This week’s Silicon Valley was another fantastic episode. In Episode 2, we saw the guys at Pied Piper unwittingly explain their tech to a company that has now created their own compression service called Endframe. Now they’re seeking justice after having their ideas ripped off.
The episode opens with the guys marching into Endframe. Richard tells the receptionist that the CEO of Pied Piper is here to see them. She immediately looks at Erlich and asks, “And your name is, sir?” Richard says, “No, I’m Richard Hendriks. I’m the CEO.” The receptionist laughs at him. He asks why she would assume Erlich is the CEO and she says, “Well, he’s … no reason.” Erlich absolutely beams with pride at confirmation that he’s obviously the alpha. The receptionist tells them that the Endframe guys will see them shortly.
Russ Hanneman meets with his financial manager, who tells him that the risky investments he insisted on making have performed very poorly and tells him he has some bad news for him.
Back at Endframe, Dinesh asks Richard what the plan is. He asks, “We’re not gonna fight them, are we?” He glances at Gilfoyle with this amazing, adorable “maybe he could fight them for me” look.
Richard says, “We’ve got to do something, even if it’s just yelling at them and telling the they’re not going to get away with this.” Gilfoyle says, “But, you know they are, right?” Richard says, “Not if I have anything to do about it.” Dinesh says, “But you sort of don’t.” Jared chimes in, “I support you, Richard. No matter how futile the effort.” Okay, but this one exchange is a perfect summary of the entire show. Erlich’s silence in this moment is pretty interesting. He’s always been competitive with Jared over who really cares about Richard more, but in this moment … he kind of glances over at Jared when he says that he supports Richard no matter what, then looks away without saying anything.
Dinesh proudly shows Gilfoyle that someone just right swiped him on Tinder. It might seem a little silly that he would be on Tinder at a time like this, but I feel like I’ve done basically this exact same thing. When the shit is really hitting the fan in your career, there’s an urge to get at least one quadrant of your life in good shape. Richard looks at Dinesh’s phone and notices that he’s getting Wi-Fi from the company next door, meaning their Wi-Fi password is saved on his phone. Dinesh claims he has a friend who works there. Gilfoyle skeptically asks, “Friend? What friend? You don’t have any friends.” Dinesh says, “Baroosh … Davidson-Jones.” I love how being multi-cultural has made him terrible at making up names. He admits that he went on a few job interviews back when Richard said he was selling to Hooli. Erlich comments, “Outed by Wi-Fi.” Dinesh insists that as soon as Richard found funding he blew the company off. This exchange is enough to push Richard over the edge and he storms in to go talk to the Endframe guys. The receptionist gets on the phone and says, “Mr. Bachman’s walking back to you now.” Richard walks back so he can tell her, “That’s not my name. My name is Richard Hendriks.” Middleditch brings so much to the way he looks at her after he says this. Richard is trying to just be angry, but there’s so much vulnerability there and your heart just breaks for him.
He walks in — followed by all his dudes — and angrily asks the Endframe guys, “Hey, remember us?” The person in charge completely calmly responds, “Oh, hey guys. What’s up?” Richard’s face falls as he realizes that he genuinely doesn’t know what to say next. In the background, all the other Pied Piper guys try to look as tough as possible. Dinesh’s face falls first and he looks at the floor. Then Erlich glances at Richard nervously. Gilfoyle’s face stays strong because a lifetime of resting bitch face has prepared him for this moment. Jared has this look of thoughtful concern that is completely frozen, his version of staying strong. Richard goes up to their board and starts pointing out issues with their code and how they didn’t even steal it right. He actually takes out a marker to correct their coding before all of his boys chime in, “Richard, no!” He smugly says, “Suffice to say, there is something on that board that is going to strangle you at scale.” It backfires when the engineers take note of that and he says, “Don’t write that down!” So much of this scene is the reactions and in this moment, I think Kumail Nanjiani is the MVP of reaction shots as he looks at Richard with complete disbelief. Erlich has this quiet disappointment like he never truly expected better from Richard. Jared is focusing on the Endframe guys and actually looks slightly disillusioned — like Richard, he still doesn’t want to believe they’d steal tech this callously. Gilfoyle is holding steady with that resting bitch face.
