Rachel Sennott really does love LA

Six years ago, Rachel Sennott shared an unflattering imaginary snapshot of Los Angeles life in a viral video she describes as “the trailer for any movie set in LA.” As the beat from Azealia Banks’ “212” thumps in the background, she bounces around her tiny New York bedroom, twirling like a chemically enhanced cool girl. “C’mon! It’s LA,” she chirps. “I’m addicted to drugs. We all are! If you don’t have an eating disorder, get one, b***h.”

If you belong to the Church of Manifesting, there’s a strong argument to be made that this was how Sennott willed “I Love LA” into existence, whether in fulfillment of a suppressed desire or a cosmic joke. Either way, that clip belongs to her joke-posting era, when the burgeoning comic performer tried out material on Twitter and sharpened her punchlines at New York City open mics.

Then came her indie darling christening, courtesy of Emma Seligman’s “Shiva Baby” in 2020, when she moved to Los Angeles, followed by breakout roles in 2022’s “Bodies Bodies Bodies” and 2023’s “Bottoms.”

Many Instagram reels later, Sennott’s grid is bedazzled with poses on gala step-and-repeats, snapshots from a Balenciaga campaign and party pics with pop queen Charli XCX. But the surest sign that the Connecticut-born New Yorker has gone West Coast native is a February posting captioned “hard at work in the writers’ room,” showing a staffer hanging up a framed poster that screams, “New York Is Over.”

I assumed that slogan held a special meaning for the “I Love LA” creator and star – and it does, but not for any reasons having to do with snubbing NYC. Sennott and her fellow executive producer Emma Barrie bought it to replace an identical piece their fellow executive producer Max Silvestri lost in the wildfires that ripped across the region earlier this year.

“Sex and the City” addicts surely recognize this shoutout to the infamous “Splat!” episode, in which Kristen Johnston’s last-call party girl Lexi Featherston rants about the demise of the freewheeling New York scene.

Some know Lexi’s speech word by word. “This used to be the most exciting city in the world . . . now it’s nothing but smoking near a f**king open window,” Lexi blurts. “New York is over. O-V-E-R. Over! No one’s fun anymore. Whatever happened to fun? God, I’m so bored I could die.” On cue, her stiletto heel breaks and Lexi loses her balance, tumbling out of that open window to her death. (“It was the first time Lexi ever left a party early,” Carrie Bradshaw quips in a voiceover.)

But Sennott assured me in a recent video conversation that she doesn’t feel that way about the city. “Anytime you’re feeling stifled here, you’re like, ‘I need to go to New York and f**k a bunch of people and go out every night.’ And then if you’re in New York for too long, you’re like, ‘Ugh, I can’t do this anymore. I am so tired, I need to not have to take vitamins all the time.’”

Judging from the upbeat tartness flavoring the humor of “I Love LA,” the show’s title isn’t sarcastic. The Los Angeles that Sennott’s Maia navigates is sunny and fabulous, but can also be hard and isolating: “And it sucks and you have to drive everywhere!” Maia says.

Other subterranean tremors acknowledge Maia’s inner tug of war between New York and her new battleground. She and her boyfriend Dylan (Josh Hutcherson) are still new enough to Los Angeles to be freaked out by its earthquakes and appalled by the malignant narcissists who refer to you as family in one breath and in the same sing-songy tone undermine your self-esteem or threaten to ruin your life.

(Kenny Laubbacher/HBO) Rachel Sennott as Maia, Odessa A’zion as Tallulah and Josh Hutcherson as Dylan in “I Love LA”

Take her boss, Alyssa (Leighton Meester). She has little desire to promote her hard-charging employee to a higher position at her boutique talent management company, but speaks to Maia as if they’re best friends. Indeed, everyone in Sennott’s LA throws around “I love yous” and air-kisses like chewing gum wrappers blowing into the gutter. The cheeriness is intoxicating and frustratingly false.

When Maia’s old frenemy Tallulah (Odessa A’zion) sashays back into Maia’s sphere, she brings her social media influencer confidence with her despite lacking the bank account and endorsement deals to back it up.

