High Maintenance - Very good web-series. Discuss.

Weird that it's a Friday night show.

this is not terrible but its lost almost everything that made the webseries good

Sheesh, it was one episode! I thought the second segment was strong.

def had some laughs just like it shd be titled a diff show maybe idk

the diva blonde girl was p good

glad that it appears they're going with the jaymc/gr8080 plan:

They could do two 15-minute "segments" within a single half hour, like Louie used to do.
― jaymc, Monday, April 20, 2015 3:34 PM (2 days ago)

i hope they do this and then like one or two 30min eps

― gr8080, Wednesday, April 22, 2015 10:54 AM (one year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

decent episode but i thought it was a weird choice to devote one half of the HBO premiere to an excruciatingly long single scene with a mildly rewarding punchline (considering HM's storytelling via artful editing is one of is greatest strengths) and the other half to a continuation of already-established characters from the web series, not to mention a meth freakout played for laughs in a show that is being marketed as one about weed

basically the total opposite of everything i'd go for in a premiere in front of a whole new audience & something i would think would play better as a 4th or 5th episode but i have faith that the remaining 5(?) eps will be good

best moment by far was Max's monologue in the support group

which was immediately ruined by the meth freakout

first ep appears to be free on hbo's website?

correct.

eh this was okay i guess but not that good

chad living in a theater was pretty funny

totally! but again the kind of callback that would have been more effective deeper in the season imo

yea there really wasn't any kind of "inaugural" feeling here and i guess they are just kind of viewing this as a continuation rather than some new beginning but for any new viewers i thought this was a poor introduction to what makes the show good... even sinclair's character who is the anchor of the show was just kind of vacant and missing

chad asking the guy if he meant "that's so chad" as a pejorative and the guy admitting that he did reminded me of a half baked theory ive been kicking around for a while about what if any overall statement they are trying to make with the show and what The Guy is supposed to represent, which I've been meaning to put into a post itt

its still only a half-formed idea for now tho

Twist on the first was sort of amusing, I guess?

End of the second completely undermined the excellent parts that came before it.

Both seemed to be more reliant on drama than the webisodes. but I remain hopeful.

The Guy is god imo

on the contrary, i think he is supposed to be an ubermensch

fav scene of the first ep was the ghost dancing over the credits

xp ooh I like that better

Is chad supposed to be David Eggers?

on the contrary, i think he is supposed to be an ubermensch

― gr8080, Monday, September 19, 2016 6:19 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol explain please

the sex scene was a little ... gratuitous but lol i guess this is on hbo now

i liked how all over the place this ep. seemed

the new ones were just ok. i don't like how the Guy has a bigger role now

or, in other words, sometimes his appearances in the episode felt shoehorned in. like they were contractually obligated to have 10 minutes of the Guy in each episode

lol the only reason i latched on to the ubermench idea was because of the "UberMan" theme that ran through the Qasim episode (to sublime effect). beyond an absence of divinity and a focus on worldliness, i dont think there's much nietzsche in HM/The Guy at all (fwiw i only have a rudimentary understanding of nietzsche)

anyway, my half-baked theory:

HM works because its a show about weed that avoids stoner comedy and instead finds humor in the trials of nyc/urban/modern life etc that make people want to get fucking high. making the main character someone who's services need to be rendered in the privacy of ones home is a great device to get inside the personal lives of a diverse population and explore the ways that stress plays out. one of the main statements i see HM making is that the bullshit the world throws at us is often enough to make us act and treat each other (and ourselves) terribly. The Guy serves as an ideal yet fallible example of rising above and treating your fellow man (and yourself) with kindness, compassion, and honesty.

sometimes this manifests as The Guy being a sort of off-kilter guardian angel like getting a man in diabetic shock home safe, talking with a guy who hates his job about a career change, or setting up two lonely souls on a date. sometimes its doing the right thing when no one is looking, like offering encouragement to a vulnerable and intoxicated woman where other characters may have made a pass at her. in "rachel" he's just the right person to tell a man he looks great in drag. in "Esme" there's a moment during the confrontation with Orly where the aussie woman yells something like "nobody likes you!" and The Guy gives her a chiding "HEY", coming to the defense of even his enemy in the face of unnecessary cruelty. when questioned about his own dishonesty, he doesn't hedge at all and comes clean that he only wears a wedding band so that people will feel he's trustworthy. he's not a spineless pushover either - when he's wronged or cheated, he'll stand up for himself.

all of these examples are admittedly subtle- maybe just the easygoing nature of a carefree stoner instead of any sort of grand statement. but if you stand him up next to a self-obsessed jock devoted to a intergalactic alien angel, i think there are enough hints that The Guy is meant to be our UberMan.

nice

thank you grady, v good post

I'm not sure the ubermensch necessarily would spend most of his time affecting the self-realization and self-actualization of others but I like it

mb he's more like the o.g. emersonian oversoul which nietzsche was clearly into. top post

surely occupies space between living and dead if he's fighting bike ghosts.

I thought this was great and i'm super happy to see new eps.

The pun about personality in the title is obvious isn't it? Or is that a term that's gone out of use?
Is there another pun there than personality /drugs?

Just watched 1st 4 or 5, thought they were good. Got everything up to the pay to view as well as the 1st full length. Will look forward to the rest.

Haven't been able to see the new ones on HBO, but isn't he more of a bodhisattva figure than ubermensch?

Dealer has the ability to as well as job of maintaining the high of a bunch of people who at at least one point would be called high maintenance.
Wonder if the concept came to the writer on hearing somebody described by the term?
Like, how does a high maintenance maintain their high?

their website url is (used to be?) maintaining your high dot com

http://www.helpingyoumaintain.com

oh yeah duh

are the old episodes available on hbo? i don't see them there

they appear as a separate show called "high maintenance web series"

really like the bodhisattva parallel, and as i said i only tossed off the ubermensch comparison as a response to mh's "the guy is God" post & because of the Qasim episode where the UberMan idea is introduced (as a man so lost in devotion to his body & an absurd deity that he can't relate to his fellow man)

it's an idealized humanist character with no link to divinity, but other than that i only really mean uber man in the literal sense and not a Nietzschean sense

i like the bodhisattva angle a lot

hope chauncey appears again

yeah i have a hunch the 2 method actors will be appearing on chad's stage by the end of this season

the new ones were just ok. i don't like how the Guy has a bigger role now

― 龜, Tuesday, September 20, 2016 5:21 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

or, in other words, sometimes his appearances in the episode felt shoehorned in. like they were contractually obligated to have 10 minutes of the Guy in each episode

― 龜, Tuesday, September 20, 2016 5:21 PM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yea i think something that i missed from this episode was the little snippets of other characters you would get in older episodes when the guy would visit other customers or run into friends, e.g. the gay asian guy talking about filming a protest scene, the parents w/ the young toddler kid, the hardcore stoner dudes w/ the burned hand. the guy has importance when he's w/ other people and not necessarily in/of himself imo

I saw HBO Ep1, I liked it, the assholes still make me cringe and the show feels a) terrible for beginners who don't know the web series b) not really sure of what to do with itself for a full half-hour. If they're going to do what they're doing w/ Ep1, this is not going to be a good half-hour show.

Like would it be nuts to just have each half-hour episode just be a series of shorter little vignettes that are maybe or maybe not connected?

having actual time constraints is tricky when the prior stuff just ran as long as was comfortable and now it's a matter of shoehorning in the right amount of content to fit the format

this was actually two episodes, right?

yeah it was basically two episodes w/o a title card to separate them