Silicon Valley goes big and goes home in a dark, funny, wistful series finale
TV Reviews Silicon Valley
Follow the sound of the pipe, follow this song
It’s a bit dangerous but I’m so sweet
I’m here to save you, I’m here to ruin you
You called me, see? I’m so sweet
Follow the sound of the pipe
I’m takin’ over you
I’m takin’ over you
– BTS, “Pied Piper”
The end of the year and end of the decade means there’s been a lot of words spilled about the best TV shows that aired during that period in recent weeks. And when The A.V. Club stepped into its role as the Great Scorer for the 2010s, Silicon Valley earned its spot on our list of the best shows of the decade at number 75. It was towards the back of the pack for HBO comedies on the list, falling behind Girls, Insecure, Enlightened, co-creator Alec Berg’s follow-up show Barry, and its former regular Sunday night partner Veep. It’s a ranking that speaks to the staggering quality of the competition, and that despite its eye for industry satire, Silicon Valley has always had more in common with HBO’s shaggier and less flashy hangout shows: Bored To Death, Flight Of The Conchords and How To Make It In America.
And that shouldn’t be taken as an insult—to borrow a commonly used phrase, it’s a feature and not a bug. As much as I’ve been frustrated over the years with the show’s tendency to spin its wheels, especially in the back half of seasons three and four, Silicon Valley has never tried to be anything other than it is, fully formed from minute one and installing upgrades since then. It’s a show about the hubris and incompetence of the tech industry, a vehicle for some of the most creatively profane jokes on television, and a showcase for a terrific comedic ensemble. If it hasn’t aimed as high as its stablemates, it’s because it never wanted to do that, comfortable in its role as class clown instead of an overachiever. And in six years, it’s scored far more hits than misses, able to pick up on the changes in a rapidly changing industry and find the humor at their expense.
With its series finale “Exit Event,” Silicon Valley gets the chance to end on its own terms and it runs with it. It’s one of the darkest and most far-reaching episodes the series has ever put together, an episode that takes the show’s oft-mocked message of “making the world a better” place and realistically introducing the idea that Richard Hendricks and company could add “by ending it” to that statement. And like any good series finale, it’s an episode that’s fully aware of its place in the series, winks and nods to the canon that lead it to a feeling of closure.
Silicon Valley began with the discovery of one little thing that had the power to change the world, with the discovery of Richard’s compression algorithm buried in an app for music copyright, and it’s fitting that it ends much the same way. With the proven success of the Son of Anton/compression hybrid at the end of RussFest, the AT&T deal is locked, and PiperNet is days from launch to hundreds of millions of consumers. Monica presents Richard with a framed image of the text he sent her confirming the deal—kudos to her for recognizing he’s one of the few people who would appreciate a blown-up photo of a text message—and he notices that there’s only three periods where he sent four. (Meant as a joke about how everything was perfect. To the last, only he and Jared think he’s funnier than he actually is.) Far from Russ Hanneman’s boast of going from three to four commas, going from four to three periods is a disaster. PiperNet is now so good at compressing data that it’s compressing text messages, which means that it’s found a way to bypass basic encryption. And having found that, it’s going to keep applying itself and learning until it moves past all encryption in its way—eradicating every boundary in its soulless quest to streamline data storage.
Jared: “Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Someone tell me how to feel.”
Gilfoyle: “Abject terror for you. Build from that.”
The idea that PiperNet itself has become the final obstacle the team needs to conquer is a perfect conflict for their final outing, for multiple reasons. It’s an ironic development that’s perfect for Silicon Valley’s twisted sense of humor, Richard’s quest to guarantee a private Internet creating something that consumes the very concept of privacy by the nature of its existence. It feeds into the rougher edged satire that’s come to dominate the show in its later years, that Big Tech’s increasing levels of disconnect from everyday life is less amusing than it is deeply unsettling. And it feeds one of Silicon Valley’s central themes, that everyone is the architect of their own destruction. Richard and his team have gone through iteration after iteration to produce this network, and what they’ve created is so good it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened. At the end of their run, they’ve failed upward to the highest peak.
Seeing nowhere to go but down from that point pushes “Exit Event” to a dark place, one that’s helped immensely by Berg taking full control as the writer and director. His recent success with the darker elements on the aforementioned Barry gives him free rein to bring that tone over here, and it works out incredibly well. The score has an almost science fiction quality to it as Gilfoyle lays out the full ramifications of what PiperNet means, shades of the cyberpunk dystopia that they’ve inadvertently had a hand in triggering. And taking place inside the empty confines of the PiperNet office, there’s an echoic quality to the staging, as you feel the weight of the consequences regardless of what choice is made. There’s no victory here, only picking the lesser of two evils.
The sheer scale of the disaster gives a valid story reason to limit this final caper to the main cast, and every single one of them gets a chance to shine. Whatever gripes I’ve had about the hamster wheel plotting of the series, none of those gripes were ever directed at the main cast, which deserves to be in the conversation of the best comedic ensembles of the last decade. Martin Starr is at his deadpan best outlining the reality of what PiperNet has become, a grim monotone with just the barest hint of being proud to be right. Zach Woods is gently comforting in his uniquely horrifying way, arguably the only actor who can say “prolapsed anus” in a pep talk and have it sound convincing. Amanda Crew greets it at all with a vast range of expressions, running the gamut of fear to loathing depending on how the angle of her eyebrows. And Kumail Nanjiani continues to embrace Dinesh’s acknowledgment of his own awfulness, culminating in a powerhouse monologue where he persuades the team that his very participation in their effort to kill the network will doom those efforts:
Dinesh: “No offense to me, but I am greedy and unreliable, bordering on piece of shit. If there is a chance to stop you guys from stopping you guys, I will do it. I will sabotage your sabotage. So if this company needs to fail, like epically fail, you need to do it without me. Revoke my permissions, delete my PiperMail account. I will use Gmail like a fucking basic bitch. Don’t let me anywhere near that launch. I may beg, I will lie to you, I cannot bribe you because I do not have any money. But do not let me anywhere near that launch.”
Jared: “That is the most courageous act of cowardice I have ever seen.”
But it all belongs to Thomas Middleditch, who has absolutely made Richard Hendricks the heart and soul of this show over six years. We’ve seen Richard go through all manner of physical and mental trials as Pied Piper went from an ill-conceived app to an industry powerhouse, all of it so ably captured by Middleditch’s facial expressiveness, gift for twitchy physical comedy, and ability to switch between empathetic and asshole in the span of one minute. It’s all on display in the finale with his John Forbes Nash-style scrawlings to find the problem, the rapid cadence of his explanations, and the high pitch he takes as Gilfoyle coldly explains what needs to be done.
And yet as it all happens, there’s a sense of finality to it, that we know where this is going because we know Richard. The open question of the show has long been how much of Richard’s soul he’d sell to achieve his goals, as he’s broken bad on multiple occasions and only barely pulled back from the brink. There could ostensibly be some uncertainty if he’d be willing to go this far with his dream this close, but the frantic set to his shoulders and his cursing at Gilfoyle has the feel of a decision already made, even before he looks over the billboard and screams a Gavin Belson-style “Fuck!” to the ether. He isn’t the sort of man who’ll burn it all down for profit, and he knows it. The moment when he looks out over the crowd at the launch event and promises that the dream of their Internet will soon be over is heartbreaking to witness, exposing Silicon Valley in the end as a tragic comedy obscured by a nonstop flow of dick jokes.
Also obscuring the tragedy of it is the efforts to bring it all down, as they lay a plan in motion to crash the network and do so in a way the company can never recover. That inverse caper energy falls mostly on Dinesh, and Nanjiani does great work as Dinesh ties himself in knots, first proving there’s no way he can sabotage the event and then in a position where he has to be the third wrong to make a right thanks to John and Gabe inadvertently correcting the first sabotage. (Fucking Gabe.) The ensuing game of telephone is yet another instance of the whole team at peak operating capacity, double-checking and cursing each other out in a race against time.
