In the age of infinite takes, pop culture—particularly television—has become a useful vehicle for sorting through society’s political woes. Partly this seems like a form of moral seriousness, a way of expressing how entertainment has something important to say about how we, or their show runners, see the world and ourselves. The elevation of pop-culture writing into political critique also carries the whiff of over-compensation—an effort to wring something productive out of the hours spent piping streaming media into our frontal lobes. Maybe you should just relax, already. Call your guy.

Tim, as I’ll call him, delivers weed around Park Slope and surrounding neighborhoods—part of the belt of gentrified Brooklyn neighborhoods where weed smoking can seem practically endemic. I thought it would be nice for us to catch up on High Maintenance before it premieres on HBO—a show that has traveled the long road from a low-budget web series to premium cable. High Maintenance is ostensibly about weed and weed culture, a topic wrapped in political overtones, especially as we gingerly move towards legalization. But anyone going into the show hoping for a reckoning with drug policy, the war on drugs, racial disparities in arrests, or the use of stop-and-frisk, will be sorely disappointed.

The show’s purpose isn’t to celebrate the pleasures of smoking weed, but rather to celebrate the eccentricities of a diverse band of New Yorkers, tenuously connected by marijuana use. All have “The Guy” in their phones, a semi-anonymous weed deliveryman who careens around Brooklyn on his bike, dispensing treats to his eclectic customer base. The character of The Guy—played by Ben Sinclair, who writes and directs the show with his wife, Katja Blichfeld—reflects the unusual mix of qualities that I’ve seen in deliverymen like Tim. They tend to be solicitous and engaging—like The Guy, Tim will sometimes sit with a customer and have a friendly smoke before resuming his rounds—while also exhibiting some of the care and caginess required for anyone who makes a living from an illegal activity.

Tim, who holds down another job at a bar, has delivered weed for about six years, working first in Manhattan and now in Brooklyn. The shift in boroughs was deliberate: “I noticed a vacuum. The services that would come to Brooklyn used to be really expensive. They had crazy high minimums.” His customers in Manhattan, he explained, were a different breed; often living in doorman buildings, they expected speedy, no-fuss delivery of his product as surely as they would order in takeout or call down for a taxi. Brooklyn provides a more relaxed environment, safer roads, and understanding customers. “I would never have agreed to do something like this with one of my Manhattan customers,” he said, cozying down in my living room. Tim appreciated a lot of what he saw in High Maintenance. A scene in which The Guy can’t find anywhere to park his bike and considers chaining it to a memorial for a deceased cyclist while an angry neighbor looks on, made him laugh with recognition. The show seems like it was written “by someone who has done this before,” he said.

The show celebrates the eccentricities of a diverse band of New Yorkers, tenuously connected by marijuana use.

The thing about weed delivery, both in High Maintenance and in many areas around the country, is that it no longer feels illegal, even though technically it still is. A number of municipalities and states, including New York, have moved toward decriminalization, if not outright legalization. California, the heartland of America’s medical marijuana and gray-market weed industries, is one of several states expected to pass a legalization measure this fall. Still, there are dangers to the job, even for an unassuming white guy delivering marijuana in some of the city’s more bougie neighborhoods. “I try to ride casual, try to blend,” Tim said. “Act like what I’m doing is completely normal. That’s one thing that I think they do capture on the show.”