Richard tells them, “Hear me when I say this: your tech is always going to be worse than ours.” It’s a moment of … maybe not complete confidence because Richard Hendriks will always be a little shaky, but as close to complete confidence as we get from him. But, once again, it’s immediately shot down by the Endframe guy telling them that’s fine. They’re still the only middle-out company currently on the market place and they already have a sales team in place. This episode is a real reminder why it’s so easy to connect to Richard Hendriks’s story. The word “underdog” has been twisted a lot in pop culture. Often, the underdog formula is used to present someone who isn’t the best as entitled to win just because of some sort of plucky spirit. Richard Hendriks’s story gets to the core of something very real and resonant: the crushing idea that you can be the best out there and it just doesn’t matter.
In the Hooli subplot, Gavin Belson gives a Power Point to his board members about how “failure” is really just “pre-greatness.” They name drop a lot of failed tech stuff and, as always, I’m glad the nerds who watch this show got to have some fun with this. The board members flatly tell him there’s no way to spin this and the only good thing they could tell the shareholders something good is if he’d added new functionality. Gavin lies and says he’s added a secret new function so great that its existence will justify any miscue in the platform’s roll out. He turns to the team leaded by Big Head and begs the to come up with something. I’ve been a huge fan of Gavin in Season 2 and I have to say that this is all a little disappointing. Up until this point, there’s been such a subtle breaking down of his character that I felt really invested in. In this episode, his subplot certainly has some great jokes, but from a plot and character standpoint, everything from how naked his desperation is, to how straightforward the people at his company are suddenly being with him, to the ridiculously simplistic nature of his boldface lie feels very abrupt. I think this is largely a problem with the ten episode season: they’d been breaking him down slowly but at Episode 7 there was a plot benchmark they needed to hit with him and it all just feels forced to move things along.
Richard and Erlich walk into Russ’s mansion. He’s depressed and lying around in a robe. He informs them that he’s financially ruined “because of a serious of bad investments that my fucking money guy let me talk him into.” Richard has a wonderful ‘uh, wait, sounds like it’s kind of your fault’ look but Erlich nods with complete sympathy. Richard points out he’s not exactly broke and he says that he might as well be. “Nine hundred and eighty-six million? I’m not a billionaire, Richard! I’m a nine hundred and eighty six-ionare, which isn’t even a fucking thing. I’m out of the three comma club. Functionally I’m just like you!” Richard reminds him he’s still basically a billionaire. Russ reminds him, “Not if you round down! If you round down I have zero billion!” Erlich tells him he still has his Maserati. Russ says who cares because “it has doors that open like this, not like this!” Erlich reminds him that at least he saved $200,000 not paying for the tickets to the charity ball he gave him. I love Erlich Bachman so much for taking this opportunity to bring up a personal slight.
Russ walks over to Richard, grabs his shoulder and tells them that he needs to start generating revenue. He keeps physically shaking Richard by the shoulder. I love the visual representative of their power dynamics. Russ’s son walks out and asks where his mom is. Russ says, “Your mom is with her friend Philippe. They’re in Napa. She’s gonna be a few hours. These guys are gonna watch you.” Richard and Erlich’s reaction to this is great and I’m mad as hell that we didn’t get a full episode of the baby-sitting.
Richard meets with Jared and Erlich. Jared says converting to a sales model is impossible. He says, “Even if we fired all the engineers we just hired –” They all turn to look at him. He says, “Your jobs are not at risk!” Carla sarcastically says, “That’s very comforting.” Jared more quietly says, “Even if we adjusted our workforce …” He tells Richard that they’re just not built for a sales model yet.
Dinesh proudly tells Gilfoyle he’s sending him a new photo of Karen. And Dinesh complains about how he doesn’t like Gilfoyle always being involved when he’s about to get with a lady. Gilfoyle asks why it says “sent from my iPhone at the bottom” when he just sent it from his computer. Dinesh says that it’s so it seems like he’s a fun, out-and-about sort of person. He says that he’ll put stuff in the body about where he is and try to keep it fun and mysterious. Gilfoyle responds, “It is a mystery why you think you’ll ever see a woman naked.”