And in the end, what ends them isn’t Richard or Gilfoyle’s brilliance, Dinesh’s self-interest, or even a basic failure of technology: it’s the same thing that’s brought down human empires for centuries. Trying to jam the signals created a high-pitched tone that isn’t audible to humans or dogs, but it is audible to rats. This is arguably the most delicious bit of ironic justice ever deployed on a show that has never had any shortage of that, a brilliant twist on the company name that has persisted despite no one besides Richard particularly caring for it. In a world that’s gone as high-tech as this one, only something this low-tech can bring it all back down to earth. The team is left in a poignant moment that could be the grace note of any other show, cracking multiple bottles of tequila and watching their dreams be stripped away as fast as a billboard can come down, the only people who can know how close they came to destroying and saving the world.
And ere three shrill notes the pipe uttered,
You heard as if an army muttered;
And the muttering grew to a grumbling;
And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling;
And out of the houses the rats came tumbling.
– Robert Browning, “The Pied Piper of Hamlin”
Except that’s not the last moment we see of this team, a development foreshadowed by the cold open format. Much like Veep allowed itself a flash-forward epilogue, Silicon Valley gives the viewers a look at the future thanks to the framing device of a Pied Piper documentary ten years after the fact. With the application of old-age makeup and The Office-style camerawork, we get a chance to see what path the Pied Piper team took when there was no Pied Piper left to conquer. Richard made his way to Stanford thanks to university president Big Head—failing upward to the last—and became a professor of ethics in technology. Gilfoyle and Dinesh co-founded a web security firm in San Francisco, Monica joined a Washington D.C. think tank that may or may not be the NSA, and Jared went to work at a nursing home where he can see the bright side of a recent herpes outbreak.
As a framing device, it’s a smart move to put the action of the finale in retrospect, as opposed to leaving questions open for debate. You get to see outside reactions of people who weren’t involved with the event, going from the insular bunker approach of the sabotage to the broader confusion and mockery that the failure left on the industry. Mike Judge’s deep roots in entertainment allow for some fun cameos, as Conan O’Brien riffs on the PiperNet collapse in an opening monologue and Mad Money’s Jim Cramer can’t tell viewers to get rid of the stock fast enough. And the show’s connection to the industry it’s long lambasted pays off with a fantastic surprise as they manage to land Microsoft founder Bill Gates—an outspoken fan of the show—as the one participant who suspects the official version of Pied Piper’s fall isn’t the full story.
The jump-forward also gives the audience a proper sense of closure for the Pied Piper team. Despite its cynicism about the industry and constant delivery of obstacles, Silicon Valley has always had a soft spot for its misfit toy box of main characters, and it leaves them in a spot that feels right for each of them individually. Jared gets to channel his need to care for others into a bottomless well of people to care for. Monica puts a continent between her and the industry whose participants she’s always not-so-secretly hated, and enters an industry that doesn’t care if she smokes. Dinesh and Gilfoyle remain shackled together their whole lives as antagonistic soulmates, sniping at each other from a desk that may as well have boundary tape on it, and manage to get rich in the process. And Richard’s free of the vomit-inducing roller coaster of being a CEO, able to educate others about the merits of tech, an area that it’s worth remembering he had some surprising natural talent. And having to append “Gavin Belson” to his title is the sort of appropriate low-key humiliation that Richard would learn to live with.
It also allows for a final beat to remember how far things have come since the beginning, as they return to the former site of the Hacker Hostel—somehow still not torn down for construction despite astronomical land prices in the Valley, but now a quaint domestic home. They recall the areas they destroyed, play a game of Hoberman Switch Pitch, and get to hear a pitch from a college-aged current resident. When they try to cite themselves as a cautionary tale, she doesn’t even know what they’re taking about (“Was that like a social media company?”), proving the memories of the tech industry are are short for both failure and success. All that’s left is the story and the connections for those who were there—and also one flash drive that Richard couldn’t keep himself from saving. It’s an ideal dark coda to close on, that the monster they created has just been sleeping, and may be ready to emerge now into a world that’s forgotten its danger. (And a possible seed for a reunion movie, given HBO’s history.)
“You don’t feel bad you never got to make the world a better place?” the documentary filmmaker asks Richard right before that beat. “I think we did okay,” Richard responds with a wistful yet contented grin. And the same can be said of Silicon Valley as a whole. You can make your arguments about whether or not it deserved to be higher or lower on our list of the last decade’s best shows, but there’s no argument that it belongs on that list. It’s a safe bet that as we close the 2010s and head into a new decade, the world of technology isn’t gong to get any less greedy, insular, short-sighted, absurd, or just plain fucked up. And while it feels like the time is right for the show to go, there’s no question that the industry will be a little less funny without Silicon Valley to take it to task.
Episode grade: A
Season grade: A-
Series grade: B+
Stray observations:
- So, let’s talk about that Erlich fake-out. When I received the finale screener with a note to embargo any mention of specific cameos, there was a part of me that worried they would bring back T.J. Miller for even one scene, possibly shot without the rest of the cast, a la Chevy Chase’s last appearance on Community. Instead, we learn that Jian-Yang stole Erlich’s identity (and possibly killed him for his share of Pied Piper’s profits) and is living in a remote Southeast Asian locale. And it’s the most relieved I’ve ever been to see Jian-Yang. I’m sure there are a cross-section of Silicon Valley fans who feel the show suffered for Miller’s departure, but I for one am glad that Judge and Berg resisted the impulse, and if he had appeared I’d have docked the episode at least a full letter grade. The show moved definitively past Erlich in its last two seasons, and Miller’s done nothing in the interim to move past his reputation as accused rapist and colossal asshole (sorry, “benevolent benign maniac”). Silicon Valley didn’t need him to come back, and he didn’t deserve the opportunity, so kudos to all involved for recognizing that.
- On the opposite note, nice to see Peter Gregory get a shoutout in Richard’s launch presentation. It’s sad we’ll never know what would have been had Christopher Evan Welch not tragically passed away during the first season, but we’ll always have Burger King. “Their selection consists of burgers, of which they are ostensibly king.”
- Gavin’s fate is arguably the funniest reveal of the flash-forwards. Rather than being sued by Rod Morgenstern for plagiarism, the two formed a writing partnership, and went on to become the co-authors of 37 hit romance novels such as Fondly Margeaux, The Lighthouse Dancer, The Prince of Puget Sound, His Hazel Glance. The old married couple bickering between the two proves that regardless of industry, Gavin will never change, and we love/hate him for it.
- Other fates revealed by the flash forwards: Laurie is in prison for an undisclosed crime and has lost most of her already limited abilities to understand human communication. Russ managed to make back the money he lost on Pied Piper by investing in hair transplants—and from the looks of that hairpiece, probably gained a comma on his own personal investment.
- A little bit of a surprise not to see Andy Daly’s terrible doctor return at some point for the final season, but the character does exist in another incarnation in the latest season of Big Mouth.
- The reveal that subterranean data center dweller John now works with Gilfoyle at Newell Roads was one of the sweeter beats of the flash-forward. I like to imagine there’s a chess board in Gilfoyle’s office and they’ve spent the better part of a decade sparring on it.
- I’ve been dismissive of Big Head as a character, but credit where it’s due: the moment where the interviewer explains his nickname is because of his last name is a wonderful bit of silent comedy from Josh Brener.
- “There was a little meniscus in the shit, and that’s where our dreams lived.”
- “I had a foster mother who thought I was the devil and that she had to kill me. And I think it was pretty traumatizing for her.”
