When you think of Los Angeles TV, Forever might surprise you. But this 2025 Netflix series sets much of its story in L.A., and uses the city’s rhythms to elevate the emotional stakes.
A Love Story with Stakes
Based loosely on the Judy Blume novel, Forever places two teenage athletes in Los Angeles circa 2018, eliciting first love amid the pressures of scholarship, family, and identity. The city looms in every frame glossy, distracted, and full of promise.
Lovie Simone stars alongside Michael Cooper Jr. The characters’ world includes early-morning training sessions, late-night drives through L.A. boulevards, and college recruitment tension. Their love feels urgent because the city presses in with expectation.
The series was renewed for Season 2 soon after release, signaling that viewers connected to its hybrid of teenage romance and social pressure.
The L.A. That Shapes Them
L.A. in Forever is aspirational and ruthless. The backdrop of youth sports, private schools, and family expectation is inseparable from location: the beaches where they run, the hills where they talk, the socioeconomic divides writ into zip codes.
In contrast to shows that use L.A. as glamour, Forever uses it as context. You sense the distance between promise and reality, between ambition and two conflicting homes. In that tension, the show finds emotional honesty.