Erlich asks if he wants some advice and Dinesh immediately says “no thank you.” He tells Erlich and Gilfoyle, “I’m a guppy and I’m trying to mate with a dolphin. You guys are bottom feeders. You’re like the fish that swim into other fish’s mouths and try to eat the bacteria off their teeth.” Erlich tells him there’s no such fish. Dinesh says, “It’s an analogy. I’m not going to debate the existence of the literal fish with you because it’s not relevant.” Erlich says, “Good because it’s not a real fish.” Gilfoyle asks why he doesn’t just send emails from his actual iPhone and Dinesh says that it’s all the way in his room. Gilfoyle asks, “So, you’re trying to convince this girl you run half-marathons but you won’t walk halfway across this house to get your iPhone?” I love that as much as Dinesh likes to see himself as a nicer person than Gilfoyle, this is an entire plotline of Gilfoyle being annoyed at Dinesh for trying to deceive a woman. This plot juxtaposes nicely with Gilfoyle’s online relationship with Tara, which was rooted in genuine shared interests and honest communication.
Richard meets Russ at a fancy restaurant. He tells him that there’s no way to become profitable. Russ says it’s okay because he’s figured it out. He leads Richard into a backroom, where the Endframe guys are happily waiting for him. Russ excitedly says that Pied Piper is going to merge with Endframe.
Richard storms out. Russ chases after him and asks where he’s going. For the second time this season we’re seeing Richard presented with a deal that, it’s hard to deny, might be what’s good for him. He has always been a great coder and only a great coder. At times he will admit that he hates the business end of things and not having to run everything might be what’s best for him. In some ways, working for Hooli or Endframe and getting to build a great algorithm while those guys worry about the other stuff is obviously his ideal situation. But, while Richard may not always enjoy being in the driver’s seat, it’s important to him to at least know that the person in the driver’s seat is decent. It’s why he turned down the Hooli offer and again here, he reminds Russ that those guys stole his algorithm so why would he go along with this. Russ tells them that Endframe already has a deal with Intersite, the porn company, and they’ve already done all the work; all Richard has to do is show up and give them a better compression. Richard says, “The answer is no.” Russ says, “Wrong. You do this deal or I pull funding.” Richard reminds him they have a contract. Russ asks, “Oh, we have a contract? You know what I have? A fucking car whose doors open like this. Not like this! Not like this!” He blasts “Butterfly” by Crazy Town as he angrily drives off. I’m just floored by the brilliant song choice.
Richard meets with Ron LaFlamme and tells him that he wants to sue both Russ and Endframe. Richard is full of conviction, because he believes he’s in the right. His justifications come off very childish: “he made a promise”, “we were tricked.” Ron has to be the voice of reality and remind him he needs funding to pay his lawyers and that he’s stuck with Hanneman.
Back at the house, Monica tells Richard that it’s not even a proper merger. Endframe would just absorb them. Dinesh calls the Endframe guys assholes. Erlich says they’re king-sized assholes. Jared says, “Buttholes indeed.”
While everyone else is defeated about the merger, Gilfoyle chimes in, “What if we didn’t do that? What if instead we got our own client like Endframe has?” Richard laughs it off and says that’s not how it works. You can really see how his idealism (or naivety if that’s what you want to call it) has worn down. He’s lost his “we have to do something” spirit and is ready to finally be the one shooting someone else down, bringing someone else down to reality. But Gilfoyle isn’t brought down, he asks simply, “Why not?” Monica says because it’s not that easy. He asks, “Why not?” I love how they’re once again using very childish language. It’s a very common thing to see young children asking “why?” over and over. But, Gilfoyle isn’t displaying Richard’s brand of young naivety. He tells Monica, “What if I had every detail of their deal on my computer right in front of me?” Jared asks if he’s just asking “what if?” because, as always, people have failed to understand what a calculating, in-it-to-win-it person Bertram Gilfoyle is. The very fact that he’s speaking up to say anything other than flat discouragement is an indication that he has a completely formulated plan to sell them on. Richard says, “Gilfoyle, please don’t tell me that you hacked into Endframe’s system.” He responds, “Okay. I won’t tell you that,” which is, again, a very childlike response, but what follows isn’t: he tells them, “My feeling is that if you’re the CEO of a company and you’re dumb enough to leave your log in info on a Post-It note on your desk while the people that you fucking ripped off are physically in your office, it’s not a hack. It’s barely social engineering. It’s more like natural selection.”