- “The balloons are falling. Is that a good sign or a bad sign?”
- “Are you kidding me? We failed at failing?!”
- “The streets of Seattle became the streets of Sea-rattle! And everyone was sleepless.”
- “Things are better when I say them.”
- “These guys were as sweet and sound as rotting fruit.”
- “If it isn’t here… where is it?”
- And with that, our coverage of Silicon Valley shuts down. It’s been an honor and a pleasure to see this show from beginning to end. Thank you to everyone for reading over the years, and thank you to Mike Judge and company for creating a show that I’ve had more opportunity to praise than bury. In the absence of one for the finale, let’s go all the way back to the beginning for one last closing track: “Minority,” Green Day.
201 Comments
Might just be me but felt it was super obvious that Jian Yang was going to be revealed as Erlich in the jungle. I mean earlier in the episode they have a scene where Jian Yang finds out Erlich is rich and takes off.
Anyways, I personally wasn’t a huge fan of the documentary style flash-forward. It didn’t feel true to the show. Felt like they could have just shown the stuff from the present and ended the show in pretty much the same way.
I think the flash forward documentary does a good job of softening the blow. These guys becoming billionaires would go against the spirit of the show, but nobody wants to see these characters living in the gutter either. Flash forward shows that they’ll have to swallow their pride, but they’ll be alright.
It also would have robbed us of the comedy of the fates for many of the characters, and setting up that their action didn’t stop but only delayed the inevitable.
I think it was pretty clear. Between the controversies surrounding Miller and all the negativity around his departure of the show, it was kind of obvious he wouldn’t be returning, even as a cameo. Plus, it was a great way to wrap up Jian Yang’s story.
It also had been slowly set up for the past few seasons too, as Jian-Yang had been shown to be way more of a complete criminal with no morals whatsoever. Seemed to make him more of a drug-lord in the jungle, but it was very reminiscent of John McAfee. Surprised they didn’t show a young girl sitting on a hammock at some point.
There was also a hint in the last episode, where Jian Yang was going by “Erlich Bachman” when running the girls’ coding camp.
They also foreshadowed Jian Yang using Erlich’s identify a few episodes back when he was using his name for the “Pied Piper Girls Coding Camp” scam.
Perd!
To be honest, I was frustrated with this episode; the whole premise of the show is in the idea that tech can change our world (for good or ill), and they relentlessly refused to ever let them do it.
I kind of agree. I sort of wish the original build had been pushed out, Richard was to blame because he didn’t trust Dinesh and that the AI would’ve actually started to “fix” society at first in subtle ways (editing troll comments to be nice, influencing global geo-politics and economies, etc) that then led to larger effects. The Pied Piper folks would’ve always been waiting for the shoe to drop but maybe it doesn’t, until many generations in the future.
wouldn’t be able to resist. So they are awesome again. They were smart enough to know the course their code would take if let out. It was not a question, but a foregone conclusion. What’s not to get? Obviously you would’ve destroyed the world! Lol
I can’t believe that this was the original planned ending. I think the choices made reflected the shift in the writers’ understanding of Silicon Valley, from something ridiculous to be mocked to something terrifying to be feared.Which, you know what, fair enough.
A wonderful episode that echoes what the show once was. When it was revealed that PiperNet was going to break all encryption as we know it, I immediately thought, “why isn’t this the first episode of the season?” Everything we watched before was so unfocused and underdeveloped—Hawaii was barely explored; Russfest was introduced and completed within two episodes—that cutting those out would be no big loss. Why not allow the audience to witness how these characters would deal with their entire life’s work becoming corrupted?Silicon Valley was always best when there was a central focus for the season. Season 1 had TechCrunch, Season 2 had the lawsuit, Season 3 had the beta. All gave a momentum to the season, and allowed the characters to build towards a collective goal. It’s a wonderful subversion to make the final goal be the destruction what they built. I wish they presented those stakes earlier. A huge missed opportunity.I agree this episode is an A, but the season is certainly not an A- when compared to earlier seasons of Silicon Valley. As the seasons went on, focused, overarching plots became less common, favoring jokey, sitcom-like episodes.Silicon Valley isn’t the only show that has fallen into this trap. Parks and Rec would be my other example. Harvest Fest and the Election were wonderful seasons. The last few seasons were, well, I don’t even remember. Maybe it’s because of writing staff changes, maybe it’s harder to keep momentum when a show continues to evolved, or maybe I’m just a crotchety old man that hates change (likely). But I am thankful that this final episode was so strong. I think it could have been better, especially if the rest of the season would more properly planned. But for a show that’s about people who seem to react more than they plan ahead, maybe that’s a poetic meta-theme I should appreciate in retrospect.
Dinesh was always good for a comic moment but I think out of all of them I am going to miss Gilfoyle most of all. The deadpan stare/delivery and his utmost belief he was the smartest and most righteous person in the room at any given moment made him a standout from the start.
I worked in Hollywood advertising as a software developer for many years before this show kicked off. So I’ve worked with a ton of people in show business; including folks at HBO. The showrunners made Gilfoyle look like me, talk like me and act like me. He says shit I would say. Fuck sake, even made him a drummer in his faux-bio! A friend of mine worked one of the premier parties and she went up to Martin Starr thinking he was me to ask “WTF are you doing here?” Nothing will ever convince me someone I worked with in the past didn’t go into some meeting about a show about nerds all “Look, there’s this fucking wacko I worked with once … “Obviously, he was my favorite character.
Ladies and gentlemen, narcissistic personality disorder:
Had you ever met Martin Starr? I would love to know he shook your hand and thought to himself “Yes, this is it?! My new character!” Without meaning to cause offense, Gilfoyle is someone I love to see on screen but I would hate to work with him in person, although I am an ICU nurse and have met medical co-workers with the same inscrutable countenance.
Nah, but I HAVE met Zach Woods. I guess he lived near my old place as I’d run into him fairly regularly at the CVS at Cahuenga and Yucca. Super nice guy. Very tall.
Martin Starr is a national treasure. I can’t wait to see what he does next.
I literally love that spooky fuck.
I have a theory that every character Starr has ever played is the same person at different stages of their life.
Hahaha, that’s pretty great. He’s terrific in Adventureland, have you seen it? Not the lead, but an excellent supporting role, and per your theory, he’s got a little of the standard Starr thing going – assuming he changed from his Russian literature degree to software development at some point … 😀
Bill is too nice of a person to be most of his subsequent characters.
Yes, I was thinking, why doesn’t HE have his own show, such a wonderful character actor who owns each scene?
Even as a kid on Freaks and Geeks, he was a gem
He reminds me of John Olerud the Baseball player. Wasnt the main star on the few teams he played for but coincidentally the teams would be good during his time there. Martin Starr is always needed to make your tv show that much better.
It should definitely be hard Sci-Fi.
As my brother said to me recently, he’s nearly always the best thing in whatever he’s in. I think that includes the latest Spider-Man, among so many others.
Tough competition with ‘Party Down’, but yeah, he’s up there.
I couldn’t say, I’ve heard good things but I’m not sure it’s ever been shown in the UK.
I think it’s on Amazon Prime in the UK if you’re that interested in seeing it. Or there’s torrents, I guess.
Ooh I have Prime. Nice one, thanks!
Cheers, mate. Enjoy! It’s a great show.
Now for the sequel series where somebody uses the lost flash drive and ends the world: “Silicon Death Valley:.
In my mind, the sequel is Mike Judge’s movie Idocracy. The AI destroys the world, the absurd idiots and Big Heads of the world flourish.
So, our current reality.
That movie was tragically ahead of it’s time. I’ll only panic when a movie named Ass wins best picture.
