High Maintenance (2016)

From the top down, this is a show that has such patience and empathy for its characters, even the most minute of roles, that it makes you want to get to know the people around you in real life better, open yourself up to their stories, discover their secrets within. Because while there might be unpleasant surprises, good things might also result.

High Maintenance still hypnotizes, even as we've slipped from the delicate optimism of the early 2010s to the bulldozing nihilism of 2020s. In the terrific opening episodes of Season 4, we watch the masks go on and the masks come off. ... You never know what little delight you're going to find.

The common thread, of course, is the marijuana, which neither increases nor decreases the happiness in its users; it’s simply another form of brief release from the human condition, which High Maintenance portrays with subtly observed skill.

In the show’s second season on HBO, airing this month, the ease is back, thank God, and the series feels, even in slighter moments, newly confident, with an increased ability to reflect a larger world in flux. Each of the five episodes sent to critics is worth watching.

High Maintenance stands out, not just because it’s on the front end of what is apparently a reefer TV trend, but because it’s so precisely made and has such an ambling, open heart.

Some episodes are silly, others are sad. ... All of them are worth watching.

Though High Maintenance does contain some universal truths about city life, it’s best episode is not about humanity, but about the dog.