‘I Love LA’ Feels Like a Textbook HBO Comedy. Plus, ‘The Lowdown’ Finale.

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0:54Andy Greenwald:I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk. Now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at TheRinger.com. And joining me in the studio in London, it's Andy Greenwald! I feel like you're joining me in London. But not in the studio. No, this is... This is new turf for you. What's going on? We're here at Spotify in London. We are in London. The Watch, Transatlantic. This is a tradition unlike any other, where you and I fly internationally and do a podcast the morning after a wave election. I say I detect a smile on your face. Listen, this is a lot more comfortable than it was literally this day.

1:35I personally wanted an island of feral cats on Manhattan just to see what would happen. But I'll take a blue wave. Greenwald, it's great to see you. Not a lot of news today in terms of television world, but we've got two shows we're going to talk about today. I Love L.A., the new show from Rachel Sennett and the Lowdown season finale. Yeah, hopefully season. I don't want it to be serious finale. I want more of that. any London observations just like cultural observations first of all

2:01Andy Greenwald:how are you feeling about these deep seats they have here in Spotify UK I'm feeling very comfortable both in the studio but also in the city I love this place so much last night by the way just before I forget I haven't mentioned in a long time you can email us at thewatchatspotify.com can they also email us at thewatchatspotify.co.uk I actually don't think that works okay don't do that they'll probably bounce back don't do that you can also follow us on Instagram at thewatchpod underscore on Instagram and you can watch us on YouTube at the Ringer-TV channel, but also on Spotify, where you're hopefully listening to us.

2:31And I've had a great time so far. It's oddly warm here. It's hard to address. It is diffusing. But last night I went to a really fun screening of an 80s cult, early, like, you know, late 70s, early 80s cult movie called Night of the Juggler, which has never been screened in London probably, but it's just like an all-time, like, lost classic of the post-French connection, post-Dirty Harry wave of grimy, fun city movies. And it's with James Brolin and Cliff Gorman. And it was put on by Radiance, which is the DVD label that I'm obsessed with over here, the physical media label and Transmission, which is like their sub labels.

3:12It was really cool.

3:13Andy Greenwald:Did they put this on for you? Cause they were like - No, it was happening anyway, but I was like, that is very convenient that I'm going to do it for you. That really worked out for you. So that was really cool. So shout out to Paul and shout out to everybody at Radiance. That was awesome to see. That's coming out, I believe, in December. so people can check it out. I feel like my time has been a little more genteel. Uh-huh. A lot of commuting. Yeah. You know, people say, like, the coldest winter they've ever had is summer in San Francisco. I think the hottest summer I've ever had is November on the London Underground.

3:42Andy Greenwald:Do you have AC where you're staying? No. Well, there's... No, it's... I've never stayed in this... I've been in this flat for a very long time now and also last year. And it's perfectly nice. I've never been here when it's actually been warm. And I have noted that the windows open maybe three quarters of an inch. And there is no AC. And I do wonder what it would be like when the global warming hits. I do feel like that's worrisome. My most English experience thus far this week was yesterday at work. We were, what's the word? Working. And, you know, just to keep the mood light, I was like, hey old fellows you know what I think I'm ready for I've been here for what four or five weeks now I think I'm ready to do Marmite I'm ready really I'm ready to do Marmite and I was like honestly I'm not that scared of it like I like a I like a yeasty taste you know I like a strong ferment you know I'm you know I'm a day one miso boy so I was like I think I can do this and this was greeted positively but it also brought work to a screeching halt as our showrunner insisted that she be the one to prepare my first Marmite toast.

4:56Andy Greenwald:To go on butter? Yes. And then there was a little bit of a debate, and her assistant has a different strategy. Her strategy is also to toast bread and apply butter, but then to empty most of the Marmite container onto it. Oh, wow. So I was like, my friends, my colleagues, ladies. Door number one, door number two, yeah. Let's do half and half. Oh, okay. And so I was served two very different slices of Marmite toast and a room full of extremely polite English people. Watch me eat them. Maybe that's why you think it's so hot today. Because there's just yeast pouring out of my pores. It was. Yeah.

5:32When do you think Marmite's going to hit the LA beauty conscious scene? You don't want to know how I felt about it? Yeah, tell me. Which one do you prefer? They're both pretty good. Okay. No, I mean, I felt like. I've never tasted it. Really? Yeah.

