I wanted to love I Love LA
Plus, what I know about Mike Flanagan's Carrie series, and my thoughts on Bravo's Surviving Mormonism docu-series.
Announcements
Hi! I know I originally said this is a biweekly newsletter but it’s turning into something closer to weekly-ish. There’s just too much going on! I even delayed this week’s dispatch by one day to include my review of HBO’s highly anticipated comedy, I Love LA. So let’s call it a biweeklyish newsletter, for now. And hey, this Saturday will mark one month since I left my full-time day job and pivoted to writing! You can read about that here, if you missed it.
What I learned at Mike Flanagan’s Carrie (1976) screening
I love living in Vancouver but despite it being a major production hub, I find I’m often on the outside of it — casts fly in, and they fly out the moment production wraps, and I have no idea how I would facilitate set visits or interviews during production. I was super thrilled to hear The Rio, an independent movie theatre in East Vancouver, was hosting a screening of Carrie (1976) with the cast and crew of Prime Video’s upcoming miniseries reboot. I’m a huge fan of Mike Flanagan’s work, having seen most of his Netflix series (The Haunting of Hill House, etc.) and films (I didn’t get a chance to tell him Ouija: Origin of Evil, his 2016 film, is one of the scariest things I’ve seen).
He introduced some of the Carrie cast on stage before the screening of the 1976 film, noting the rest had already flown out for other projects. He was also crowned The Rio’s Homecoming King for having played a role in creating a funding coalition (alongside Sean Baker, Osgood Perkins, and others) to save The Park, a historic movie theatre that Cineplex had just announced was closing in the city. It was the only movie theatre in Vancouver with a 70mm projector, although Cineplex did say they plan to move the projector to another one of their theatres.
There was no Q&A beyond Flanagan’s few words but here’s what I learned:
Prime Video approached Flanagan directly to showrun this Carrie adaptation — but like any one of his adaptations, he took quite some time to think through whether or not he could do it justice. Here’s what he said on stage:
“I firmly believe that there’s no point in stepping in to tell a story that’s already been told beautifully, unless you can bring something very new to it. I had a similar feeling with this as I did when I sat down to look at The Haunting of Hill House, which had also been done several times, and had been done, I would argue, perfectly by Robert Wise in 1963. But something leapt out at me then and said: This could be a great series for right now.
A similar thing happened with Carrie, where we were looking at a story about bullying, which I think has taken on a very different dimension in the decades since Stephen King wrote this. We look at the state of the world we are in, and suddenly the story felt very, very relevant, but it would require an enormous amount of creative liberty, because there’s no point in retreading.”
The Carrie series adaptation has wrapped production and is slated for 2026, 50 years since the original film. I would guess it’ll be out in the fall, for spooky season programming.
A few members of the cast hadn’t seen the original film!
Flanagan told the story of how Stephen King originally threw away his unfinished Carrie manuscript, only for his wife Tabitha to fish it out of the trash, read it, and encourage him to finish writing it (to which Kate Siegel, seated in the audience, yelled “YEAH WIVES!”).
Two stand-out shows I’m watching in October
Between my Yahoo column, Appointment Viewing in The Cut, and my Instagram, I don’t know how useful it is to report back on everything I’m watching, but I know these (I Love LA and Surviving Mormonism) are highly anticipated, so let’s dive in. Honourable mentions (It: Welcome to Derry, Down Cemetery Road, and uh…Taylor Sheridan) included at the end. Upgrade to paid to read!
I Love LA (HBO) - premieres on Sunday November 2
Grade: B
Dear reader: I want you to know I wanted to love I Love LA (titled “The Untitled Rachel Sennott Project” for a while). I wanted to love it so badly. Unfortunately, it’s a mixed bag. But hey, that’s not a total pan! It just won’t likely do what Girls did for the millennial generation, or Sex and the City for the generation before that, which is where my expectations were set.
Rachel Sennott stars at Maia: She’s a 27-year-old LA resident who guzzles orange wine and is trying to girlboss her way to the top of a talent management firm run by her boss, played by Leighton Meester. She lives with her boyfriend (Josh Hutcherson), who’s kind of boring and loves Ken Burns war documentaries. She’s not the most considerate to him in the relationship because she has some other fish to fry — her best friend turned frenemy Tallulah (Odessa A’zion) is now an online it-girl (although we’re never really provided with evidence as to why she is, but I guess that’s just how an it-girl...it-girls, as it were).
I actually loved A’zion’s performance here, and it somehow made so much sense she’s Pamela Adlon’s daughter. She’s kind of Sarah Jessica Parker meets Tatiana Maslany. Do you think she’s the Max or the Frankie of the real-life Adlon family? Nevermind, if you didn’t watch Better Things, that reference is going over your head.
