Critic Reviews

In the six half-hour episodes that comprise the new season on HBO, High Maintenance exceeds expectations, not only delivering the same loose energy of the earlier seasons, but deepening the DNA of the show with the complicated tools at its disposal.

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.

An intimate show deeply curious about its characters that hits--apologies in advance for this--just the right high.

This approbation [moving to Sunday-nights after Crashing] only confirms what fans have known since its Vimeo days: High Maintenance is a brilliant show, even when its risks don’t highlight the show’s strengths.

While certain vignettes will always resonate more than others, early episodes of Season 4 prove that creators Ben Sinclair and Katja Blichfeld still have plenty of stories to tell — some of them downright transcendent.

When it connects, it has the chance to hit back hard. It’s not something usually expected of any half-hour comedy, much less one whose conduit through each anthological arc is weed, but it is surprising in its readiness to be so darkly dramatic. ... High Maintenance is one of the best TV shows of 2016.

A faceted little gem. It’s an evocative collection of vignettes about the dealer’s various customers, who live in the countless niches and experience the random events that define New York.

High Maintenance could easily have lost the transmutability that made it so special. Instead, it’s gotten better: The emotions run even deeper, the comedy is more self-aware, and The Guy’s ensemble of customers are more richly characterized.

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.

Here and elsewhere, the series attests with great compassion to the revitalizing effects of living in a place where, while more homogeneous than it once was, pockets of resistance remain--and where people are nothing if not alive to the power of difference.