So, we are in the midst of another wild bout of weather, as we glade through turbulence into April. As of writing this, we have been through summer, fall, winter…and hopefully spring. But as no doubt your grandkids are about to take a midseason break, maybe we should set aside some time for beach vacations and parties ourselves. I, on the other hand, am going to a lake house a couple days after this is turned in for much needed rest and relaxation. Just because we are all older, that doesn’t mean that Spring Break shenanigans are off the table. And that goes for the characters in these shows.
I Love LA is the brainchild of actress/comedienne Rachel Sinnott, the droll party girl who burst onto the scene in Shiva Baby and Bodies Bodies Bodies. The latter of which, and LA, can be found on HBO Max. This would make people think, given the premise, that is show is just lady Entourage. However as that show reveled more in their cast’s bad behavior and genuine unlikability, Sinnott and co. clearly don’t show their antics in the most favorable light. I mean, they named the show after a song where Randy Newman slyly shaded on the city he calls home.
Shady is the best description for the dealings we find ourselves in.
Maia (Sennott) works for a talent agency, with aspirations of being a big name manager to the stars. She lives with her boyfriend Dylan (a welcome Josh Hutcherson) who teaches elementary, talk about opposites attracting. When her unwieldy influencer friend Tallulah (a whacked-out Odessa A’zion) blows into town, Maia seizes this as an opportunity to finally see her own potential through. But what is she going to have to sacrifice to get those dreams? What we treated to are parties and fashion shoots filled with sex, drug and…Instagram stylists? Mind you some of the goings-on can be a bit too much, so check your threshold for sleaze accordingly. With guest stars from The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri, Gossip Girls’s Leighton Meester and Elijah Wood in a truly surreal performance, there is never a dull moment.
Well even if break comes to an end, that doesn’t mean that college is any less scandalous. Vladimir on Netflix takes on the idea of academia gone wild much better than the film After The Fall did last year. For one, the show runners added some much-needed levity to the equation here. Based on the 2022 novel of the same name by Julia May Jones, she adapts it to the small screen with the help of one Mrs. Rachel Weisz. Having read the novel, I couldn’t think of a better actress to portray this woman. Weisz’s dry sense of comic timing and caustic unreliable delivery made her an instant candidate to play this middle-aged professor of lit studies trying to navigate her husband’s infidelities that have cost him his tenure and position. As she tries to negotiate campus politics on his behalf, in struts the new hot faculty member. Our title character, an effortlessly cool Leo Woodall, is a sweet and attentive. A writer that is married, but that doesn’t stop Weisz from fantasizing about him in languorous dream sequences. Why can’t I have a little dalliance, she insists as much in her direct address to us throughout the series. These exchanges make us complicit in her actions, even if we may not condone them.
Her students don’t want to look at her from what they know. The staff tolerates her for the sake of their own reputations. But Vladimir just sees a colleague to admire, something her ego desperately needs. John Slatterly daftly plays her husband, just merging his Mad Men character Roger Sterling with George from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? A notable cast of supporting players round out this insatiable beach read of a show. You may not be in Florida with the co-eds. But that doesn’t mean you can’t live it up with some vicariously here.