Anyway, Tallulah moves in to Maia’s flat while she’s trying to get her life back in order, with Maia promising to help her career grow. Their friend group also includes Charlie (Jordan Firstman), a gay stylist who’s always hooking up with someone, and Alani (True Whitaker), a wealthy filmmaker daughter nepo baby, and sadly the weakest character of the bunch.
I Love LA, in my eyes, really struggled with finding its tone. Is this a heightened satirical show in the style of The Other Two? A little bit. Is it a hang out comedy with random misadventures like Broad City or Adults? Sort of. When the show paused on being silly and took itself seriously — whether in the friendship between Maia and Tallulah, or Maia and Dylan’s relationship, or on career sacrifices, the show clicks into place (mostly the later episodes). But the comedy in this comedy isn’t comedying, at least for me (the second episode is just…bad).
There are certain moments that work — an episode that takes place at Elijah Wood’s house, for example. But the satire all felt so broad and not all that original, and the stiltedness of some of the performances kind of felt like the actors were too concerned about presenting well over being funny? Maybe that’s not fair. There’s lots of potential here: Sennott turns in a great performance and episodes are thoughtfully directed — it’s just missing that je ne sais quoi Girls had from the jump. Maybe there’s room to grow?
Is it gay? Okay yes there are multiple layers of gay here, from Charlie to Moses Ingram playing a lesbian chef.
Surviving Mormonism (Bravo) - premieres on Tuesday November 11
Grade: A-
Part of what makes The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City so fascinating, especially in its early seasons, is getting to know women who have left or are contending with their experience in the Mormon church. Heather Gay came to cultural prominence through Housewives but she has made a name for herself calling out the church for the hypocrisy she experienced during her divorce, and her book Bad Mormon touches on this too.
Surviving Mormonism decenters Heather as the conduit between the viewer and the church and instead inserts three in-depth interviews over three harrowing episodes that chronicle widespread abuse: From the church sending their members to conversion therapy to the suppression of sexual abuse survivors. The thread that runs throughout is the church’s financial power (10% of each member’s income) and their self-interest in preserving the church over widespread abuse.
Each episode smartly zooms in close to these survivors and their stories, before zooming far out: We see dozens of clips of individuals recounting their experiences over video and in writing. Some of the best scenes are of Heather driving home from her interviews — car scenes that feel like slight nods to Housewives — and contending with what she has just witnessed. At only three episodes, there’s only so much ground they could cover, but I’m thankful in the care taken to tell these survivors’ stories as opposed to diving into the more clickbait aspects of Mormonism (i.e., MomTok or polygamy, although both are mentioned).
This isn’t a comprehensive look at the faith, either, but they don’t bite off more than they could chew. I don’t think Bravo has put out much of this kind of more serious documentary content, but if this is the start of a newer branch of their programming, I’m all for it.
Is it gay? Two of the three episodes are specifically about gay men. One of them includes Heather’s best friend’s partner which was quite moving.
Honourable mentions:
It: Welcome to Derry (HBO) has a BOLD pilot. I don’t want to spoil it for you if you plan to dive in, but the prequel’s horror had my jaw dropped multiple times per episode. Far scarier than the films! No prior knowledge is required to watch, but I will say that beyond the horror, the show starts to sink under its ambitions. The military sub-plot is a bit dull and high school scenes a bit cliché, but I’m going to watch the full season for sure (at least to get to the next scary scene). You can also read my interview with Jovan Adepo here!
Down Cemetery Road (Apple TV) is lots of fun. I’m part way through the season and whenever the conspiracy starts to get convoluted I realize I’m still having a good time because it’s Ruth Wilson and Emma Thompson — like, hello! Their scenes crackle with chemistry in a way only two acting legends (in my books) can.
I’ve been commissioned to write a ranking of every Taylor Sheridan show for a publication, so I’m making my way through his television credits I haven’t seen and it’s…really something! I finished Lioness (a Call of Duty season two finale if I’ve ever seen one) and started Landman, and oh brother. I don’t even know what to say.
Coming up next:
Oct 30: A Life’s Worth (Viaplay, S1)
Oct 30: Amsterdam Empire (Netflix, S1)
Nov 2: I Love LA (HBO, Nov 2)
Nov 2: Robin Hood (MGM+, S1)
Nov 3: Crutch (Paramount+, S1)
Nov 3: St Denis Medical (NBC, S2)
Nov 4: All’s Fair (Hulu, S1)
Nov 6: Death by Lightning (Netflix, S1)
Nov 6: The Vince Staples Show (Netflix, S2)
Nov 6: All Her Fault (Peacock, S1)
Nov 7: Stumble (NBC, S1)
Nov 7: Pluribus (Apple TV+, S1)
Nov 11: Surviving Mormonism (Bravo, S1)
Nov 12: Palm Royale (Apple TV+, S2)