5:44Andy Greenwald:You don't think it's in the bloodline through your dad? I don't think he liked it. He was like kind of sadly like Americanized by the end, especially in his tastes. Oh. We certainly like Bud Light. That is different. Yeah, I was like, what else do we do here on this toast? Like, this is good. What else can we do? And they're like, cheese, cheese. And I was like, oh, okay. Anything else? And they were like, absolutely not. Oh. 100 % no. But they're very excited about Nigella Lawson's Marmite pasta recipe. I was going to ask you if you had any British cultural recommendations. Yeah. I bet like you're...

6:14Marmite pasta. There you go. That's pretty much it. I've been using the BBC, the fact that I am in England, and the fact that you can watch BBC a little bit more. So I checked out Film Club, which is Amy Lou Wood's show. Oh, cool. Which features a pre-fame Owen Cooper from adolescence in a role. Oh. And Saran Jones. And it's charming.

6:34Andy Greenwald:Yeah, that's cool. I mostly just wait for the night a week when Canal Boat Diaries is on. Wait, what about your boy who goes to Porto? Oh, yeah. Okay, so my two spirit animals here, And I imagine if anyone who works here who is producing us today, these wonderful people, I hope they're not watching this because I feel like. No, I think that it's important that they do. OK, so basically I have in my flat, I have, I guess, basic cable. And there's like one channel that just plays The Simpsons all the time. There's one channel that just plays MasterChef Australia all the time. And there's six channels that play Strictly Come Dancing.

7:07Andy Greenwald:The best channel is the one that plays Top of the Pops 98. And it's just Top of the Pops performances from 98. But the two shows in the heaviest rotation are the aforementioned Canal Boat Diaries, in which a guy goes on a skinny boat around London, and he reaches a place where there's a lock and he can't get through. And he's like, oh, it's going to be a bit of a bother, isn't it? And then he's like, and then it cuts, because there's no cameraman. He's just drone shotting it and like selfie-ing. And then he's like, luckily the local locks volunteer has agreed to help me and is raising the lock.

7:35Andy Greenwald:And there's just some guy in a hat going. And then he goes on. And then every so often he stops at a market to buy incredibly spicy ingredients to make a curry, which I think he used to just blow out his tiny boat. Like, it's just that that's that's the real engine of the show. But the other thing is, and I feel like we should have an expert on this, is just I've become very, very obsessed with the Michael Portillo phenomenon. Yeah. And he is a very, very fancy Dan, older man now wearing bright colors who travels the world off in Portugal, off in different parts of Portugal. and is always just going up to...

8:12He probably lives there for tax purposes.

8:13Andy Greenwald:But he's just always going up to dudes named like Rodrigo who live in wheat mills and have like birthed all of their children there. And he's just like, what do you do, Rodrigo? And Rodrigo just stares at him. Oh, can I have a whack at that? And I was watching it and I was like, oh, this guy's awesome. This guy just likes to travel. And then I Googled him and he's just like a deeply conservative former MP who is, Well, I'm not going to, you know what? Libel laws are different here. But his personal life section of his Wikipedia surprised me. Is it wikipedia.co.uk or.com? Because it can be different sometimes.

8:50Oh, that's a great point.

8:51Andy Greenwald:So anyway, I think I'm going a bit native. Okay. Or insane. Well, then let's talk about your homeland. Sure. Not your original homeland, but your adopted one. Los Angeles. Yeah. The great Southland. Rachel Sennett has come along and made, well it's definitely a show of its moment and it's a show probably of like the last couple of years I think TV always has that issue where what you're writing about and sort of this is cutting edge vocabulary slang, trends, what have you in 2023 may not be what happens in 2025 but I feel like she did a pretty good job with this I Love LA is I saw Alison Herman in Variety compared this I thought smartly to how to make it an America, an entourage more than a sitcom.

9:41And that actually, I was like, oh, okay. Like I kind of like, I'd watched some episodes already and I watched this, we're going to talk about this premiere that just happened on Sunday. But I think initially I was just like, but is it, is this funny enough? You know, right? Are you Michael Portillo? Pardon me, Rachel. Go whack at that. Is that mutton? Yeah. Delicious.

10:05Andy Greenwald:Rachel Sennett, who was obviously, she was one of the stars of Shiva Baby. Will you explain Rachel Sennett to me? Because I have remained relatively clean. I think she emerged somewhat out of Vine and out of internet fame doing short videos on her social media. And very quickly kind of took the A24. Up down? If you know what I'm saying. Yeah. She very quickly became something of a sensation within indie film world by doing Shiva Baby and Bodies, Bodies, Bodies. and bottoms. Right, and there's kind of like a clique of, like some of the people who are part of this group of young creatives, like Myhala, who we love in industry, seems to be part of this world to a degree, like Chase Swee Wonders, who's amazing on studio.

