SILICON VALLEY – Live-action comedy developed by Mike Judge; rated TV-MA; airs Sundays on HBO; 30 minutes. Episode 1.5: “Signaling Risk” (original airdate, May 4, 2014). Directed by Alec Berg; written by Jessica Gao (8 out of 10)
The story so far: Richard Hendrix (Thomas Middleditch), Gilfoyle (Martin Starr), Dinesh (Kumail Nanjiani), Erlich Bachmann (T. J. Miller), and Jared Dunn (Zach Woods) are employees of a startup called Pied Piper. Richard has created a lossless algorithm that could change all digital media as we know it, allowing for quicker streaming and less space needed for storage. They receive mentoring and funding from angel investor Peter Gregory. Meanwhile, they are up against a ticking clock as philanthropic rebel billionaire Gavin Belson (Matt Ross) and his company Hooli are trying to reverse engineer Pied Piper, even going so far as stealing Richard’s best friend Big Head (Josh Brener) to head up “Project Nucleus.”
In this episode:
Pied Piper is entered in TechCrunch’s startup showcase, something that had completely slipped Richard’s mind, as he had entered it before they had accepted Peter Gregory’s funding when it was still a music app. However, when word of this gets out, it puts a major bee in the bonnet of Gavin Belsom, who takes this personally and now has to find a way to respond. We get to see some of the very, very unhealthy competition between these two billionaires and the things they’re willing to do to one-up one another. It’s pretty out of control, and we get some sense of that from listening to Monica, Peter’s assistant.
In the other main storyline, Erlich is trying to get Bay Area street artist Chuy Ramirez to design a logo for Pied Piper. Chuy originally only wants to do it if he can get some stock options, then changes his mind when he sees Dinesh in the car, and mistaking him as being Mexican, and says he’s willing to do it because their company is pro-Latino. I won’t spoil any of what happens, but Erlich shows a lot of very soft racism. In an act of karmic retribution, lots of bad things happen to him because of it. And it’s hilarious.
Because of the lack of communication which has caused problems with the logo and the TechCrunch misunderstanding, Jared wants to institute some new rules for work processes, making them much more corporate. Dinesh and Gilfoyle aren’t having any of it, until. . . just watch.
Final verdict: 8 out of 10
Remember last week when I said they needed to bring teh funneh more? Well, they did. And in the best way possible. The whole discussion of Erlich’s racism is priceless, and perfectly needed in our society where a white guy thinks just because he’s asking a Latino street artist to design his company logo that this makes him automatically not racist.
Also illuminating is the power struggle between Gavin Belsom and Peter Gregory. And the rivalry between Dinesh and Gilfoyle.
In all three of these cases, the humor came from character, not just from funny gags. And it furthered the plot and character development.
And there were some funny gags. The corporate logo Chuy designs is as offensive as it is hilarious. The redesigned one is even better.
With the season now more than halfway over (yes, only 8 episodes), you should really catch up with this season before it’s gone. Truth? It’s the single best show you should be watching Sunday nights in between “Game of Thrones,” “Veep,” and John Oliver.
CAST:
Thomas Middleditch as Richard Hendrix, T. J. Miller as Erlich Bachmann, Zach Woods as Jared Dunn, Kumail Nanjiani as Dinesh, Martin Starr as Gilfoyle, Josh Brener as Big Head, Christopher Evan Welch as Peter Gregory, Amanda Crew as Monica, Angela Trimbur as Langdon.