Dinesh is full of admiration saying, “Fucking ninja” and stepping out of the kitchenette and into the living room as though he physically needs to be closer to Gilfoyle in the wake of this awesome move. Yes, I realize I have my shipper goggles on, but I assure you this is exactly what happens in this scene.
Monica announces, “I wasn’t in the room for this conversation.” Richard says they can’t trade on stolen information. It’s not worth it. Gilfoyle flatly asks, “What if it was worth it?” I feel like Gilfoyle has become a stronger character with every episode in Season 2 and I’m just amazed by his writing in this scene. The blunt, sparing word choice stands out so much. Scenes like this in TV, scenes where lines are crossed and major conflicts come to ahead, so often involve long monologues and it’s so great to see how Gilfoyle doesn’t function that way.
Richard flatly says it’s not worth it, but Erlich is ready to hear him out. He asks, “Gilfoyle, hypothetically, how much is it worth?” He tells them fifteen million dollars. Monica announces, “I was definitely not in the room while this happened,” and steps outside. Monica is a really interesting character because she’s the only major player at Pied Piper who isn’t totally reliant on Richard. Jared quit a stable job just for this, the others might act like they have other things going on, but they’re smart enough to know that Richard and his algorithm are a rare chance to be a part of something huge. Monica gets more invested in Pied Piper as the series goes on, but she remains the one character who can’t afford to go all in because she actually has a legitimate career to protect.
Gilfoyle shows them the tech that Endframe is promising to deliver. Dinesh points out that what they’re offering is dog shit. If they can put their engine in front of Intersite, it’d clearly blow this offer away. Jared talks about how most major tech innovations were because of pornography and lists off some examples. Monica, standing right outside the open doorway of the house, chimes in with more examples. Gilfoyle looks over at her with what I can only assume is quiet respect for her choice to make sure this meeting goes while, but also protecting herself with the ability to say she was technically not in the room. Jared tells them that reducing their data by a tiny fraction would save Intersite millions and that the money Intersite would give them could get them out of all the binds they’re in. Richard chimes in, “Minor detail: this is stealing.” Gilfoyle responds, “You mean like lying and telling someone you want to fund their company and then taking their tech when they meet with you? Like, that kind of stealing? You wanted to do something, Richard. This is something.” This is a really amazing moment where Richard’s idealistic worldview and Gilfoyle’s amoral worldview come together. Richard wants to believe in a world where being the best matters, where if you’re the one who has a great idea, everyone will respect that enough for you o be the one who profits from it. Gilfoyle has the same vision, but in his mind, part of being the best is being smart enough to know how to make this happen for yourself.
Richard walks into a conference where Molly Kendall from Intersite is the keynote speaker. He watches her talk. She speaks about how the adult industry can survive. A bunch of nerdy engineer types watch and it looks like it could be any other tech talk, except that all of their company nameplates say things like “brutalized assholes.”
Back at the house, Dinesh is still deceiving Karen. Dinesh is tricking her into thinking he went to an art museum by sending her a picture from a Montessori School website of some kid’s art. He says, “Crimes against children, really, so easy to get away with.” There’s a great moment that just makes my heart flutter, where Gilfoyle makes eye contact with Erlich and gives him this “can you believe this guy?” look but then turns away and grins. Of course what wins him over is Dinesh talking about how easy to get away with crimes against children are.
Dinesh gets a text with Karen asking if she can come over. He’s horrified. Gilfoyle asks, “What’s the issue? This is what you want?” Dinesh says he should probably wait another day and maybe he should tell her that he’s out getting Ethiopian tapas. Erlich is baffled and says, “I don’t see what the problem is.” This plot really gets at something that I think has always been on display on this show: a deconstruction of the “nice guys finish last, women only like assholes” trope. Sure, Gilfoyle and Erlich are the two guys on the show who are ever shown getting action and, sure, they’re in general the biggest assholes. But, if you look specifically at how the guys on the show treat women, you get a completely different story. Dinesh still has this mindset where he thinks of women as the idea of a woman more than an actual person. So, he’s happy to show his friends pictures of how cute Karen is and make a web of lies like it’s some sort of game, but has no idea what to do when actually faced with her. (I know Dinesh is friends with Carla, which is a nice side to him, but I’m thinking specifically of how he treats women he’s attracted to). The way Gilfoyle and Erlich ask what the problem is here points to an obvious truth that guys who claim women only date assholes always seem to miss: women date guys who actually talk to them and ask them out.