10:48Andy Greenwald:I'm not just grouping people together because they're women under 30. No, I don't know. I mean, like, I owe, you know, I owe a deborah. Yeah, exactly. So this show stars Senate. It was created by Senate for a long time. It was called Untitled Rachel Senate Project, which up until fairly recently it was called that. And it's essentially about a New Yorker who comes to Los Angeles to make it as a talent manager and make it in the entertainment industry broadly. I think it's actually, at least in terms of it anthropologically, interesting to view as why people come to Los Angeles over the decades.

11:25Why they come now. And why they come now. She's moved to New York. She has a couple of friends. most notably I think is English teachers Jordan Firstman who plays Charlie in the show and Forrest Whitaker's daughter is also I believe Leah Whitaker True Whitaker is also in her friend group in the series and she has a boyfriend played by Josh Hutcherson who has a normal type job as a teacher but everybody else is kind of broadly working in and around and on the outskirts of what stands in for the entertainment industry now, which used to be TV and movies, but now encompasses social media and brand deals and working and influencing and obviously all this other stuff.

12:12Does it include podcasting? There is a little bit of a tongue-in-cheek podcast joke in this first episode as the characters walk the Silver Lake Rose of War. It's what we deserve. So the first episode is a really decent pilot setup, which is it's her birthday. it's Maya the Rachel Sennett character it's her birthday weekend she's trying to get a promotion from Leighton Meester Leighton Meester or Leighton? okay Leighton Meester

12:35Andy Greenwald:who is phenomenal as kind of a generation above Meester Salts because she's also in Nobody Wants This This Year which is renewed congratulations to our buddy Tim Simons congratulations to Hitmaker yet another one another one another banger I think Leighton Meester is so good on the show as Maya's boss who is I swear to god I went through like a two or three year period where people were like it's Leighton actually oh maybe it is I don't think it is. You know what? Let's just focus on that. Anyway, she runs... What's her job? She's an assistant at a management company. But managing what? I don't know.

13:10Podcasters? I'm open. I think influencers or I think brands. Okay. But I can't tell. Or maybe I missed that line in the dialogue. Anyway, she works there. She's hoping for a promotion that doesn't come. She's bummed out. And who comes into her life but her past in the form of Tallulah, a big influencer played by Odessa Zion, who you might remember from Better Things. She's Pamela Edlin's daughter. Yes. And she kind of is like this hurricane comes into her life. They've had a falling out in the past. Rachel said it's character, Maya, tried to block her on social media, stuff like that. There's a kind of crazy night out.

13:50Andy Greenwald:Yeah. And then a birthday dinner. We get to the end of it And we find that they've kind of made amends and now they're going to take on LA together, manager and client once again to conquer the city. So what did you broadly think of this first episode? I enjoyed it. I really did. And we should also shout out that there's a really strong team behind the scenes. Sure. Lorene Scafaria, who... Only one person ever makes television. You should know that by now. You? Only one person makes toast. Lorene Scafaria, who's a great director who worked on Succession most recently and is now like has reached like the trusted HBO club.

14:25Andy Greenwald:She's on the show, I think, as the directing producer or producing director. I mean, old buddy Max Silvestri, who's a great comedian who just launched his own podcast with Gabe Liebman and Jenny Slate. He's an EP on the show, Emma Berry. And, you know, I think what you want in a show that purports to offer a slice of a very specific life is you want confidence. And the pilot hits you with confidence. It begins with earthquake sex, which is a pretty good starting point for what the show is going to be and gets you right in the mood. Yeah. Apparently Maya in the mood as well. I have to say that my first, here are the two planks of my affection for the show thus far.

15:02Andy Greenwald:I'm curious if you had a similar reaction. One plank is I like shows about groups of friends in situations. There was a show I remember from the 90s that had a similar kind of setup. I think it was called Friends. Yeah. That is a reliable chestnut and it feels good. And once this group of people gets together on camera, I think in the pilot, as you said, it's at the Silver Lake Reservoir, I was just enjoying the banter because these people knew each, they know each other, the performers clearly are comfortable with each other, and the work was done to give them each a distinctive voice. Jordan Firstman, this character of Charlie does not seem on first blush to be that different from the character he wonderfully plays in English teacher.

