Silicon Valley’s been having a rough midseason. At least it was, until this episode happened. It’s just what the show needed to plunge it into a state of momentum. With only 2 episodes left, we can’t exactly dally around in stupid plots completely unrelated to the main story. Last we saw, Erlich had decided to sell his shares in Pied Piper. That was surprising, but I really expected him to do something stupid here. Silicon Valley’s a show about smart people being idiots but Erlich’s always been an idiot pretending to be a smart person. This episode pays tribute to T.J Miller’s character. He makes the ultimate sacrifice/folly which costs him his entire career as an entrepreneur.
A major plot point here is the friendship between Richard and Erlich. Richard’s always been the brains while Erlich’s handled PR. That’s evident when they’re giving an interview at Bloomberg. Apparently, Erlich still hasn’t told Richard that he’s sold his shares. Monica wants Erlich to hurry up. What no one foresaw was how Erlich selling his shares could potentially hurt Pied Piper. After they hire a Head of PR, he spills the beans about how he knows someone within Pied Piper is trying to sell their shares.
After quite a bit of confusion with Richard suspecting Monica, it’s cleared up that it’s actually Erlich. Of course, Richard’s furious. He knows he’s gonna have to issue a press release explaining Erlich’s incompetence. But another factor here is that if he does issue the press release, Erlich will become unhirable all over town. It’s about Friendship vs The Company here. And for a new company like Pied Piper, Richard can’t afford to care about Erlich’s career.
Meanwhile Jared’s gotten his hands on a horrendous new Pied Piper jacket. Initially dismissed as unsavvy by Gilfoyle, he wears it with Dinesh in order to humiliate him in public. The plan backfires as everyone starts swarming around Gilfoyle because he’s from Pied Piper. Somehow Dinesh gets humiliated even further when he tries to tell them he’s from Pied Piper too. Somehow, the jackets turn into a major plot point here which is just classic Silicon Valley.
Back to the drama, we’re reminded about Meinertzhagen’s Haversack. According to that, Erlich and Richard are gonna have to pretend that nothing’s wrong with Pied Piper. Which is easy for Erlich since he’s told the people at the Vanity Fair event that he’s Pesca Pescetarian whatever that is. At the fair, Russ tells Richard that Erlich tried to sell his shares to him but he couldn’t when Laurie intervened. What basically happens is Laurie buys Erlich’s shares at the asking price of around $75,000,000. He loses his Board Seat and his shares.
Now this would mean that two people in Silicon Valley know about this, but C.J Cantwell calls up Erlich asking him about the ‘ugliness in Pied Piper’. Apparently, everyone’s been talking about the terrible jackets while Erlich takes it to be about him selling his shares. He caves in and takes all the blame, saving Richard the embarrassment of issuing a press release.
What he didn’t realize was how literally nobody knew about the shares. They really didn’t have to do anything and Erlich could have kept his reputation. Instead he’s known as the ‘Stupidest Man in Silicon Valley’. It’s a mark of their friendship that Erlich was able to sacrifice his career so Richard could keep his company. Of course, Richard would be a dick if he didn’t offer him something in return. Apparently, he’s now Pied Piper’s Head of PR.
This way, everybody wins. Erlich still has a job and Pied Piper is saved. Everybody wins except Gavin Belson. He’s wasted about a billion dollars on Nucleus and Endframe and he’s lost his engineers. He promptly gets banished to the roof which is what happened to Big Head. I’m not really sure how Gavin’s gonna maintain his supervillain persona here. He’s defeated for now. Except that the show’s hinting at the ultimate teamup of Jack Barker and Gavin Belson. I don’t really know what they can do here. Pied Piper’s launched, it has tons of users, it’s been admitted to the Hooli store.
But it will indeed be interesting to see what the duo can accomplish.
Best Moments:
- “Why would we all want them? One is already too many. I don’t mean in the house. I mean, like ,in the world.”
- “If my mother was naked and dead in the street, I would not cover her body with that jacket.” Ouch!
- More animals in Silicon Valley. This time though, the tortoise is spared while the Hare is shamed. I swear someone needs to inform Animal Rights about this show’s treatment of animals.
- Gavin on the roof is reminiscent of Big Head getting banished to a roof. Except that Big Head enjoyed it and Gavin hates it.
- Gilfoyle shaming Dinesh in public and then being hailed as someone who works for Pied Piper. And Gilfoyle getting Dinesh kicked out.
- Gavin and Jack, the Supervillain Duo!
- “What’s up, boy genius? You here” Russ is back people.
- Richard offering Erlich a job.
- And lastly, Erlich finding out that nobody really knew about him selling his shares.
Silicon Valley airs Sundays at 10:00 PM on HBO.
Follow Us