But that’s the key to success in today’s version of the industry town. You fake it until you make it, especially when your appearance of having made it isn’t backed up by anything substantial. Tallulah and Maia are flanked by Maia’s stylist friend Charlie (Jordan Firstman) and Alani, who holds a vanity executive title at her father’s production company — a nepo baby played with a knowing wink by True Whitaker, Forest Whitaker’s daughter.

Sennott accepts that people will compare “I Love LA” to the many shows about young adulthood that came before it. She has described “I Love LA” as “Entourage” for internet “It girls.” But there’s also a streak of “Girls”’ aimlessness merging with the aspirational grind vibe shaping “Atlanta,” and a hint of the fantasy glam that defined “Sex and the City,” although these friends flirt with chaos and ruin with a lot more realism than Carrie and company ever did.

“We were inspired by so many different shows. Obviously, like we tried to make our own original tone,” she said, adding, “I kept talking about ‘Hannah Montana’ too, you know?”

One differentiator is in the emphasis “I Love LA” places on social media as a powerfully shaping presence in the lives of younger adults. Sennott has dropped the spiritualist concept of the Saturn return in many interviews to describe her show’s central theme. This astrological belief holds that the ringed planet’s return to the position it occupied at a person’s birth marks the dividing line between youth and true adulthood.

A less romantic way of describing this landmark is the quarter-life crisis. Regardless of the sticker we slap on this signpost, it refers to the late-20s urge to commit to your path or trash it and start fresh.

For Gen Z and Millennials, Sennott explains, this checkpoint is extra fraught, “because it carries the weight of feeling like you missed out on something. Feeling all this pressure, feeling a lot of setbacks from COVID, strikes, the government, whatever, all these things.”

Adding to the intergenerational appeal of “I Love LA” is the reality that everyone feels or has felt that fear of falling behind in the invisible footrace to secure the house, the car and all the other Illusionary success signifiers.

Barrie also points out that this era is shaping into an encore of the Gilded Age — a time defined by financial inequality, a depression, a pandemic, and fears of war.  Everything is cyclical, she said. “That’s a microcosm of what it feels like to be alive. And I think that so much about this show is relatable. The internet and LA are like the vehicles we use to tell these stories, but these characters, their friendship and the way they look at life are kind of universal.”

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And yet, the initial audiences for “Sex and the City,” “Girls,” and even “Friends” did not have to contend with social media maintenance and the constant fear of reputational death by TikTok. The internet’s integration into our lives has transformed how we define our relationships and devalued interactions with strangers, replacing connections with content farming opportunities. (“What’s the point of being nice if no one that can help me sees it?” Charlie fumes when an expensive night out doesn’t yield the social currency he’d banked on.)

“Because you can see each other or stay in touch with what people are doing, there’s an expectation to hold on to everyone forever,” Sennott says. “And there are false ideas of how people’s lives are going. I’ve run into people when I’m at the lowest point in my life, and people are like, ‘You seem like you’re doing amazing, girl!’ And I’m like, having a breakdown. Or I’ve projected onto other people and been wrong. So I think it goes both ways.”

(Kenny Laubbacher/HBO) Jordan Firstman as Charlie, True Whitaker as Alani and Odessa A’zion as Tallulah in “I Love LA”

Reaching this understanding required a combination of drive – the performer loves homework, she says – and shedding some long-held expectations about Los Angeles. Sennott’s first glimpse of the reality behind the Hollywood curtain came to her during a trip to audition for a pilot. She took a picture of the grimy hotel room where she stayed, capturing the swirling cursive on the sign for the dialysis center across the street in the background. It told a story of glamor and despair, informing the show’s spirit.

Still, neither Sennott nor Barrie is necessarily eager to abandon either of the cities informing their characters’ lives.

“For me, what’s funny about it is, when you’re in LA, you’re trying to convince yourself New York is over,” Barrie said. “And when you’re in New York, you’re trying to convince yourself . . .

“That LA isn’t beautiful and warm,” Sennott offers, finishing her thought. “That’s just forever. If you’ve lived in both, you’ll never get over the other place. ‘Should I go back?’ So that’s kind of the joy of it.” While watching “I Love LA,” you can tell she means that.

“I Love LA” premieres at 10:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 2 on HBO and streams on HBO Max.