[rating=9.00] “Two Days of the Condor”
I have to give it to Silicon Valley, the season two finale was a defining moment in comedic television history. One of the running themes has been the dudes’s total lack of self-respect and preservation, but in what would turn out to be the most stressful and amazing moments of the show so far, everything changed.
After an incredibly disheartening litigation meeting, Richard is down in the dumps. He’s about to lose the company he’s given up everything for, all because of some serious missteps that could have been avoided in the long run. Self-sabotage will always be what holds him and everyone else back. As he awaits the end of the trial, the museum worker who plummeted from the cliff housing the condor egg is still laying in a ditch somewhere appealing to the Pied Piper camera for help. Of course, tragedy always brings traffic, so immediately following the fall there has been a huge amount of hits on the website. The numbers keep growing, and their platform stays steady. It’s a win, but a bitter sweet one with the trial still looming in the air.
As the hits keep coming, Richard is both pleased and sad. It’s unbelievable that a moment like this would happen as he’s about to lose everything. After meeting one last time with his lawyer, he finally resigns himself to the fact that they’ll lose the trial. As he pouts, Gilfoyle comes up with a solution to get them from actually giving away their work in the long run. While the platform continues to host web traffic, he suggests they simply “accidentally” delete major lines of code in order to crash and effectively erase their servers. “We can’t give it to him, if we don’t have it to give.”
While the dudes debate the ethics of deleting a program that would no longer be theirs, Erlich is approached by a real estate agent who wants to sell his house. At first he has no interest, but as soon as she gives him a number he wanders into the living room and declares he’s selling. While the dudes are upset (well, Jared is upset) the museum worker is consistently crying in the background, acting as a soundtrack for the finale. As their numbers keep climbing, it soon becomes imperative to keep the servers going. If it crashes, everything they’ve worked up to for this moment would be for naught. Again, Richard is pleased by the whole thing, and laments the idea of deleting the program. As he runs off to get ready for the end of litigation, Jared casually drops, “I’ve always wanted to be part of a suicide pact” to a horrified Dinesh, who can’t even begin to explain why his logic in this moment is flawed.
At some point “Manny Pack-ay-ow?” shares the link to the site with his two million followers, a move that effectively kicks their asses into gear in order to ensure the servers don’t crash. Gilfoyle frantically turns on every server they have, while Dinesh does his best to keep the coding up. Meanwhile, an intrigued Laurie (who by the way, still never leaves the comfort of her desk) watches on, complimenting the streaming quality of the video. She doesn’t understand the fanfare towards this man’s plight. Monica tries to explain by showing a meme video someone in the Philippines made, adding the museum worker’s cries to music, and literally turning it into a soundtrack.
Back at the house Richard gets called in early for litigation, it’s not looking good for him. As he prepares for the worst, the video is still getting loads of hits, something they’re not sure the servers can handle. They begin plugging everything in to anything in reach of a cord. It’s all a bit surreal, “We’re going to fail by succeeding,” Dinesh muses. In the midst of all this craziness, Erlich continues his goal of selling the house. He’s tired of housing losers. Jared, riding on the high of the moment doesn’t believe he’ll actually sell, referring to the jump in views as “magic” over and over. You can see a moment wash over Erlich’s face where he agrees with Jared, that is, until Gilfoyle punches a whole through the wall to run cables.
In a really awkward moment, Richard and Gavin run into one another in the bathroom. Gavin, being the calm douchebag that he is, offers to tie Richard’s tie for him. In the midst of it, Gavin thanks Richard for bringing him to litigation. He was on the verge of asking his board for $250 million to buy Pied Piper, as Nucleus cannot work without it. Richard takes in the news, and Gavin asks him if he would take a $10 million offer, right then and there. Of course, it doesn’t turn out to be real, just a curious inquiry. The judge gets started, reading off his explanation of how he got to the verdict. Even in the courtroom the sounds of the trapped worker ring out as Richard gives no shits anymore, pointedly watching the live stream on his cellphone.
