HBO loves millennials and millennials love weed, so the channels newest show, High Maintenance, just makes perfect sense. Originally a series of webisodes created by Katja Blichfeld and Ben Sinclair, High Maintenance follows a New York City drug dealer and the people he interacts with. If Girls was for the Brooklyn hipster, High Maintenance is for the rest of us.
HBO adapted those webisodes into a full blown series that tackles what life in New York is actually like. From the trash can digging bottle collectors, to the social media obsessed teeanger, nearly every fact of life in the city is captured in thirty-minute chunks.
There are five episodes out right now, each dealing with multiple characters that you get to really know through in-depth storytelling. High Maintenance has evolved from kitschy comedy roots on the internet to something you can really connect with, sober or stoned off your ass.
I might be a bit biased on my interpretation of High Maintenance since I am the personification of this shows demographic: a mid-twenty something living in NYC who smokes on occasion, there just happens to be an occasion every day. Weed culture in NYC is still a media taboo because even though it’s decriminalized it’s still technically illegal. Smokers usually have to walk on pins and needles when they want to tell their story, afraid that it might stigmatize their professional reputation.
High Maintenance isn’t afraid to go where other shows won’t. In the second episode “Museebat” we get to know a young Muslim girl who’s trying to figure out who she is in this concrete jungle. Pot isn’t standing center stage, with all attention being focused on people smoking and giggling. It’s instead on this girl and her reputation with her religious parents and her need to be someone they might not be okay with. I grew up in a very religious home and completely relate to the need to spread your wings away from parental influence.
Let’s make one thing clear, High Maintenance isn’t about pot or even the guy, what the show calls the weed delivery man. It’s about the connections we make, the lives we live and the stories we want to share in the NYC. No other city is like the big apple, which is why the stories mend so well together. Recurring characters from the webisodes pop up constantly, like Marvel movies but with less superpowers. Homeless Heidi, Max and the asexual magician are all real people to me, who interact with the city I love and breath.
High Maintenance premieres new episodes on HBO on Friday. There are two episodes left in the season, and I will be there for every puff and pass.
