Hot tip: go at opening time on a Thursday morning.)
I mean, we all know I deal in such things from time to time, so hearing Charlie scornfully tell Tallulah “Erewhon’s not just a grocery store, it’s an experience” was very validating.
This isn’t really part of my lifestyle, but God bless.
As someone currently apartment-hunting in this exact area…no. Just…no.
