Another Win For ‘Silicon Valley’ (TV REVIEW)

[rating=8.00] “Server Space”

Things have been touch and go with the dudes at Pied Piper. After the death of Peter Gregory, and Gavin’s lawsuit, they finally seem to be heading in the right direction with their start up. To quell sexism, they’ve even hired a woman. Will there be a cap on how good things can get? Or is the cap already in place in the form of Hanneman? In probably the best episode this season, we get answers, and a few tiny victories for Pied Piper.

Richard sits up in bed, soaking wet with labored breathing. “Damnit, again,” he mumbles. He heads to the doctor who informs him that the medical term for the problem is “night sweats,” repeatedly questioning whether or not he wet the bed. Richard is annoyed, and the doctor reiterates. Whether or not he is currently wetting the bed, he may be doing so soon because the night sweats are a precursor to bed wetting. He is too stressed, and it’s now affecting his health. In the wake of mild success getting the company of its feet, the dudes are now searching for an office space. They find a pretty glorious one that Jared assures Richard they can afford if he moves some numbers around. He’s worried for Richard’s health, “Can you put a dollar value on not wetting the bed?” They decide to take the place in an effort to alleviate stress.

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Back at the house, Erlich is having a hard time letting go of his resistant friends. They’ve been there so long, he doesn’t know what to do with himself. To alleviate the sadness, he begins interviewing new start-ups. One of which is a Christian website all about dogs. Erlich stops them mid-pitch explaining that Christianity is pretty much illegal in California, and when they bring up adding different pets to the site like ferrets, he all but shoos them out immediately. Ferrets are definitely illegal in California. He passes, explaining that he’s not saying no…just not saying yes either.

As the dudes are packing up their things, Dinesh complains to Gilfoyle about carrying out boxes, “In Pakistan we had servants for this, we didn’t pay them very much and they were very happy.” Richard stands outside getting everything ready for the move over when he runs into the next door neighbor Noah, a sad man who rolls around in an electric wheelchair and complains about property values. He’s glad their leaving, “A house full of renters brings the property value down. This neighborhood is for families, and people with pets.” Richard, unfazed, continues getting ready to move into the new office, until Jared informs him that all of the public server are denying them space; they cannot afford to lose Hooli’s business. As shit hits the fan, Gilfoyle steps forward with a plan. He will build new servers, independent and capable of running Richard’s algorithm. There’s only one catch, no office space. They need the money.

Richard is under an immense amount of stress that truthfully only CEO’s of start-up companies could fathom the reach of. Though Jared is trying to help, his constant prying and “I guess talking about it makes things worse” comments puts Richard in an uncomfortable position indeed making it worse. It’s not surprising that they lose the opportunity to get into a decent office space. With these guys it’s always one step forward, and then a giant leap backwards. In all of this hubbub, one wonders where their new hire Carla is. Though she’s not a founder, she should still have some say in what’s going on in the business right?

After a ton of tech talk (and the return of Carla) a happy Erlich welcomes the dudes back with open arms. Surveying the garage, the boys figure out where the servers will go. That’s when Jared reveals that he’s been living in a corner of the garage. Turns out, he gave up his apartment so he would be able to take less income in order to help the company succeed and Richard will now have the pleasure of sharing a room with Jared as they work on getting Pied Piper back up to speed.

Over at Hooli, [XYZ] has been successful so far with Bannercheck at the helm. He brings Gavin in to demonstrate the progress achieved in just a few days, and also to complain about Big Head. So far, he’s only built a potato canon that will possibly kill one of the staff members before the day is through. Bannercheck on the other hand, has created prosthetic arms for a monkey whose arms were blown off. As he hooks the subject up to the robot hand, he immediately and violently begins to masturbate. Bannercheck tries to explain that he has no control over what the subject will do with his new appendages. He tries to assert an ultimatum, either Gavin fires Big Head, or he’ll be forced to resign from his position. Gavin walks away, and the monkey flings feces at Bannercheck.

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As Gilfoyle brings in hardware to get things started with the servers, they’re paid another visit by Noah. Turns out they’re house is zoned for business, and the neighbors can’t know what they’re doing or they’ll be shut down. Dinesh and Gilfoyle get into it as Dinesh wants to help build the servers, but Gilfoyle reminds him of his earlier ‘servants’ comments, telling him to work on some princess code and to stay away from the hard work. Richard is now more stressed than ever, and worried about getting caught. In his hurry to get things done he rides Gilfoyle for not working, and instead having friends over while he smokes pot with Carla by the pool. Richard freaks out, beginning to explain the dangers of pissing off Noah, when the power goes out. For the whole block. Dinesh was tinkering with the servers, and in doing so fried the work Gilfoyle had already done. Of course, Noah comes rolling over, and in the best joke of the show, slowly makes his way around all the cars in the driveway to come speak his mind. After about a minute of Erlich trying to get him to just yell the inevitable, he gets to the edge of the driveway, points a finger, and yells, “I’m reporting you to the city inspector!”

Boned. They are boned.

After the power outage, Richard has no choice but to try and get some sleep and regroup in the morning. Of course, he can’t do that in a house where Jared yells out conversational Ger

 

man in his bedroom, and random folks take up all the couch space. He heads outside, forced to sleep on a pool chair, when he hears baby talk and cooing coming from behind the fence. He investigates, and finds Noah petting a ferret. An illegal ferret. After running into the house and grabbing Erlich, the two storm over with their evidence, putting him in his place. Erlich condemns his actions and complaints about the neighborhood being family oriented explain that it’s the tech community that has made it such a sought after commodity, “That is why Silicon Valley is one of the hottest neighborhoods in the world, because of people like us.” To add insult to injury, they demand Noah let Jared rent out his guest house for cheap, all at once alleviating a load of Jared’s stress.

Back at Hooli, Gavin announces Bannercheck’s resignation and names “Bag Head” chief of staff at [XYZ], making sure to note againthat he was a co-founder of Pied Piper in the process.  Gavin then makes another announcement; he plans on running a big UFC fight through Nucleus, the Pied Piper copycat. As the announcement is shown all over televisions at Hooli, the staff working on Nucleus stand frozen. Apparently, no one has told Gavin that production is way behind. Almost Benny Hill-like, the staff slowly reveals how far behind the project is, each walking away from the scene before their head explodes.

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Ending on a high note for the dudes is one of those moments where we have to sit back and wonder when it’s all going to blow up again. There’s just no telling with this group. There was no sign of Hanneman this episode, which is good as it means perhaps he’ll be more of a silent partner as promised when he funded Pied Piper. It’s refreshing to see Gavin flailing as badly as he is, with the understanding that he still thinks he’s on top of the world. A man so intelligent that he’s blinded by the obvious is one that will fail in the long run. This was a solid episode overall. Both the writing, and the actors seem to have found their footing which is great because as Pied Piper gets closer to its release date things are only going to get more hectic. It’s a cut throat industry, and what we see on screen is just a drop in the bucket.

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