In my entire life, I have never met a person from New York City who wasn’t an asshole.

Most of them believe that New York is some serendipitous, democratic wonderland where the vibrant American spirit still lives. They can’t entertain the notion that you would want to live anywhere less unpredictable, busy, or expensive. After all, the reason they came from Midwestern City X is because they “belong in New York.” They, just like all the self-entitled transplants before them, moved there to fulfill some destiny they had in mind for themselves, since that’s where all the movers and shakers are. At least half of the city is composed of people who believe they’re better than where they came from, and the other half is so inculcated with superiority from birth that they’re just as irritating. So the migrating farmboys claim that they’re attracted to the romantic notions of New York’s unity, but they moved there precisely because they refused to be a cog in a wheel. Don’t call them out on that logic though: Anyone who finds charm in a lack of public restrooms cannot be reasoned with.

How to Make It in America concluded its second season tonight; and I secretly like it because it feeds off those lies of New York’s endless possibilities and opportunism. It preaches so fervently of New York as cultural epicenter that even I can’t resist. Even I wonder if I should have had some phase living in a shady Park Slope walk-up with a bay window and radiators, maybe down the street from some adorable bookstore, a subway ride away from anything I would ever need.

While the show is flawed, it revels in its sense of place in a way that most less expansive shows can’t afford to. A character shouts out some corner as “the best falafel in the world,” and we believe him. Short scenes seem to exist only because the producers found a cool location, and so much of the heavy exposition is done with simple establishing shots.

For the uninitiated—since I don’t know anyone else who watches this—the show centers on Ben and Cam, who are hustling to start their own streetwear line. They don’t seem to have an original or interesting product—they silk-screen their logo onto hoodies that they bought from somewhere else*—but they navigate a Big Apple of sharks with nothing but their friendship and a dream.

The show, produced by Mark Wahlberg (like seemingly everything else on HBO), is, at its worst, exactly like Entourage, his first effort for the network. Like that program, it thrives on low stakes and deus ex machina. All of the problems of Vince and his bros could be solved within a half-hour, and we never really get the sense that Ben and Cam will fail in this show either. Their brand might not take off this episode, but they aren’t going to go broke or die or anything either. Sometimes the show even actively avoids conflict. Tonight, for example, Ben accidentally confesses that he slept with a man’s wife, and we cut away just as that cuckold punches him in the face. Ben appears in the next scene with no real consequences, and he never explains or even references what happened. Thanks for not harshing my buzz with resolution.

What separates it from Entourage, however, is that the characters are actually likable. Whereas L.A. polluted the Entourage protagonists into needy, soulless caricatures, New York fuels the independence of the characters here. Ben and Cam have simple goals and, because they’re fairly nice guys, we want them to succeed. In Entourage, the characters’ goals were unclear, (Does Vince want to be a huge star? Does Vince want to do meaningful work? Does Vince even want to be in movies?) and we were less engaged because they started with success. How to Make It in America is sort of the Muppet Babies to Entourage’s Muppets, except instead of wondering what Nanny looked like above the socks, we wonder whether or not Lake Bell is attractive.

By the end of Entourage, the characters needed one another because there was no one else they could trust; in How to Make It in America, it feels as if your best friend could be right around the corner. Entourage seduced the viewer by opening a door to the world of the rich and famous; How to Make It in America suggests that that door is always open.

Perhaps Ben, Cam, and their satellite of go-getters are engaging because they’re young, innocent, and hungry, which is, of course, what you need to be for New York to seem attractive at all to you. It’s a city I’d hate to live in, but I enjoy visiting it for thirty minutes a week.

*- This might be a more trenchant comment on the fickle, superficial fashion world than I’m giving it credit for. Either that or lazy writing.