Sheesh, it was one episode! I thought the second segment was strong.
― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Saturday, 17 September 2016 21:48 (seven years ago) link
def had some laughs just like it shd be titled a diff show maybe idk
― johnny crunch, Saturday, 17 September 2016 21:57 (seven years ago) link
the diva blonde girl was p good
― johnny crunch, Saturday, 17 September 2016 21:59 (seven years ago) link
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
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
― gr8080, Monday, 19 September 2016 17:32 (seven years ago) link
which was immediately ruined by the meth freakout
― gr8080, Monday, 19 September 2016 17:36 (seven years ago) link
first ep appears to be free on hbo's website?
― marcos, Monday, 19 September 2016 17:39 (seven years ago) link
correct.
― gr8080, Monday, 19 September 2016 17:40 (seven years ago) link
eh this was okay i guess but not that good
― marcos, Monday, 19 September 2016 18:46 (seven years ago) link
chad living in a theater was pretty funny
― marcos, Monday, 19 September 2016 18:47 (seven years ago) link
totally! but again the kind of callback that would have been more effective deeper in the season imo
― gr8080, Monday, 19 September 2016 18:57 (seven years ago) link
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
― marcos, Monday, 19 September 2016 19:02 (seven years ago) link
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
― gr8080, Monday, 19 September 2016 21:30 (seven years ago) link
its still only a half-formed idea for now tho
― gr8080, Monday, 19 September 2016 21:31 (seven years ago) link
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.
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Monday, 19 September 2016 21:33 (seven years ago) link
The Guy is god imo
― dr. mercurio arboria (mh 😏), Monday, 19 September 2016 21:44 (seven years ago) link
on the contrary, i think he is supposed to be an ubermensch
― gr8080, Monday, 19 September 2016 22:19 (seven years ago) link
fav scene of the first ep was the ghost dancing over the credits
― johnny crunch, Monday, 19 September 2016 22:33 (seven years ago) link
xp ooh I like that better
― dr. mercurio arboria (mh 😏), Tuesday, 20 September 2016 00:19 (seven years ago) link
Is chad supposed to be David Eggers?
― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, 20 September 2016 06:55 (seven years ago) link
― gr8080, Monday, September 19, 2016 6:19 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
lol explain please
― marcos, Tuesday, 20 September 2016 14:09 (seven years ago) link
the sex scene was a little ... gratuitous but lol i guess this is on hbo now
― marcos, Tuesday, 20 September 2016 14:12 (seven years ago) link
i liked how all over the place this ep. seemed
― a (waterface), Tuesday, 20 September 2016 14:17 (seven years ago) link
the new ones were just ok. i don't like how the Guy has a bigger role now
― 龜, Tuesday, 20 September 2016 21:21 (seven years ago) link
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.
― gr8080, Wednesday, 21 September 2016 19:58 (seven years ago) link
nice
― a (waterface), Wednesday, 21 September 2016 20:05 (seven years ago) link
thank you grady, v good post
― marcos, Wednesday, 21 September 2016 20:05 (seven years ago) link
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
― dr. mercurio arboria (mh 😏), Wednesday, 21 September 2016 20:06 (seven years ago) link
mb he's more like the o.g. emersonian oversoul which nietzsche was clearly into. top post
― ogmor, Wednesday, 21 September 2016 21:15 (seven years ago) link
surely occupies space between living and dead if he's fighting bike ghosts.
― Philip Nunez, Wednesday, 21 September 2016 21:31 (seven years ago) link
I thought this was great and i'm super happy to see new eps.
― thrusted pelvis-first back (ulysses), Thursday, 22 September 2016 01:49 (seven years ago) link
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.
― Stevolende, Thursday, 22 September 2016 07:09 (seven years ago) link
Haven't been able to see the new ones on HBO, but isn't he more of a bodhisattva figure than ubermensch?
― Half-baked profundities. Self-referential smirkiness (Bob Six), Thursday, 22 September 2016 12:22 (seven years ago) link
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?
― Stevolende, Thursday, 22 September 2016 12:31 (seven years ago) link
their website url is (used to be?) maintaining your high dot com
― gr8080, Thursday, 22 September 2016 13:08 (seven years ago) link
http://www.helpingyoumaintain.com
― ogmor, Thursday, 22 September 2016 13:22 (seven years ago) link
oh yeah duh
― gr8080, Thursday, 22 September 2016 13:36 (seven years ago) link
are the old episodes available on hbo? i don't see them there
― marcos, Thursday, 22 September 2016 13:41 (seven years ago) link
they appear as a separate show called "high maintenance web series"
― gr8080, Thursday, 22 September 2016 13:53 (seven years ago) link
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
― gr8080, Thursday, 22 September 2016 14:32 (seven years ago) link
i like the bodhisattva angle a lot
― marcos, Thursday, 22 September 2016 14:33 (seven years ago) link
hope chauncey appears again
― dr. mercurio arboria (mh 😏), Thursday, 22 September 2016 14:41 (seven years ago) link
yeah i have a hunch the 2 method actors will be appearing on chad's stage by the end of this season
― gr8080, Thursday, 22 September 2016 14:53 (seven years ago) link
― 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
― marcos, Thursday, 22 September 2016 15:00 (seven years ago) link
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.
― laraaji p. henson (Stevie D(eux)), Thursday, 22 September 2016 15:05 (seven years ago) link
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?
― dr. mercurio arboria (mh 😏), Thursday, 22 September 2016 15:09 (seven years ago) link
yeah it was basically two episodes w/o a title card to separate them
― gr8080, Thursday, 22 September 2016 15:11 (seven years ago) link
― laraaji p. henson (Stevie D(eux)), Thursday, September 22, 2016 11:05 AM (five minutes ago) Bookmark
animaniacs did this pretty well
― 龜, Thursday, 22 September 2016 15:11 (seven years ago) link
― gr8080, Thursday, September 22, 2016 9:53 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
ah ok but they don't appear to be free huh
― marcos, Thursday, 22 September 2016 16:28 (seven years ago) link