[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for the I Love LA Season 1 finale.]
They were on a break! No, really. Maia (Rachel Sennott) and Dylan (Josh Hutcherson) were, in fact, on a break from their relationship in the I Love LA finale. Both of them hated it, and both of them really messed up in response. If they learn what the other did on their break, as well as the feelings of romantic dissatisfaction that led them there, can they really recover? We asked Sennott and Hutcherson to break down the finale’s big moments in the video interview above. Plus, Hutcherson and Jordan Firstman detail a cut take where their characters kissed.
The finale took place in Los Angeles and New York. Dylan and Charlie (Firstman) were in LA, while Maia, Tallulah (Odessa A’zion), and Alani (True Whitaker) were in the Big Apple for the Formé dinner. Dylan needed space after Maia neglected their relationship, and they both missed each other a lot. But both of them hooked up with other people while separated. Hooking up with other people isn’t the issue here. It’s who they hooked up with that would feel like a betrayal to each of them. Maia got with an industry colleague who was trying to poach her from Alyssa180 and with whom she had been meeting and talking to in secret for weeks. Dylan, meanwhile, had sex with Claire, the teacher Maia was jealous of in Episode 6. Why did they do it?
“Neither of them [is] necessarily the bad guy because they were on a break,” Sennott tells TV Insider. She shares that this storyline of feeling unsatisfied in love was inspired by her personal experience of dating during COVID.
“I felt like I settled down into a relationship, and then all of a sudden, you’re like, wait a second. I feel like I missed out on a lot of time to be free and slutty and whatever, and playing the field. And then all of a sudden you’re like, wait a second, but I’m almost 30, so am I getting married? Do I need to be single? That’s where Maia’s feelings came from.”
That fight with Dylan about wanting a “big life” in the penultimate episode was also pulled from Sennott’s personal life. She got teary-eyed recalling this memory.
“Something I felt in the past in my life is that when I first date someone, they’re like, ‘I love how hardworking you are. I love how driven you are.’ And then they gradually grow to hate it,” she says. “It’s something where I’m like, ‘I thought you loved this about me. OK.’ That’s direct line [in the show]. But it’s something that I think people like about me, and then they maybe gradually don’t. And it’s where it came from.”
Why did Dylan turn to Claire? Has his admiration for Maia’s ambition waned?
“Dylan doesn’t do it out of revenge at all. He does it out of a feeling of not feeling seen, even though it’s his own fault in some ways,” Hutcherson explains. “Maia and Dylan just don’t communicate and they haven’t for a while, and I think that Dylan is drawn towards her ambition and her big dreams because he’s happy holding down the fort, but they haven’t been communicating, and she’s been getting further away and they haven’t been talking about it and then they end up where they do. I think his indiscretion is more brought on by saying, ‘F**k it, I’m frustrated.’ It was a frustration thing, and ‘Maybe there’s something else that I can enjoy in life that isn’t just based so much in this world of Maia.’ It’s like an escape moment, and then he finds maybe something that could be interesting there. I’m really curious to see where it goes after that moment.”
Charlie helped Dylan process his feelings about Maia, and he went to New York later in the episode and saw firsthand how much Maia missed Dylan. Firstman says that Charlie is confident that Maia and Dylan will work things out in Season 2 (which is already green-lit by HBO). But if you caught a vibe between Charlie and Dylan in that scene in Dylan’s kitchen, you’re not alone. Hutcherson and Firstman told us that they did a take where they kissed, and it was their idea, improvised on the day. It was ultimately cut because it didn’t work for the characters.
Learn more about the I Love LA finale, including Whitaker’s feelings about having Keith David play her onscreen dad, in the full video interview above.
I Love LA, Season 2 TBA, HBO