Decent enough finale. The reveal of the rats, first only by people screaming then our crew rushing to the stage and the distant shot of rats coming down the stairs, for that brief moment, I had that “am I seeing what I think I am seeing?” Perfect.That said, they were going somewhere with the Stanford student not knowing or hearing of Pied Piper. They should have seized on that more, expanded as a plot device that their corporate failure was only one of many, and with many still continuing (notice the timely addition of WeWork) to keep everyone together; their failure ultimately lost and forgotten to the dustbin of history. Just spitballing the idea that the cycle starts anew.
And to show how quickly things move in the world and the tech industry. It’d been ten years. Do you remember what was going on in the tech industry ten years ago? Are you going to remember what’s going on in it now? Probably not.It also showed how little people actually give a shit about what they’re making in this industry as long as they make a fuckton of money while doing it. Russ Hanneman is the perfect personification of that mentality. He’s the id of this show. He never gave two shits about compression or PiperNet or whatever else as long as his three commas were intact. That’s the mentality of such a huge part of the tech industry, and he represented it perfectly.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/6817359/Top-10-technology-highlights-of-2009.html
Thanks for Googling, but my point is that maybe they weren’t as significant as they thought.
That was also my thought behind posting an article like that – to look back at what was ‘big’ 10 years ago, also to think about what is seemingly normal now that didn’t even exist back then.
Ah, I see. This bit about the functionality of Google’s OS (and associated map functions) is pretty hilarious –
“The latest version of Google’s mobile OS includes the same functionality as the GPS unit you got for Christmas a couple of years ago which can now be safely consigned to the obsolete gadgets drawer, never to be seen again.”
The rats were an amazing call-back to my favorite deranged Jared moment: when he was testing ideas to pivot the company to a service that would acquire rats at any cost “We’re not here to tell you what to do with your rats, we’re just here to get you rats”
I thought they were leaning toward her being the one who pilfered Richard’s copy of the code. Playing just a bit too dumb.
Whoa, I never thought of that. hmmmm, I may have to re-watch
My interpretation too: the student stole the thumbdrive from Richard’s desk and she will restart either unleash the cyber apocalypse or – more likely – restart the entire success-failure rollercoaster of Pied Piper.
That’s not an ‘interpretation’, it’s a fanfiction sequel
It reminded me of the nurse not knowing who Jimmy Hoffa was.
When they were talking about what sound they were creating and everyone started screaming, I thought they had created the fabled “brown sound” that makes everyone crap themselves.
Was that Perd Hapley as one of the newscasters? I don’t think he identified himself nor did I see a chyron with his name but I sure hope it was him!
It was Perd all right.
more like Turd Crapley
He’s one of those actors who shows up as newscasters in a bunch of things. I think he also used to be or maybe still is a newscaster? Or maybe I’m thinking of John Beard.
Funniest exchange of the entire episode:
Jared: Big Head?
Big Head: Hey… Nelson.
Jared: I work a lot with people who have dementia. And I just want you to know it doesn’t have to be a horror show.
Big Head: Oh… cool.
Someone needs to say that to our excuse of a president.
“Hey, did you catch the show last night?”“TRUMPPPPPP!!!!”
Orange Man Bad!
Also Big Head not putting it together that Russ ripped off his father was a nice touch
Bighead’s father dumped his shares because he thought they were all incompetent. He’s the only one who made money off of Pied Piper.
Yes but it happened at a time when people like Russ all were pretty sure it was going to be worth a ton of money, and given everything up until the point that we found out about the problem, Russ wasn’t exactly wrong. He was knowingly taking advantage of Big Head’s dad, it’s really just luck that he wound up being the one to make money off those shares.
But remember Pied Piper went down in flames days later, so Bighetti’s dad actually made out like a bandit on that deal by not trusting anything his son or his son’s friends do. That was hilarious though.
Yes, of course, but the joke was that (at the time, given how things looked for everyone) Russ was bragging about ripping off some “random doctor”, and Big Head didn’t put together that he was talking about his own dad. It then became ANOTHER joke at the end when it turned out Big Head’s dad wound up being the only de-facto “winner” with those stocks.
I liked it when, in the same scene, Jared got choked up when he saw Richard and then Richard said something along the lines of “Jared relax, I saw you last week.”
Idk why but it was comforting for me to know that those two remained friends.
And then when Richard tripped on the hedge going up to the house, Jared went right back to his old ways of moddlycoddling him. ‘Richard!? Are you okay!?’We all need a friend like Jared.
Lots of “jump to the future” shows will have characters inexplicably have never interacted between the end of the show and the future. It was nice to see this trope subverted and it totally fit Jared’s clingy personality.
Aw… “Jared” of all people to not recognize how sometimes a person’s real name actually isn’t the one everyone calls them.
I’m one who’d argue #75 is way too low for Silicon Valley–indeed, I’d put it behind only Curb Your Enthusiasm as HBO’s best-ever comedy series.* I don’t think it was ever just a ‘hangout’ show; it was a cynical commentary on the techie culture that swallowed everything this decade, and a show that bravely and presciently started at a time when real-life Silicon Valley entrepreneurs were uncritically worshiped as heroes. It never got preachy, serious, or even all that political, but it asked us to look critically at the people who were, and are, increasingly governing our lives. The cast was top-notch (TJ Miller included!) and the storytelling excellent. It never succumbed to Entourage-ish lifestyle porn, which it may have if run by lesser hands (I never understood the complaint that Silicon Valley was just spinning its wheels–Pied Piper’s boom-and-bust cycle was true to its content). I think it’s only going to be appreciated more over time, like some of Mike Judge’s other works.As for the finale, it absolutely stuck the landing. It’s a brave choice, but ultimately truest to the show, to have the characters choose between their integrity and technology, and choosing the former. Everyone’s story wrapped up convincingly–Laurie Bream in prison was my favorite. I was certain there was going to be no Erlich cameo and that they’d imply Jin-Yang killed him. And I was happy to see one of my first-season predictions come mostly true: I thought that Bighead was going to end up falling backwards into some position of power, and lo and behold he’s president of Stanford. Nicely done.Finale grade: A
Final season grade: A-Series grade: A* . to preempt a couple of objections: Veep fell apart once Selina became president; Barry hasn’t been on long enough; Larry Sanders was good but too many inside-Hollywood empty calories, so was The Comeback, which also feels a bit dated now; Enlightened wasn’t really a comedy.
I definitely think Silicon Valley is better than Veep, which was legitimately amazing in its first few seasons.
The last two season of Veep were fairly awful, though, and every character was made into a parody of themselves. I actually stopped watching halfway through the last season because I just didn’t care anymore.
Agreed. Like Veep, Silicon Valley created a deep bench of side characters, but unlike Veep they didn’t decide to shove all of them into every episode.
I think that was the point Veep was making… Nothing matters to politicians at the highest levels except keeping their jobs, no matter what side. But the banter was still just as hilarious, you were just used to it by then. Veep had completely different vibe than Silicon Valley, so I’m not sure how they can be compared at all. I love politics, so I loved Veep. I’m an engineer, so I loved Silicon Valley. I also loved that they simplified the tech so everyone could enjoy the ups and downs of a tech company and all the ridiculous events that can make them succeed or fail. They showed how treacherous the environment can be with people who have righteous brilliance mixed in with desperate worthless ambitious snakes. Another day at the office for engineers who like to do things the “right” way. Both hbo shows were incredible at showing how one accidentally wrench breaks a system or plan. We are all just doing the best we can. Success can just be an accident away and climbers will probably be swatted away. Wow, these shows are very similar afterall! Both make me laugh in different ways, Veep makes me rewind to get every joke, Silicon Valley is a slower burn. Like making a product so great, they lost it all!
