In January of 2016 (otherwise known as: eleven months before the fall of America), a Shouts & Murmurs piece for The New Yorker by Cirocco Dunlap went “viral.” Well, at least amongst the many millions who live in L.A. and New York, or have flitted between the two, as is the usual way of “creatives” lacking imagination. Appropriately titled “N.Y.C. to L.A. to N.Y.C. to L.A., Ad Infinitum,” it centers on the all too played-out concept of how a certain kind of person keeps switching between loving New York/hating L.A. and hating New York/loving L.A. And Dunlap concludes her (or someone “like” her) constant back and forth with the final line, “Halfway between New York and L.A., I imploded. I am so much happier now.” One gets the sense that maybe Maia Simsbury (Rachel Sennott) might feel the same after enough back and forthing between the two metropolises that most non-Americans view as the extent of the United States (or at least among the only two places in said country where people keep somewhat current with literature of a non-Colleen Hoover variety).
However, in “I Love NY,” the antithetically-titled finale episode of I Love LA’s first season, Maia is still in the phase of the “N.Y.C. to L.A. to N.Y.C. to L.A., Ad Infinitum” piece that’s somewhere around the point where Dunlap writes, “When I arrived in L.A. and realized that it was creatively dead, had a withered husk for a soul, and considered ombré the height of culture, I took the first plane back to New York.” Mind you, this is after the first paragraph’s revelation, “When I realized that New York was a cesspit filled with the viscera of broken dreams, I decided that the time had come for me to move to beautiful, sunny Los Angeles.” These vacillations are common among the “coastal city” ilk. The places filled with the young, ambitious, rich and beautiful—or at least one of those qualities in each of the people that flock there to pursue “something bigger than themselves.” And who are constantly ready and willing to make that “something bigger” happen, no matter the cost. Though often, the cost is airfare to the other side of the country where something better and more life-changing must surely be awaiting.
This is the “premise” that finds Maia in New York with her lone client (/best friend, with more than slightly toxic undertones to the friendship), Tallulah Stiel (Odessa A’zion). A trip that couldn’t have come at a more perfect moment for Maia in terms of avoiding her mess of a professional and personal life back in LA, having 1) just quit her job at Alyssa180 (though one hopes that doesn’t mean it’s the last of seeing Leighton Meester on the series) and 2) just been told by her boyfriend, Dylan (Josh Hutcherson), that he “needs some space” from her after enduring yet another grotesque example of Maia’s total lack of consideration for him or the fact that he exists at all. So it is that L.A. suddenly seems like a place filled with nothing but messy problems for Maia to deal with—ergo, New York looking all shiny and new again (after all, she lived there before moving to L.A., thus further embodying the “N.Y.C. to L.A. to N.Y.C. to L.A., Ad Infinitum” trope).
With the City of (Demonic) Angels three thousand miles away and three hours behind, Maia is ready to make a splash at the Formé dinner. Hence, her confidence as she power-walks through the NYC streets in the opening scene of “I Love NY” with Tallulah and Alani (True Whitaker)—along for the ride and to surprise-visit her director father—flanked on either side and just slightly behind her as she declares, “Oh my god, you guys, it feels so good to be back in New York. Like, shoot it into my fucking veins. I feel alive and free.” It’s a common cliché among the newly “over” L.A. to say such things. As evidenced by Dunlap writing, “I knew I needed to get back to where the real people were, the people of substance and letters, who understood the Struggle.” And, as the viewer will soon see in I Love LA, to the people who understood the value of smoking.
Before Maia decides to start smoking on a bench, however, she also asserts, “I’m honestly so psyched to not be in L.A. Like, the heat and the palm trees. It’s, like, fucking oppressive.” Which is what Joan Didion also said about it in a nutshell—she also being one of the OGs to suffer from the “N.Y.C. to L.A. to N.Y.C. to L.A., Ad Infinitum” affliction (though she ultimately ended up living out the last phase of her life in New York in spite of making that big to-do about leaving it in her famed 1967 essay, “Goodbye to All That”). And yes, that’s naturally why she should be name-checked in Dunlap’s piece via the mention, “On my first hike in L.A., I had to talk to someone who’d never read Joan Didion and who’d had—get this—plastic surgery. Before he could say ‘juice cleanse,’ I had ridden a fixed-gear bicycle right back to the Big Apple.” As for Maia, her feelings of fervor for New York during this episode crest and wane as expected, reaching an apex when she thinks Ben (Colin Woodell), the gross “bigshot” working at an agency called Mercer, might want to have sex with her and offer her a job. While both are technically true, they each come with fucked-up caveats that are in keeping with the average delusions of grandeur/mind game-loving nature of the “New York type.” So it is that Maia decides that working with—but actually for—Ben would be about as enjoyable as trying to get fucked by him. For he’s way too bossy, controlling and generally sadistic to want to collaborate with in way, shape or form (whether in or out of the boudoir).
And that’s about the time when Maia’s rose-colored glasses regarding New York start to shift colors again, which puts her somewhere around the part of the “N.Y.C. to L.A. to N.Y.C. to L.A., Ad Infinitum” essay that goes, “By the time I got back to New York, I was very old. I was twenty-seven [“back then,” in 2016, people would have taken that in the humorous spirit it was intended; at present, Gen Z really does think twenty-seven is “old”]. I was too old for the constant partying I assumed people did. I was too old to keep pretending I’d read all the articles and listened to all the bands. Pretending to like things was a young person’s game. I just needed a change. And L.A., city of vapid angels, provided that change. No one cared if I’d read anything or listened to anything, or whether I even had eyes or ears, as long as I didn’t get the part of Surprised Waitress No. 2 over them.” Maia might be able to promise not getting that part for herself…though she can’t make the same promise for her number one client, Tallulah.
The woman she’s so determined to make rich and famous that she’s even willing to take a chance on getting Charlie (Jordan Firstman) to style her in an outfit that goes against what Antoine (Tim Baltz), the organizer of the Formé dinner, had specifically picked out for her. Not only that, but she’s also willing to brave the big, bad subway to get to said dinner when they see that traffic is backed up for miles all around them thanks to an attempted stabbing in the neighborhood by Alani’s dad’s stalker (though Maia and Tallulah don’t know that’s the specific reason). And as they stand against the doors of the train at their most hopeful, it’s at that precise moment when a man sitting next to them and holding a rat decides to say, “I think you two ladies look really beautiful. But my rat thinks you look like sluts.” As a result, Maia finally comes to the full-circle moment of the episode, realizing, “God, I miss LA.”
Thus, she’s ultimately at the part of Dunlap’s essay that reads, “I threw on my comfiest sweatpants, poured what was left of me into a Vitamix, and shipped myself to L.A.” Whether Maia decides to go back to New York in the second season and try to love on it some more before hating it yet again remains to be seen. But it would be in keeping with the real-life nature of suffering perennially from the sickness known as “N.Y.C. to L.A. to N.Y.C. to L.A., Ad Infinitum.”
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