Let's hear it for The Guy

HBO’s ‘High Maintenance’ is a breath of fresh city air

“It’s about a weed delivery guy in New York.” That’s the simplest way to describe the premise of “High Maintenance,” the drama-comedy that just finished its initial six-episode run on HBO. But it so drastically misses the mark in describing what the show actually is that you’ll do a disservice to potential watchers if you leave it at that.

Created as a web series in 2012 by husband-wife duo Ben Sinclair and Katja Blichfeld, soon picked up by the video website Vimeo and eventually ordered to series by HBO, the show is anything but the stoner comedy its name and premise may imply. 

It ostensibly centers on Sinclair’s unnamed marijuana dealer (he’s credited simply as The Guy), who delivers door-to-door by bicycle in Brooklyn. But it’s actually a series of vignettes, loosely tied together by The Guy’s delivery service, that paint intensely intimate character portraits of life in 21st-century New York.

Among The Guy’s clientele are a pair of musclebound bros, aggressive and abrasive, who menace him until he hightails it out of their apartment—then turn out (delightfully) to be anything but menacing. There’s the uptight new mom, whose patience is tested when her freewheeling stoner baby-dad upends her routines and potentially threatens her family’s safety, until a tender text exchange sees them find the common ground of which they’d lost sight. There’s the sweet, heartbreaking Helen Hunt superfan whose agoraphobia is so crippling (and his secret love of The Guy so complete) that he only buys weed as an excuse to have some company.

But some of the most affecting sequences are barely related to the dealings of The Guy, if at all. At one point he takes the trash out to the stoop and an old Chinese man comes into frame, on his daily journey around the city to collect bottles and cans. With no overt nod or comment, the camera simply begins to follow him instead of The Guy. We go into his modest apartment, see the mundane daily routine he and his wife share. Eventually we meet his son, a world-class theremin player whose stage performance moves his father to tears. Later back at his apartment, we see the old man pull an ancient-looking stringed instrument from beneath his bed and begin to play it with a bow, his arm swaying softly. The episode ends on a shot—gorgeous in its simplicity and grace—of the old man performing on a subway platform for strangers, a contented grin nearly imperceptible on his proud face. 

The season’s clear highlight is an entire episode that unfolds from the point of view of a big, fluffy Labradoodle named Gatsby. He just moved to the big city. His owner is depressed, slovenly and casually neglectful. When he hires a free-spirited young woman to walk Gatsby while he’s at work, the dog is enraptured by her enthusiastic displays of affection and the magical adventures she makes possible. The ending is sad and sweet in the show’s signature unassuming way, but it’s a near miracle of narrative inventiveness. I’ve often said after an episode ended that I can’t believe they’ve created such richly drawn characters—and made me really care about them—inside of a 15- to 30-minute vignette. In this instance, my incredulity knew no bounds. They did it again, only this time the richly drawn character I came to care about was a dog.

The only misstep of an otherwise brilliant season of television was a foray into a more broadly comedic meta-narrative about a fictional television series based on The Guy and some people in his orbit. The less said the better, but suffice to say that it didn’t work because it veered too far away from why the show works in the first place. This series is not broad, and it is not meta. It’s small. It’s humanist. It lingers on details other shows might never even notice. It breathes. 

And The Guy is our perfect guide through all of it. He’s not saintly or magical. Sometimes he barely speaks, or barely even appears. But he’s kind. He’s nonjudgmental about the people whose lives he passes through at times of vulnerability or despair or joy. He’s got a serenity of spirit that is in too short a supply on the bustling streets of the big city—or anywhere, really. 

He’s what we should all aspire to be in an increasingly disconnected society. Not perfect. Not out to save the world at every turn. Just a guy who treats people well, lends an ear when they need it, knows to buzz off when they don’t. Oh, and brings really good weed.