I don’t know. I would definitely agree with you about all but the end of its run. Veep at its best was just phenomenal. I remember discovering it later and binging the first two seasons. The writing was top notch and every member of the ensemble was absolutely killing it. But there was a really clear drop off in the last two seasons and the final season was simply bad.
Maybe it stood out more because the first five were so amazing. But the decline seemed very Simpsons-esque to me. For what it’s worth, I blame the writers and the showrunners rather than the actors, who have gone on to do great things post-Veep.
Amen, Veep became one note intolerable the past two seasons. I gutted through it out of loyalty and false hope.SV suffered because of the wash-rinse-repeat theme of each season. I was glad it finally ended. But candidly knowing there are only 53 episodes all under 30 minutes has me envisioning a holiday season binge.
I too watched Veep seasons 6-7 out of duty. I’m a huge fan of the Thick of It and Iannucci in general, in part because a lot of the humour rises from the truth in his work. On the other hand, the last seasons of Veep feel as of they’re written by people who have no idea how the US political system works, which made for bad satire.As a result, the series became unfunny and toothless. I still don’t understand why tea party stand-in Jonah was debating alongside clearly democratic Selina during the primaries. It just doesn’t make sense…Even though Silicon Valley had it’s slips in quality as well, it at least could still produce some laughs in its final seasons.
Apparently you never heard of a little show called Dream On. Mr. Show also needs to be on any HBO best-of lists.
Dream On pales next to Mind of the Married Man.
Compare Silicon Valley to The Larry Sanders Show. Richard and Larry are comparable, both neurotic, but smart, but often insufferable. Artie is incomparable. But Dinesh=Hank, Gilfoyle=Paula (ship that!). Both shows had strong supporting casts and pulled the curtain back on the inner workings of high profile but secretive industries. Obviously, Silicon Valley rates as the more important subject with respect our everyday lives.
Silicon Valley did more to demystify the tech world, which is its biggest contribution. Larry Sanders did the same for 90’s Hollywood celebrity culture, but with lesser stakes and with more willing participation by those it skewered. Nod goes to Silicon Valley for being more brutal in its satire (contrast with Veep, which was openly cynical and satirical, making it a different beast).
Larry Sanders was better written overall and more consistent episode to episode. Probably mostly due to its more relaxed plot demands and familiarity with the industry. Still, give it a wash because Silicon Valley did a fantastic job of translating difficult computer science concepts and techno jargon to the screen.
Larry Sanders remains a critical delight, but I fear Silicon Valley will fall through the cracks in TV memory. I don’t follow ratings or awards, but Mike Judge and Alec Berg put together a timely, incisive, and well-constructed show centered around interesting characters whose character drove the plot. Will it get relegated as a doofy comedy that occasionally touched on important tech issues?
I hope not. The penultimate scene of the Stanford computer science not knowing about Piped Piper was excellent meta-commentary in my opinion. Few will remember the days when tech bros were toasted as the incipient masters of the universe, but Silicon Valley was on the vanguard of dispelling the notion that these companies were individual creations of super-coders and were in fact weird old wine in new bottles of corporate culture and the usual hypocrisies. I really hope there are fond memorial retrospectives of this show.
Actually agree with your preempted comments. If there’s a sort-of comedy series from HBO this past decade that really stuck with me, it’s Divorce, but that was only very loosely a comedy (and it ran for a paltry 24 episodes). Likewise, Enlightened was a gem but got cut horribly short. I don’t think Veep fell apart that early, but it did lose the plot some time after Iannucci quit as showrunner, and Barry is more likely a show I’ll look back on as one of the best of the 2020s.
STRONG agree. This show was always MUCH smarter than it was given credit for. It’s a near-perfect satire of the tech world, so expertly done. I believe, as you do, that in hindsight it will be much more appreciated … which is typical of Mike Judge’s work.
As far as great lines, you left on Conan’s line about NYC. “Or as they say in NYC, Wednesday.”
Liked the episode overall, but between Gates’s comment about how “something doesn’t add up” and the search to find Erlich, I was waiting for some final twist that never really happened.
I want Gates to somehow have the thumb drive. Last shot of the show is of him inserting it in his laptop. Boom.
It just felt strange to me. Seemed like foreshadowing of something, but…whatever. The show spent 6 years having the technology work, then not work, then work again. Might as well spend the last episode doing what it knows best.
This’ll sound stupid, but the Bill Gates thing reminds me of an old Booster Gold storyline. Basically, Booster is tasked by Rip Hunter, time-traveller extraordinaire, with keeping the space/time continuum safe. Only the rub is, Booster has to present himself as an incompetent goon to the world at large, before if any of his time-travelling enemies work out he’s the guy protecting reality, they’ll go back in time and erase him.All the other heroes think Booster is a complete maroon, but Batman works out the truth, cos he’s so smart. In Silicon Valley, it’s only mega-genius Bill Gates who thinks there is more to the story, and perhaps even suspects that Pied Piper sabotaged themselves.
Yeah, I agree that this is the direction they ended up going. I had thought maybe Gates’s comment was going to reflect some last-second twist, but I think it was just him realizing what they actually did (even though they kind of succeeded in failing by accident).
I know it doesn’t exactly make me Sherlock Holmes, but I kinda predicted the finale in last week’s comments. (I’ve also had the thought that they’d end the show with everyone around that table playing with the ‘always blue’ ball in my head for years.) I thought they’d go full disaster movie and show what happened after they let their own private Roko’s Basilisk loose into the world, but this was a pretty damn entertaining way to do it too. Everyone got just about what they deserved. My favorite reveal was that Dinesh and Gilfoyle are, of course, right where they belong – stuck next to one another for the duration. Although that final look on Russ Hanneman’s face was pretty fucking aces. ‘What?’Good to great show with one of the best casts on television. I’ll miss it, and I’m looking forward to seeing what Mike Judge does next. This show was absolutely crafted from his eternally pessimistic and yet still somehow wildly optimistic worldview. I’ve enjoyed just about everything he’s ever made.Here’s my post from last week if anyone’s interested – https://tv.avclub.com/1840149816
My favorite part was that when it came down to it, it was Gilfoyle who trusted Dinesh to do the right thing.
And Richard uncertain about what to do. A lot of great character work in that little moment.
The phone was still held up to his ear as the balloons dropped.
Such an underrated part! For all the jabbing that Gilfoyle gives him, deep down inside, he trusted (and, based on the end, liked/tolerated) the guy! Warmed my heart.
I’m hoping for a spin-off/special/limited series about Gilfoyle & Dinesh. The name is just as perfect as their relationship.
They could travel the country and solve crimes together
That moment was so heartwarming and unexpected, not gonna lie I teared up.
I was hoping to see Hoover still working as Gavin’s loyal henchman.
The lack of Hoover was definitely bizarre. But then the show literally ran out things for Gavin to do the last couple of episodes (his call to have Hooli investigated went basically nowhere). It’s odd that ponytail guy who likes Gilfoyle got a surprising amount of screentime but Hoover and Denpak didn’t show up.
Denpak was Gavin’s ghost writer/roomate. He was there in the documentary.
I think that was a different guy—the guy Richard mentions at the groundbreaking had written the book Gavin plagiarized for Cold Ice Cream and Hot Kisses.
I thought it was Denpak for a second, though.
Maybe they kept out Hoover because there was enough depression this episode.
there’s no question that the industry will be a little less funny without Silicon Valley to take it to task.
Yeah… Kinda a shame Valleywag isn’t still a thing.
Not bringing in T.J. Miller at the end was a big mistake. Erlich was such a brilliant character who was a huge part of the show’s greatness; it never fully recovered from his departure.By allowing Dinesh to act in a moral way rather than in his characteristically greedy way, the show signalled that it was going to end in tropes. This is not really a knock; the show had been courageously written for long enough to have earned an ending that redeems a main character. But, once that tone had been set, then the right thing to do would have been to strike another note of good will by allowing us to get one more chance to see Erlich. Erlich didn’t need to be redeemed in the way that Dinesh was; but he definitely needed to be there.
