THE LA COMPLEX: YOUND CANADIANS GONE WILD
This week the new teen drama ‘The LA Complex’ made its debut on Canada’s Much Music Network. The hour long program, which centers around a group of young performers from Canada who all live in the same low rent apartment building, was recently picked up by the CW, which means audiences in the US will get to see it soon. Thanks to the magic of the internet, I’ve already watched the first episode and The LA Complex seems to have potential, but we’ll have to see if they can keep it interesting.
Writer & producer Martin Gero and director Stefan Brogren who also worked on Bored to Death and Degrassi, respectively, want people to know that LA Complex is not a Degrassi spin-off in any way, even though it does have one alum from the long running teen show, Cassie Steele. After all, they already made a Degrassi Goes to Hollywood movie, so this is completely different, okay?
The main characters are Abby Vargas, an actress & singer from Toronto who was living out of her car until Nick Wagner, an unfunny stand-up comedian took her under his wing and convinced his landlord to let her have the vacant room in the building. Nick’s friend Connor Lake is the one who just moved out of The Lux after his tv pilot was picked up. He meets Abby at his going away party & they get sexy on the rooftop after Abby downs an ecstasy pill & decides to go with it. The next morning they realize (oops!) they forgot a condom and Connor graciously offers to buy a morning after pill for the broke little actress. Best line of the episode: “An abortion AND breakfast…and they say there are no good guys in LA!”
Points for:
-Showing recreational drug use without making it seem like it ruined the people’s lives/is the worst thing in the world. In fact, the E seems to have helped [cassie] find quite the dashing gentleman…
-The building they live in looks realistically dumpy…this ain’t Melrose Place.
-The nerdy kid sees his friend throwing out old painkillers & stops him, saying he can sell the pills…that’s just practical.
As Connor is waiting for Abby to escort her to the nearest CVS, he runs into his 2am hook-up girl, aging starlet Raquel Monaghan, played by Firefly veteran Jewel Staite. She’s mad because he failed to get her an audition for his show & she desperately needs work. Her character’s desperation makes you a little uncomfortable, but I think it will add great depth to the show. Another sad sack is the nerdy comedian, who keeps doing open mics even though they go over horribly and the club host straight up tells him to quit.
Rounding out the cast is Tariq Muhammad, an aspiring musician who’s stuck in a dead end job being a bitch for a big time record producer & desperately trying to get someone to listen to his beats. At the end of the episode, he attached one of his own beats to an email for Drake, so we’ll see if his risk pays off. Then finally, there’s Alicia Mann, an energetic dancer who strips for extra cash. Interestingly, when they reveal her side job, it doesn’t seem sleazy, because the girl seems to genuinely love dancing in the spotlight, no matter what the venue.
Back to Abby, after ingesting her Plan B pill, she has to hightail it to a singing audition with her favorite director. Since she’s broke & about to be homeless, this job is her last shot at Hollywood. She nails the audition, but ends up puking right after the song ends, thanks the pill she took earlier. She commiserates with Alicia, who never heard back from an audition she thought she owned, and admits that she’ll probably have to leave cause she can’t pay rent. Dancer girl says “Oh, money’s your problem? That’s easy,” and whisks her away to join the exciting field of pole dancing. Problem solved?
My only issues with this episode were related to how they portrayed the Morning After Pill (Abortion Pill, seriously?!) Right before Abby is about to take it, she says it’s going to “knock her out” and that it says it causes “extreme nausea.” Now, I’ve taken the same pill…enough…times to know that that is 100% bullshit. So the message this sends is taking Ecstasy once in awhile is fine, but taking Plan B will fuck your shit UP. That’s healthy for young girls. Other than that, I’m hopeful that LA Complex with be a new take on the young adult genre & show a more gritty and realistic side to being young & trying to make sense of your life. There’s no gimmicks like vampires, werewolves, or witchcraft and none of the glitz, glamour & privilege of shows like Gossip Girl. I’m hoping this will be a fascinating look into the unchartered underworld of young Canadians trying to make it…or get pregnant trying.
