420 Words On Why You Should Watch ‘High Maintenance’
This review is actually four hundred and twenty words.
The word “maintenance” is my spelling nemesis. Well, one of them. For some totally reason dumb I always get it wrong. I was hoping by the time I’d watched the first season of best-ever web series High Maintenance (or fifth for loyalists/purists/people who confuse me) I’d have it down. Turns out, by the end of season one I just wanted to light up, stick one hand in a bag of Doritos, the other down my pants, and tune into the next batch of episodes. But they weren’t available yet. Co-creators/writers/directors and married-lovers Ben Sinclair and Katja Blichfeld needed time and money to make more, so I had to sit back, relax and wait.
If you haven’t seen the first season yet, you must. Seriously. There’s good reason it’s been touted the one of the best web series around (and not just by me in the above paragraph).
Each episode is a finely crafted character study of various New Yorkers who purchase weed from the central unnamed pot dealer (played by creator Sinclair). Episodes are equal parts hilarious and melancholy, acting as observational satire, social commentary and pure entertainment in easily consumable five-to-eighteen minute bites that work with everyone’s poor attention span. With guest stars including Matthew from Downton Abbey (Dan Stevens) as a cross-dressing househusband and everyone’s favourite of the year Hannibal Buress playing a fictionalised version of himself, why wouldn’t you want in?
You can head here to check out the first season for free.
If you’re new to High Maintenance (spelt it right this time), you’re lucky: once you burn those fifteen eps down, there are three season two newbies to instantly inhale, then three more episodes still to drop. Due to a cash injection from Vimeo, the high-end YouTube, the second season is now available for the low-low price of $7.99.
Why would you pay for the second series when you got the first for free? Because greedy-guts, it’s important to support great content. And it’s less than a dime bag. Now stop hogging the fries.
The production values of the first season were already high, but the second series are even stronger. Revisiting the same characters, we’re getting a more in depth look at their uncanny lives: some depraved, some loving and others just down right too close to home.
As critics have noted, High Maintenance is a subtle investigation into class politics as well as a telling demonstration of how ‘television’ doesn’t need to be True Detective or The Sopranos to be considered ‘quality’ shit.
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Watch season one of High Maintenance here; pay a tiny amount to watch season two here.
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Stephanie Van Schilt is Deputy Editor ofThe Lifted Brow and a freelance writer. Follow her on twitter: @steph_adele.