Dinesh psychs himself up and says, “Okay, I can do this.” He asks Gilfoyle and Erlich if they’ll help him clean up. Of course, Gilfoyle immediately drops his beer can on the floor so Dinesh has to bend over and pick it up. I’m a simple man with simple needs and this is clearly the pinnacle of quality television.
Back at the conference, Richard approaches Molly Kendall. He tells her, “I am data compression … I do data compression …” She asks, “Who the hell are you?” He says, “I’m sorry. I’m Pied Piper. I am Richard Hendriks, of –” She stops him and says, “You’re the CEO.” His face lights up, like he can’t believe he’s getting this small bit of recognition and he actually tells her, “Thank you.” It’s a great little pay off. She asks how he knows the specs of her Endframe deal. He says, “I can’t … I don’t …” She can tell something’s up and walks away. He assures her that he can save her millions in bandwidth. He says, “We are faster and have a higher quality than Endframe …” He gets nervous and shaky and stares at the floor. She tells him, “Bullshit.” For a second, the shakiness goes away, he looks her in the eyes and he tells her, “I can prove it. Let me prove it.” Even after people have been confidently shutting down his attempts to live in a fair world all episode, he still clearly believes the fact that he’s the best has to mean something.
Dinesh shows Karen around. She’s looking around the house, clearly freaked out like she’s getting deja vu. Dinesh doesn’t notice as he rambles on. He says, “I know it’s weird that a guy like me would live here.” Gilfoyle does a great double take at those words. Dinesh asks if she got a link to an animation festival he sent her, then he starts going on and on about subtitles. He stops himself and asks, “How did you get on your Wi-Fi? How does your phone know our password?” Karen says, “Okay, this is really weird …” Erlich steps out and asks, “Karen? … I didn’t realize that it was you, Karen, that Dinesh …” Dinesh asks, “You two know each other?” Erlich says, “In a sense.” Dinesh asks, “What is the specifics of the sense?” At the same time, Gilfoyle walks by and says, “Outed by Wi-Fi.” Erlich tells Karen that she never called and she explains she got busy. Dinesh says that he and Karen should probably go, but she’s not even looking at Dinesh as she half-smiles and asks Erich, “So, did you ever find my earrings?” He suggests they go check and she heads back to his bedroom with him. Gilfoyle grins as Dinesh stares off with disbelief. I love that this is the second episode in a row where Dinesh has set his sights on a woman, only for her to end up with a more stereotypical alpha male but, again, it in no way plays into the “nice guys never win” trope and, in fact, in both cases, Dinesh was being a decidedly worse person throughout the storyline than the archetypal douchey guy who gets the girl.
Back in the Hooli subplot, Big Head and his team present Gavin with an idea for people to control their Hooli phones using only brainwaves. He’s excited until he finds out that the team has no idea how to actually make this idea happen. Again, this subplot is just not my tempo. The whole idea that Gavin would ever believe this, coming from Big Head of all people, just feels out of character and cartoonish. That said, they end the scene with Big Head telling him, “But, we do have the kickass potato cannon, though. Although this one is broken. We tried to put a Mr. Potatohead in it and … it did not like that.” Even when this show isn’t firing on all cylinders it still has great jokes.
Back at the house, Dinesh stares at the wall dejectedly as he listens to the romantic music blasting from Erlich’s room. Gilfoyle appears in his bedroom doorway and leans against the doorframe. I will be totally upfront: I thought this was for sure going to head in the direction of Gilfoyle’s seducing him. I cannot stop myself from being in denial about how viable this couple is. Gilfoyle asks him, “Do you think they’ll ever find those earrings? Funny thing about lost items: always in the last place you look.”
Molly Kendall meets with the Endframe guys. She leads them into a board room and the Pied Piper team is waiting there. Richard gets to have his moment, smugly saying, “Oh, hey, Mark. Nice seeing you again.” Mark asks what this is. She tells them she’s going to give Endframe and Pied Piper the same video library to compress and whoever does a better job will get the deal. Gilfoyle tells Richard, “Welcome to the left-hand path, my friend.” Richard smiles, more confident than we’ve seen him in a very long time.
Photo Courtesy of HBO
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