Things start getting close to the wire, and Dinesh begs for some coding help to keep the site running. Gilfoyle is busy keeping the power on, and Erlich refuses as he’s “retired.” A knock on the door reveals the real estate agent with a prospective buyer who is willing to pay cash. “You’d be a fool not to take the offer,” a statement that sets Erlich off. “Madam, do not call a man a fool on the transom of his own home!” The two go back and forth, but Erlich recants his earlier assertions, sending her away, “You may tell your clients respectfully that they may go fuck themselves.” With that, he grabs his carpel tunnel braces and begins coding away.
In a double fake out move, the judge first rules Hooli as sole proprietors of Pied Piper due to the fact that Richard worked on the program while working for the company. This prompts him to text the dudes, who after a fire and a lot of yelling have just pulled off the impossible, that he wants to delete everything. They’ve lost. But before Richard can pout his way out of the court room, the judge turns it around. Apparently there’s an unlawful clause in the employee contract he had with Hooli, effectively meaning he was never really employed with the company. Therefore, he still has the rights to the program. It’s an invigorating win! That is, until he remembers that he’s asked the guys to delete the program…
What happens next is probably the most stressful moment you’ll have the pleasure of viewing this year. As Richard tries to call Jared, his phone dies. Back at the house, Dinesh creates code that will delete the entire program, leaving nothing to hand over to Gavin. While Richard fumbles with his keys to get to the car charger, he manages to drop them in a sewer. Thankfully, the dudes are incredible procrastinators. They decide to drink a beer as a final toast to Pied Piper. Richard runs into a coffee shop to try and get a hold of the dudes, yanking the phone from behind the counter, then remembering that he doesn’t actually know anyone’s phone number. As he runs out, he hops onto a bus, borrowing the bus driver’s phone to email the dudes. While making a comment about hoping nothing weird happens since it’s coming from a strange number, we see the email go straight to Spam.
Dinesh points out the beer they’re drinking is a wheat beer, and therefore they’ll need lemon, prompting them to steal a lemon from their creepy neighbor’s garden. A moment that’s further drawn out when they grab a different one because their first choice was bruised. Richard runs up the block, finally getting to the house where he bangs on the door. Jared intimated a few times that they would have to delete the program before Richard makes it home, so as he walks over the threshold…it’s done. He freaks out, explaining that they won after all. Everything is terrible. Until Gilfoyle realizes that the code Dinesh created crashed the system. It didn’t get deleted after all! “Magic,” Jared asserts again.
As the dudes celebrate, Monica has a run in with Hanneman. It seems Laurie has bought out his controlling interest in Pied Piper, and is ready to run with it. At first Monica is excited, happy that Laurie finally came around. That is, until further details reveal her intentions. Richard gets a call from Monica in the middle of their celebration. Everything is finally falling into place. As she explains what’s happening, he realizes that it’s over. Laurie has fired him as CEO.
Whew! This show is better than it has any right to be. Truly, Judge and co have created one of the best comedies on television. That final sequence played out like a modern Benny Hill comedy of errors, and I won’t soon forget the feeling of my teeth grinding while my stomach turned, waiting for the resolution. It was refreshing to see the guys succeed for once, and even though Richard is currently sitting in the unemployment hot seat (or I guess, cold seat since there’s no money coming his way?) things are starting to look up for their future.
Since we have every reason to believe that Gavin will be removed from his position (and that Big Head might be taking it over) we can at least rest easy knowing that Richard has the possibility of getting hired back at Hooli if he needs the money. If we think back to the first episode of the season, you’ll recall that a similar thing happened to his friend Javeed. It appears that the downtrodden, disgraced former CEO was actually foreshadowing Richard’s future. Most likely he’ll either get the reigns back on Pied Piper, or he’ll poach his team and create a new platform, app, whatever. He’ll be fine, this is how the tech community works!