Not sure if I’d call it a big mistake, but I wouldn’t have minded seeing him. Turning Jian-Yang into Colonel Kurtz worked for me, too, but even if they had him in shadow in the back of that scene, I would’ve been satisfied. Hell, maybe he didn’t even want to do it.
I wouldn’t have minded seeing Miller either, but I assumed going in that all the backstage drama he caused meant that there was no way they were going to let him return. Seeing him in the old pictures was fine, and his ending certainly fits the character.
He burned way too many bridges after he left. I would never expect Judge to bring him back just for nostalgia’s sake. A perfectly extended middle finger in his memory’s direction is much more his style.
To be fair to the showrunners, TJ Miller essentially burned all his bridges down when he gave a deranged interview after he left the show, basically saying he hates Alec Berg and that the show was in a rut. Miller being a dick in other ways just cements the decision not to feature him. But I was glad the character got a big acknowledgment, especially since he could have ignored completely.
He was so toxic that even mucous didn’t want to be associated with him.
Mucous barely tolerated him but Smegma thought he was the best!
Zouks for the win!
Miller has only himself to blame for his being fired from the show. Still, his talent is enormous, and his performances were always outstanding. From the standpoint of the show’s universe, the Erlich character is too important not to appear in the finale, at least briefly. We could have had a scene similar to the scene in Seinfeld in which Elaine found Mr. Peterman in Burma after having followed leads to the lair of a “white poet warlord”. What kind of world would Erlich have built around him? There are so many possibilities, all rich in comedic potential. While this remarkable show was still great without Miller, it wasn’t as great. Bringing closure to to the Erlich character’s storyline was an artistic imperative, in addition to being, as noted earlier, a bit of fan service similar to Dinesh’s moral redemption.Berg’s decicion to put his personal animus for Miller ahead of the provision of a satisfying finish for a key character is most unfortunate.
I definitely agree with the part about TJ Miller being a lot of fun. As awful as Miller the person is, I do definitely love his comedy in the earlier seasons.However, I disagree that the show needed or should have had some scene with him in the finale. The story has moved so far beyond him, that even bringing him up in this episode feels weird. Miller was basically irrelevant for two out of his four seasons. He was critical in season 1 and 2, but there was little left for him. He got his shout out, that’s more than enough. Giving Miller any kind of actual role, after he was openly awful essentially awards his shitty behavior. Not even DreamWorks wanted to keep his fairly minor voice role in the dragon movies, silicon valley isn’t obligated to throw him anything.
Erlich stopped being important to the show a while ago hence one of the reasons why TJ Miller started denigrating the showrunners and his costars. He was pissed about that. Mr. Smith is absolutely right. We don’t need to give that entitled dick who tanked his own career anymore attention than he deserves.
It doesn’t necessarily have to be Berg’s “personal animus”: The HBO suits may well have said “under no circumstances can you bring him back,” or the rest of the creative team may have rejected the idea too, or even if everyone was on board and they reached out to Miller, it would be entirely possible that Miller would have said no. But we have no idea what really happened.
You make a valid point in suggesting that the decision not to include Miller might have come not from Berg but from HBO.But, that said, the idea that Miller himself would have rejected the opportunity to participate in the finale is not plausible.
I think the list of who actually did want him there would be shorter. Amongst the cast alone, I know Middleditch and Nanjiani weren’t fans.
If I recall correctly, Miller wanted out but it was ultimately a mutual decision between him, Berg and the suits. Also, in the exit interviews, Miller was crystal clear that he did not want to return nor have an open ending for the character. Of course that was two plus years ago and Miller’s film career didn’t take off … it’s possible he wouldn’t have rejected an offer for the finale.I am very happy that Erlich wasn’t brought back, much as I loved the character. His story was long over and I fear an appearance would have come off as gimmicky.
Why isn’t it plausible? We don’t know what’s been said behind the scenes over the last few years. Miller might well have a “fine, fuck those guys, I didn’t want to be on that show anyway” attitude. Which is probably academic since it’s really unlikely they would ask him anyway.
To think that Miller would refuse to participate in the finale is not plausible because someone whose career is tanking (especially as a result of his own misconduct) is not going to reject an offer of high-profile work, if such an offer were to be made.So, while we don’t know exactly what happened, we can rest reasonably assured in the presumption that the decision to exclude Miller was made either by the people running the show or by the people running the network.I realise that Miller is not well-liked by the show’s cast and producers; and I understand that this is for good reason. Nevertheless, competent storytelling demands his character’s appearance in a scene at the end. For personal dislike of an actor (however well-founded) to have trumped the artistic imperative of wrapping up a key character’s storyline leaves the overall narrative incomplete, and does a disservice to a show that was otherwise historically great.
As a playwright, no,”competent storytelling” does not demand Erlich’s appearance. You want him there for fan service and fan service alone. To pretend otherwise is disingenuous
because someone whose career is tanking (especially as a result of his own misconduct) is not going to reject an offer of high-profile work, if such an offer were to be made.Maybe, but weirder things than someone cutting off their nose to spite their face have happened. But I’ll admit it’s not very likely.Nevertheless, competent storytelling demands his character’s appearance in a scene at the end.Oof, this isn’t even close to true. The show stopped depending on Erlich as a character more than two seasons ago and while I do (to a degree) miss Miller’s gonzo madness, the show has moved on. At no point did I ever feel like there was an Erlich-shaped hole in the proceedings.
Some of it was justified – the show did seem to get into a repetitive arc the first few seasons – find a creative new application for Richard’s algorithm, raise money, taste success, screw it up and wind up back where they started. It was after his departure when they finally started to break out of that. Of course, if the company had become well funded and successful earlier on, it would have been harder and harder to work in the character of the hacker hostel incubator owner, so his character might have been what was causing that.
I am not surprised at all that Miller doesn’t show up in any capacity. He burned bridges post-departure, apparently no one liked working with him on the show and dude has a lot on his plate that makes him poison – he’s been acting like a total twat since 2016.
Since 2016 that we know about.
Not going to defend all the shitty things Miller has done. At worst, he’s an actual rapist, at best a complete asshole.But he comes across as exceedingly gracious and complimentary in this new, post-finale interview.https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/tj-miller-critiques-silicon-valley-finale-as-erlich-bachman-1261188
Considering his career is likely burnt to a crisp, I am not surprised he’s trying to come off as a mammal once again.
I had the same thought but unfortunately I didn’t know the extent to which he was a creepy piece of shit before reading this article. Maybe they could have recast, but that would have likely satisfied nobody, so just leaving him out was fine.
Monica works for a “think tank” that definitely isn’t the NSA.Guilfoyle and Dinesh have a very successful cybersecurity company.How much do you want to bet that both organizations are built on the bones of the work they did at Pied Piper? In the chaos of launch and the dissolution of the company, all of them could have gotten the source code.
That’s a damn fine theory, and it would explain where the thumb drive went. It would also suggest that one of the group screwed over Richard to get ahead, but hey, that’s Silicon Valley (the place, not the show).
Except Richard knows the thumbdrive is in his office, so he’s seen it too recently for either to have stolen it. So whatever knowledge of the program has trickled down into Monica, Guilfoyle, and Dinesh’s work would be from memory — enough to get things going (especially in G&D’s case), but not enough to destroy the world — just enough to screw it up royally.
They all knew the master plan, and even Gabe had access to the original version to be released. Therefore, anyone could have made a backup copy of the servers the night before.
