Los Angeles down to earth for “Love”
When Gus and Mickey first meet, it’s at a gas station convenience store in Echo Park, a cool, residential neighborhood in Los Angeles. She’s got a hangover and hasn’t had enough to pay for her coffee to go. He offers to offer it to her: she takes cigarettes along the way, but promises to reimburse him.
Mickey’s wallet quest will be used as a pretext, from the second episode of Love, to a long walk in the streets of the city, during which the couple talk to each other, discover each other and, already, seduce each other with confidences (both are recovering from a recent breakup), references (from the B series Armed and dangerous to the Claws of the night, shot in LA) and second degree (“I’m from Brookings, South Dakota.” “I know! The guy who invented total boredom is from over there.”).
The Los Angeles of “Love” is realistic, almost utilitarian, territory of vaguely creative, barely hip, a little losers in their thirties.
This is the start of many sequences in which the two characters indulge in one of California’s favorite pastimes: to hang out, hang out together. Travel miles behind the wheel of an old car for the slightest trip. Spending an afternoon dissecting his existential problems, slumped on faded garden furniture. Take part in a party at the chic villa of successful friends.
Sharing a beer, a barbecue or a joint around the pool of his condominium, with neighbors who now form what is called a “community” – the notion so dear to Americans -, and occasionally, pushing it to the ocean. Modern apartments, a bit impersonal, in diners where to enjoy a burger, the Los Angeles of Love is realistic, almost utilitarian, territory of vaguely creative thirty-something, barely connected, a little losers.
The world of Hollywood is only mentioned on the tails, represented by the film sets on which Gus gives private lessons to a spoiled child star (brilliantly played by Iris Apatow, the daughter of Judd, co-creator of the series). During the three seasons of Love, Gus and Mickey meet, fall out, get lost in order to find each other better. Like this famous “love” which gives the series its title, the city seems so immense that it can be scary and that it is difficult to appropriate it. On every street corner, however, it arouses an irrepressible desire, a breath of vitality. And the promise to find there, perhaps, perfect happiness.
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