15:44Andy Greenwald:But I love that character and I'm happy to see him. So I was comfortable already. The other thing that I really did appreciate, and maybe this is some degree of homesickness, is it understands something I feel is profound about Los Angeles, or maybe the observation isn't profound, but the truth is profound, which is that nothing really works there. It's kind of not a functioning place. Yeah, it's a lot of lines. It's a lot of humiliation. Yeah. There is a... Waiting for bagels. Waiting to get into tenants of the trees. Exactly. Like we, there's a moment in the pilot when Tallulah is like, it's your birthday, let's go to the beach.

16:22Andy Greenwald:And they're immediately all like, oh my God, that would be such a whole thing. And that is true. The driving, the lines that just, is it really worth it if I could just stay home is baked into the place. Yes. And there is also something very specific about visitors or new transplants that is very sweet because I remember being this person like all the years when when Grantland was going and I still lived in New York and I would come out and visit people. I just I was just driving Santa Monica like straight to the ocean and back just for the hell of it. I was like, why would I not? Because you have the energy and the novelty of driving.

16:56Andy Greenwald:I couldn't understand why no one wanted to leave a 10 minute radius. Yeah. And that went away so fast. That went away so fast. So I was having a conversation with someone last night, uh, who was talking about how it's, you know, the Los Angeles, like kind of effusive positivity is throws off. You know, if you're from the East coast or if you're from, from Europe, you might be a little bit, um, blinkered by like how positive everybody is. And they're like, you know, even if you're just going into a store and it's like, you just have a great day. Okay. And I was like, well, lucky, luckily you can go days without speaking to anyone in Los Angeles.

17:30Cause you're just always in your car.

17:31Andy Greenwald:100 million percent. And just like the inflexibility of things, you know, and the fact that like in the pilot, Charlie has expended his daily allotment of energy waiting in line for... For Courage bagels. ...Earmuffs, overrated bagels. You know, come on. Hey, I don't stand on that line. Not that I cut the line. I just, generally speaking, I go to Mori's, yeah. Yeah, because Mori's are bagels. Yeah. Courage is delicious bread. That is nice. It's nice for a treat when you go there. I can always count on you. Because Courage is having a very, like, it's a very media moment. Because it's all over, nobody wants this to.

18:08Andy Greenwald:And I think Courage Bagels is a fine destination. Everybody should have it at least once. Sure. But what I look for, if I may, in a bagel, is both delicious flavor, but also usability. Freezability. Yeah. Courage Bagels is called Freeze. Oh, yeah, you like to have some. And if you want a chef-y bagel that freezes well, mustards opened up in Culver City, which feels like 8 ,000 miles away from where we are right now. I'm trying to Culver City. Well, they were. There better be like a pile of drugs at the end of that. There's no way I'm doing that. I'm just letting people know. You know who I'm letting know?

18:42Andy Greenwald:The Tallulahs who listen to our podcast who are willing to take influencer photos. But yeah, just like that these little supposedly compostable styrofoam containers are somehow like status symbols and you've checked a box and then that's your day. I really, really like that. And of course, you know, and surprisingly, because the show is made by young people who live there, like there is just a, you could play bingo with locations that track. I mean, there's a Din Tai Fung reference. I think Capri Club shows up in the second episode. There's like a day-to-day life set. Somebody's listening to us in St.

19:18Louis and just being like, I hope you guys go fucking fall into the Thames.

19:21Andy Greenwald:For what it's worth, there's a Din Tai Fung here in London. There is. It's an international change. And an egg slut. And Five Guys. And everything's great. No, but just a city with a day-to-day life set to the rhythm of people shaking salads at their desks. Yeah, I think, honestly, life's better when there's an HBO show like this. I don't mean to make things too complicated. It's just, I've always enjoyed a 30-minute comedy slice of life, like you said, about a group of friends somewhere. And I will watch every episode of this. I laughed. You know, like, yeah, for sure. I'm not going to spoil anything, but one takeaway from the second episode that would just be a little note for me that I'm curious about is that the end of the second episode introduces some stakes, basically, in a way that I was like, this show is so confident.

20:08Andy Greenwald:That hasn't aired yet, right? No. Okay. But the show is so confident in its situation that it doesn't really need this, particularly because the stakes are to do with influencer drama, which I think is right down there with Dick Cheney's obituary in terms of things that I'm interested in engaging with right now. I've been loving some Dick Cheney obits. Have you? Yeah. You know what I respect about the guy? Because everybody, first of all, you can tell some of them were written like nine years ago. Oh, yeah. So they're just like, the master of the Senate kind of like stuff. And then it's just like some guy had to come in and do like a later period rewrite as like...