Eh, I dunno. All we know is that the last place Richard saw it is in his office. Which of course is the case with everything we lose – you always think it’s in the last place you saw it, or at least think you saw it. Doesn’t really matter where you think you saw it if it’s not there anymore.That’s an awful lot of code and tech to be dedicated to memory, especially for someone like Monica who isn’t a coder.
I have a desk. Right now, I would bet you any sum of money that there’s a specific report I wrote 7 years ago in the back of the bottom-right drawer of my desk. That report could’ve been stolen at any point in time since the start of 2016, and I would have no idea until I went looking for it.
I thought they were implying she worked for “big tobacco.”?
Expanding on that, the NSA would be *very* interested in an AI able to crack encryption in record time.
I love that theory! Initially I thought the Stanford kid found the usb at the Hostile house and used the bots for her scheduling app. Because she ran away after figuring out it was their code, but only old code was at the house. So that would be a real killer move for Monica to capitalize on their code at the NSA. She probably got from backup servers. Then later stole it from Richard because she knew he couldn’t resist keeping a copy of his baby… (It was in his office years later, so theft happened after the fact.) Or both thefts occurred! And more people will let the monster out. My head is starting to hurt… But typical for Richard to be so irresponsible with his monster baby! Gonna miss the show!
Yes, for quite a while…
I would love to know that it was Monica who took the thumb drive and is now doing something sinister with it at whatever her Washington job is. She always seemed to be the show’s most enigmatic character, and the potential reunion movie would be a great opportunity to expand on her.
Wait, is there really a reunion movie already rumored to be in the works, or is this just speculation?
No reunion movie planned, but HBO has a tendency to do them (see: Sex and the City, Entourage, Deadwood, Hello Ladies…)
“Hello Ladies” wasn’t so much a reunion movie as it was a series finale, since the show was abruptly cancelled. But, man, it was a great movie.
Surely Guilfoyle has a copy if the code, or knows how to reconstitute the evolved Son of Anton.
Yeah.Also the interesting contrast where Monica takes it to break encryption while Dinesh and Guilfoyle appear to be building a company that enhances security.
My first thought was that – before heading to Tibet to assume Erlich’s identity (and fortune) – Jian Yang stole the thumb-drive. Meaning Pipergeddon will happen nonetheless.
Can I ask why you don’t like Jian-Yang?
“Monica joined a Washington D.C. think tank that may or may not be the NSA”It is definitely the NSA. Nothing else would make sense for Monica.For anyone who ever worked in a start-up, this show is (I still can’t bring myself to write “was”) a documentary. Maybe slightly exaggerated for comedic purposes, but a documentary. It captured this world perfectly. The ending was very fitting for everyone.
Together with VEEP, 2019 was the end of two of my all-time favorite comedy shows. Fuck this year.
2020 says “Ha”
Probably my favorite line was Laurie’s comment of “We have rats here in prison…figuratively…they are…dealt with…”
There was far too little Laurie this season, but the idea she’s probably doing awful things to prison snitches makes me at least kind of happy that she’ll be okay.
There are a lot of holes and inconsistencies with Laurie. Did she have a kid and was married? What happened to that? Its odd that she went from aloof, quirky, weirdo to villain and criminal.
She was basically a non-entity all season. All those things like her taking over Yaonet or hiring Jared’s weird friend were completely useless. Her long relationship with Monica (sometimes friendly, often hostile) went absolutely no where. I forgot she even had children, though I now remember the gag being that she apparently had multiple births off-camera.
I forget which season it was where they made a big long gag and storyline about her personal life, between her getting pregnant, her home life like when they went to her house for that party, and everything, that all just got dropped and discarded in favor of her becoming Richard’s and Pipernet’s new rival after Gavin fell off. The fact that she winds up breaking the law and going to jail really makes no sense.That’s been my biggest issue and flaw with this show is how the women characters are so bad and/or inconsistently developed. Don’t get me started on how Monica got the same bad, weird, treatment. Especially this season where she went from being the sane, sensible everyperson to incompetent, neurotic, jerk like everyone else.
The storyline was on the main boys, not the women, so it makes sense. And I remember Laurie telling Monica that she had 3 or 4 children already and was back at work the day after delivery with each one (of course, matter of factly). The female characters were badass. One socially inept, but extremely observant. She was a killer in business. Another a normal-human intelligent business person who kept Richard in line at times and was great at her job. We don’t need to follow their every move because the show isn’t about them. I’m a female engineer and was not offended one bit…
The storyline is on people in Silicon Valley, both the boys and girls, as i’m not sure what any of this has to do with the points Smith and I are making. That many of the plots with Laurie went nowhere as it makes no sense how she went from aloof nerd/mom to convicted felon and villain to Pipernet. She was a killer businesswoman, but not enough to willingly to break the law.
None of that is a plot hole or inconsistency. It’s just the show withholding details about her character and only revealing them at comedically effective moments. It’s the sort of thing they did with Jared for the entire series run.
No, they did not do any of this with Jared, as this is very much an inconsistent plot hole. It makes no sense whatsoever how Laurie went from being the aloof nerd/mom to a criminal and villain.
She was never an aloof nerd though. She was the head of a venture capital company. If you don’t think people like her are capable of going to prison… Well, I guess you don’t pay attention to the news?
Laurie was always an amoral and ruthless businesswoman. It’s not at all out of character for her to do something illegal that lands her in jail.
Laurie has been a sociopath all along. And you have her pictured as a cuddly ‘mom’ in the early seasons. WTF?! She screwed over Monica and others without a care. And then you get outraged because she continues to be a sociopath to the end?
I’m not a show writer, but I would have loved to have Laurie’s history swapped in for Jared’s meeting his adopted parents. I feel like that was the only cruel moment of the season, and it totally changed how I felt about Jared. Instead of being the weird guy who rages German in his sleep, but now I pity him. Leaving him totally unexplained would have been a better gag.
Yeah, for the reasons you cite I thought revealing Jared’s birth parents was one of the few mistakes the show made in the course of its run.
I never liked Laurie. She was always just a more nefarious Peter Gregory, with the same autism spectrum mannerisms.
Although it was great seeing Suzanne Cryer as a regular in something again being a big fan of Two Guys and a Girl back in the day.
“When people ask me about Pied Piper, I always tell them the same thing. …Are there other questions?”
I’ll miss the gang. Perhaps in a year or so I’ll revisit the series as I did with True Detective. It was an epic ride spanning two distinct eras for me.
I personally like that the first 3 seasons form a great story about the platform succeeding and then ultimately failing, while the latter 3 seasons are more the story of Pipernet. But you could also slice the series into the TJ Miller era and the latter episodes.
Hear, hear. I’m somewhat glad that it’s available to watch with my HBO cable subscription. Knowing what’s to come will color my perceptions on the second go ‘round but in some way I find this show soothing.
I haven’t been this sad about a show’s ending since Scrubs.
I never missed TJ Miller for a second. And I won’t miss Silicon Valley. They told their story, several times over, and unless they were going to discover some new arc for a season, it was time to wrap it up.I will miss Jared, though. I will miss him so much. He was exceptionally funny from the moment he appeared. I don’t know how Zachary Woods could have done any more with that part. I look forward to seeing more from him and Martin Starr (Gilfoyle).
I really don’t understand the positive reviews this final season has got, for me it’s been a real mess, the characterisation all over the place, and the formula beyond tired. I didn’t hate this final episode and it wasn’t the disaster I feared it might have been, but it was only vaguely okay, and little more than that – for anyone interested, I’ve just posted a full review here: https://comedytowatch.com/2019/12/09/tv-review-silicon-valley-season-6-episode-7/
Miller was needed, or even wanted, at the end. I didn’t miss him when he left and the show moved on nicely without him. I worked in the valley and some of the things hit home so it made it better for me but I would have loved it anyway. Great show, Judge. Job well done.
