[rating=6.00]
Last week’s Silicon Valley left us awkwardly sitting at a table in a Mexican restaurant listening to mariachi music with Richard and Gavin. Richard was mulling over the only offer he could muster after the Hooli lawsuit, which of course was from Hooli itself. It’s all a game, and if you don’t know how to play it you’ll have to sit out.
Richard brings home the Hooli offer to the guys, only to be met with understandable protests. Erlich predictably wants to walk away from Pied Piper if Richard decides to take the offer, but he’ll be taking his buyout money nonetheless. Gilfoyle’s responds by telling him to gargle his balls. Jared is ok with the prospect of Hooli absorbing the company. At least, we think he is until he talks about Hooli being torturous when he worked there. The guys all decide to walk away as Richard seems adamant about taking the offer. They remind him they have their apps to work on, so, no biggie. It’s a classic tech move to tie up a prospective company in red tape, only to buy the rights when it’s floundering. To save face, and not go broke, they’ve left Richard with no option but to take the buyout. It’s cruel, but obviously effective.
Richard’s decision takes him to the Hooli offices where he almost gets run over by “internet mogul” Russ Hanneman. Hanneman wants to fund the Pied Piper project, so he whisks Richard away all while talking about how rich and successful he is. At this point all we really know about Hanneman is that he’s kind of a bro, and definitely a douchebag. Our first introduction of the character has him driving up playing Limp Bizkit. When he leans up against his custom car and scratches it with his bedazzled jeans he has a tiny meltdown. This scene is proceeded by the two in an Asian food restaurant where (in Hanneman’s words) “There isn’t a white face in sight”. Hanneman describes his success and life to Richard, explaining that he lives to the fullest extent. The lawsuit doesn’t bother him, he’s always in a lawsuit. Three nannies are currently suing him at the moment, only one of which has a reason. After being wooed with the prospect of “doing what he wants to do” rather than what he should, and an $800 tiny slab of meat, Richard takes the proposal back to the dudes.
Richard’s triumphant return shows him slamming a check down on the counter containing $5 million from Hanneman. Dinesh Googles Hanneman, the drop down screen being one of the best jokes of the episode. “Russ Hanneman—douchbag, sexual harassment lawsuit, billionaire, misogynist” are the top hits, basically summing up the character in one screen cap. The revelation that Hanneman’s big break came from putting internet on the radio comes from an angry Monica, but the pros outweigh the cons. Also, the apps the guys were all working on are either defunct or (in Dinesh’s case) “totally suck,” so the news couldn’t have come at a better time. Monica is unhappy with the prospect of having to work with Hanneman (as her company still has a 5% stake with Pied Piper) and she’s also uneasy about telling Laurie. Richard, still riding on the high of not having to crawl back to Hooli, basically tells her to shove it. She needs to deal with having to talk to her boss for five minutes. In a scene that was both unnecessary and disappointing to their characters, Monica breaks the news to Laurie who essentially rejects the possibility of working with Hanneman. She blames Monica for Pied Piper’s investment with the internet mogul. Nothing really happens in the scene, and it looks exactly like every other Monica/Laurie scene we’ve been shown so far.
The rest of the episode is Hanneman being a dick, and the guys dealing with the repercussions. When they try to cash the check, it’s held by the bank. They later find out Hanneman had terms he hadn’t laid out before, which prevented them from getting the full sum of money. He also doesn’t want them to make a profit for fear of failing. Instead, he wants to make a lump sum and bail. Erlich obviously loves the prospect of being like Hanneman and follows him around looking for acceptance. It never comes, instead praise lands on Gilfoyle (“This guy”), and Jared (“He fucks!”) who both hate Hanneman’s antics. Though he initially said he would take a hands off approach, Hanneman begins to lay a heavy role in the company. Richard begins to question his decision, but it’s too little too late.
On the other end of the spectrum, Gavin is having a rough few days. During a tech talk, he compares the plight of a billionaire to the plight of the Jews during the Holocaust. He believes this wholeheartedly, even mentioning that they maybe even have it harder because “we didn’t do anything wrong.” This has a quick backlash that he has to deal with. He’s so delusional that in his mind he’s some sort of messiah building up the tech community, and the poor angry critics are trying to pull him off his pedestal. He then finds out that Pied Piper went with Hanneman instead of Hooli, with the nail in the coffin coming in the form of a large billboard sitting outside his office window that reads “I am Pied Piper.” Placed lovingly by the “hands off” Hanneman. Enraged, Gavin meets with his lawyers for one last attempt to bring Richard down with the lawsuit. It turns out, they have found an ace in the hole. After a montage of the bumbling Big Head going about his day, the lawyers propose they bring him in, put him in their pocket, and save him for a rainy day. He was after all an original member of the Pied Piper team.
This episode wasn’t very solid overall. The few jokes that were littered around were mostly throwaways, and the lack of a female presence was highly noted. Though the tech community is comprised of a lot of men, there are still women who make themselves known and are an integral part of the process. Next week promises the hire of a female employee, so perhaps we’ll be able to fill this void. However, bringing in more females won’t fix everything that’s going wrong. Laurie’s lack of a voice is a disappointment as she was primed to step up for the deceased Peter Gregory, and two episodes in it’s Hanneman who has taken on that role. The character is abrasive, and will likely not have much of a story or character arc. Laurie on the other hand has the capability of both, but it’s something we’ll never see if she keeps hiding behind a desk.
