After the pandemic stole Brooklyn from me, I went looking for it on television, and found it portrayed—in all of its contradictions and complexities—in shows like High Fidelity and Girls, but nowhere with more compassion than in High Maintenance. The fourth season is the show’s strongest since the first, once again ping-ponging around the borough and beyond as it follows an affable pot dealer (played by series co-creator Ben Sinclair) on his rounds, and into the homes and lives of his customers.
For years, Sinclair’s character has been known only as “the Guy,” his own life mostly revealed in his interactions with others, but in the season finale, “Soup,” he takes a far more prominent role as, through the eyes of a young relative come to visit for Hanukkah, we come to understand how someone might fall into a career as a thirty-something drug dealer. Meanwhile, a bunch of flight attendants find themselves stranded in the city after a snowstorm grounds all flights, and they stage an impromptu holiday party—strangers’ lives joyfully colliding in a way that used to happen all the time in this city, and which seems so impossible now.
“Soup” ends on a perfect, melancholy note—finally revealing The Guy’s name almost as an afterthought—and if it turns out to be the last one (the fifth season is still TBA, though it’s fascinating to contemplate how it might handle the pandemic), it’s a fitting ending for the show that holds all of Brooklyn in its heart. —Joel Cunningham, managing editor