I binged this show in two weeks in preparation for the final season and and I loved every moment of it. I did not miss Erlich one bit, as Gilfoyle and Jared are the two stand out hilarious characters. Jian Yang also has his moments.
Agreed, I think Erlich was good on his time (his aborted Tech Crunch presentation and the reasons behind it is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen) but that time had come to an end, even without all the TJ Miller baggage. The show moved on and didn’t really miss him once he’d gone.
nitpick but the quote is actually “the guys were as sweet and soft as rotting fruit”
It’s Silicon Valley, it would be rude NOT to nitpick.. 😉
So when HBO releases a post-apocalypse comedy, the setup is that Richard lost the thumb drive, right?
After watching the season finale, and waking up and reflecting on it, I don’t see how they could have ended the show better.A large part of me wanted Pied Piper to be successful, moral quandary, be damned. The fact I was quite literally torn about the team doing the right thing, gives the ending of the show immense power. If as an audience member I felt like Dinesh, on the precipitous of unbelievable wealth and validation after a multi-year journey being told it was all going away, it means that there was something valuable being lost. The “Office style” mock-umentary was different, but, it played well. It would have been unfair to us as an audience to take us to the edge of success and watch everyone flail, and go to black. There was something serendipitous about how everyone ended up. Gilfoyle was able to become a demi-god of the security space, with underlings to help support his, in my opinion, deep need to have his ego stroked. Dinesh became rich. Jared was able to work with people who truly, needed a positive spin on life. Last but not least, Richard Hendrix was able to share his wisdom with others both about tech, and about morality. His sacrifice of the company was rewarded with a comfortable home teaching the next great generation of tech leaders and VCs about the ethical boundaries that need to be enforced. For someone that had to dance the line, both failing and upholding such standards for the entirety of the show, it’s a perfect place for him. The journey back to the old house was the “warm embrace,” I wanted, especially since Pied Piper died right before our very eyes. As with almost all start-up companies, when you talk to the founders, the place and memories they hold near and dear to their heart are the very beginning stages. No one has framed photos in their office if the 9 stories of Class A office space they first leased after Series B funding hit; it is usually the garage with wires everywhere, or the home office above the garage, or the small conference room in a warehouse that was affordable enough to house 5 guys and a fridge. I really liked the journey these guys took together. The series ended at the right time. I think the “glimpse” of what it would have been like to see the gang operate as “big tech” was enough to know, that the eventual fractures of their prior relationships were going to change – and not for the better. For me, Pied Piper came (and went) during a time when big tech needed a gut-check. Even if Pied Piper became the next Google or Facebook, it’s legacy and memories will always be in that small, overpriced home in Menlo Park – fountain machine, Anton, and all. Congratulations to the writers, producers, and cast. Great job. Look forward to kicking back in a few years, and binging this one all the way through. Always blue, Always blue.
I loved ‘Always Blue’ at the end there, even if I knew it was coming.What I didn’t expect, and also loved, is that when Jared hugged Gilfoyle, Gilfoyle hugged him back (you can see him clap him on the back). A little moment, but so lovely.
Despite what Peter Gregory advocated, Richard went back to college.
To this day, I would have loved to have seen an alternate universe where Peter Gregory had stuck around, and, obviously, that Christopher Welch didn’t pass in real life.
“We have rats here. Figuratively. They are, hrmmm… dealt with.”
The world was saved because Gilfoyle trusted Dinesh.
<3 <3 <3
Brilliant finale! Loved ever minute. A very underrated show.
Someone should have done an analysis of the opening credits to see how many companies have ended over the show’s run and how many have sprung up along the way.
sad that i know Middleditch is a creep now, but otherwise looking forward to this; i’ll (mostly) miss it.
I’ve been dismissive of Big Head as a character
I always loved him as a character. He is the single fry in the box of onion rings. Weird but it’s good to find and adds a unique flavor to the box.
“You go to Stanford? Oh, cool! I work there!”
May we all be so chill. #TeamBighead
I never was able to get behind a lighthearted series about Silicon Valley, because I work in the industry and find it by turns insanely boring and repellent. I guess laughing at it could be a way of blowing off steam, but to me the idea of watching a show about how bad it sucks is depressing. But they clearly did something, people love the show. Achieving that with this industry as your source material is an impressive feat.
(paraphrasing) “If there’s one thing I learnt about working with Gwart, it’s to shut up and listen.”I’m always high when I watch this show so can’t remember the exact quote but god damn that was a sneakily hilarious line.I love this show, and everything Mike and Alec do, top stuff!
I love this show having just started watching it in like, September, but I was very glad Richard finally got to make the world a better place, even if he can’t tell anyone about it.
Gibberish argument, don’t agree at all about TJ on the basis of accusations, there was never a shred of proof given in either case, and the actress has a reputation of her own. The real reason he shouldn’t be back, baseless garbage aside, is that he genuinely detracted from the show as a deus ex machina for all manner of insane BS. He was a huge jerk throughout the series behind the scenes and it seemed he had no chemistry with anyone in his last season on screen.I like the twist, I wouldn’t have been upset in the least if he appeared, and had he left on good terms I suspect he would have been some criminal overlord with Jian-Yang as his top brass. Instead his fate is left open, and the series with him, to a still quite clever wrap up of Jian-Yang’s arc.
Stellar series, I would rank it much higher because none of the shows you listed are good in the least, but is it better than Veep? I’d probably put Veep ahead of it, but as far as characters I think SV has the overall win.
My theory: Bill Gates took the thumb drive.
Mad Money? I didn’t realize we were still airing that. Cramer’s been dead for six months.
Seriously though how the shit is that leech still on air?
I confess. Towards the end I was choked up. Mostly because the show did justice to the characters. Given the savage nature of what went before, the last episode was very respectful and gentle to everyone (even Gavin!). I’ll miss it.
“Bored to Death” was the best comedy HBO ever did.
SETEC ASTRONOMY!
Tis episode was not only awful, it was racist. The entire idea that Yin Yang had killed Erlich or assumed his identity. That is not funny. That is ugly western sentiment and bigotry and feeds into a negative stereotype that simply cause he’s Asian, he must have done all this. They would have never done that for a white character. I am disappointed to how low everyone must sink.
Anyone else annoyed that they wasted time on that grotesque Jared’s Birth Family bit only to never come back to it, and for it to not change his character (from our perspective) at all?
Thanks for these great write-ups! I never fully saw an episode until after I read them.The college student not even recognizing their name was really poignant. The reason this show is so wildly popular within the tech industry is because of how well it understands it and therefore how to perfectly lance it.Like the review points out, the acting ensemble was terrifically talented and they were gifted with some of the best comedic writing and cracker-jack story telling. Going to miss this show.
Really loved the finale and the final season. It hit all of the right beats for me.Was there anything to the missing USB drive with the source code on it that Richard is looking for during the credits? My guess is that there’s some visual joke there or earlier in the episode but I didn’t catch it on my first watch.
Silicon Valley is one of those shows I watch when I’m overly anxious on flights or when I feel particularly depressed. It is just good for my soul. I very much identify with that scrappy group just trying to make something out of nothing. They did a great job of inviting us into that team and making us root for them and share in their successes and defeats. Matt Ross made Gavin Belson one of the best and most memorable television villains of all time, and Zach Woods was just perfect as Jared Dunn. Shit I’ll miss this show and these characters.
‘I can fail circles around you losers’ is my new go-to brag.
I laughed at “Ok so he’s dead, what do we do now?”
I’m late to this. I just watched the finale, then immediately went back and watched the first episode. When did Big Head become a non-functional, Homer-like idiot? Because he was nothing like that in the beginning?