Season 3 (2016)
Created by: John Altschuler, Mike Judge, Dave Krinsky
Starring: Thomas Middleditch, T.J. Miller, Martin Starr, Kumail Nanjiani, Zach Woods, Josh Brener
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| Silicon Valley Season 3 |
This HBO comedy focuses on the founders of a start up company, from developing the technology to generating funding, and navigating the board room.
Verdict
Parodying tech start ups, Silicon Valley continues to entertain. Great chemistry among the leads generate great jokes. The disconnect between the business and technology arms of the company seem ludicrous, yet completely believable.
Richard never seems to catch a break, but that also is the impetus for the story arcs. Jared flourishes into an understated but great character Dinesh, Gilfoyle, and Bachman are great as always. This season may be the best yet.
Watch it.
Previously During Seasons 1 & 2
Richard develops a compression technology that he then turns into a start-up, Pied Piper. A rival tech company the likes of Google or Apple try to beat him to market, but can't surpass his superior engineering. A lawsuit concludes with Hooli owning no part of Pied Piper or the technology. They generate funding, but at the end of season two, Richard is ousted as CEO.
Recap
Episode 1 - Founder Friendly
It's a good episode with a few really good jokes. It looks like the arc of this season will be managing a company. Season 1 was starting, season 2 was funding.
Richard is irate that the board fired him as CEO and is trying to give him CTO as a consolation prize. He vows to fight it, and the new board hires Jack Barker (Stephen Tobolowsky) as CEO.
Gilfoyle and Dinesh don't want to quit or give up their shares and agree that Richard isn't the best leader for Pied Piper. They form a shorthand to preface their put downs of Richard and temper their insults. "Richard is a great, but you know..." becomes RIGBY. They preface each putdown with RIGBY, and that joke plays very well.
Bachman plans to tell off Barker, but Barker instead wins him over.
Gavin Belsen of Hooli fires all Nucleus personnel. Nucleus was his group that he hoped would beat Pied Piper to market, but ultimately failed.
Hooli lost the Pied Piper lawsuit because of their contracts, but it also means they can fire many employees with impunity. Based on quality of work surveys, Belsen posits they can fire one out of every five employees. The camera depicts five lawyers, the fifth one not paying attention.
Hooli is also giving Big Head a twenty million severance package.
Richard is considering other job offers, but Bachman urges him to meet Barker. Dinesh and Gilfoyle reveal to Richard that they're staying at Pied Piper. This turns into trading insults and Richard doubling down that he's leaving Pied Piper, stating he doesn't think they can scale the platform.
Dinesh and Gilfoyle can't crack the code and decide to "take the high road" and quit with Richard. Richard's job offer is at a company developing a mustache compositing program. He's less than excited.
Jack Barker then wins Richard over. Action Jack is good, very good.
Episode 2 - Two in the Box
Pied Piper has a new office that looks like Google, instead of Bachman's living room. Richard's concerned about the cost, but Barker assures him that this office and the amenities are crucial for growth and attracting talent.
Gavin Belson is tired of the bad press his name is generating in search engines. He doesn't want Hooli engineers to alter their net neutrality policy, but he wants the search results with his name to stop appearing.
Richard is concerned when Jack Barker hires a fully staffed sales team instead of a an engineering team. Richard is again concerned when he realizes Jack wants to sell Pied Piper to businesses instead of a freemium Drop Box model.
If Richard would just let Jack handle the business it would go smoother. I realize Richard has a vision for his company, but does he have a plan or is he just basing everything on desire.
Engineers at Hooli have a breakthrough while fixing their search engine. We don't know what, but I'm guessing it's Nucleus related. And it is. These are the same engineers that were just fired, so they're looking to sell the cracked code.
Richard is learning about more platform cuts from the sales team instead of Jack. He's less than happy, feeling like an outsider at his own company.
Ugh, why did we need to see two horses copulating. They just keep showing it. Why do shows do this stuff? It's not funny. Gross out humor is not funny or clever.
Jack is concerned about Pied Piper stock, not about changing the world through technology. The sales team is dictating company pursuits. The Pied Piper mission has changed after the sales team misinterprets Richard's presentation, and Richard isn't happy. The tagline of "think inside the box" fits perfectly and works on multiple levels.
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| Silicon Valley Season 3 - Think inside the box. |
Episode 3 - Meinertzhagen's Haversack
Richard does not want to put Pied Piper in a box and hide it in a server farm. Jack doesn't want to change the market. It sounds ludicrous, but it also sounds completely believable with the leadership completely out of touch and wanting something easy to sell.
Gilfoyle quits in opposition to building the box. He's yet to take a meeting, but recruiters are sending him a ton of swag.
When Richard plans to go over Jack Barker's head, Bachman intervenes with Jack on Richard's behalf and concludes that Richard is indeed correct.
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| Silicon Valley - From the sofa to the board room. |
Richard is stuck building the box.
EndFrame stole half of Richard's code last season and now Hooli has given them the other half.
Bachman inspires Richard and the team to build the platform anyway with a speech about George Washington. The team will build the platform while convincing the sales team and Jack that they are actually building the box.
There is an excellent montage of the team working through the night to devise a plan and an even better recurring joke about Dinesh's gold chain.
The next day Richard inadvertently reveals to Jack the planned subterfuge.This is an excellent episode that could be setting the story arc for this season.
Episode 4 - Maleant Data Systems Solutions
Action Jack can't fire Richard, Dinesh, or Gilfoyle because they are the only engineers that can create the box. Richard proposes that they'll build the box, but once it's done they are back to the platform.
Gilfoyle and Dinesh have a running joke about writing subpar code. Gilfoyle makes a few tweaks which snowballs into the team making a box, but making a very good box.
The team repeats the refrain they don't care about the box, but they're getting excited about the code and design.
Jack and Richard team up to sell the box to Maleant who backed out. They've built such a good box, that the platform is now second tier.
Big Head builds a better incubator than Bachman's by accident. They partner, though Bachman isn't bringing much to the partnership.
Hooli bought EndFrame, but now the Pied Piper team has to build the platform to compete. Hooli has set the price point for the platform. Gavin Belson hires many of his old employees that he fired, but he doesn't remember any of them.
Jack is fired, no one will replace him leaving the CEO seat vacant, and the work on the platform begins.
Episode 5 - The Empy Chair
This episode delivers in less than three minutes with Dinesh and Gilfoyle praising Jack's empty chair. "It's sturdier than Richard."
"It never asked me to build a box."
PiedPiper is no longer sitting on millions since they aren't building the box. With no CEO Richard decides to terminate the sales team. It goes worse than expected when his authority is questioned.
The rest of the team sells off company assets. I have a feeling somehow this is going to bite them. It does but Gilfoyle saves the day.
Richard's ego is getting the best of him as online articles criticize him and his tech. He mistakes a journalist for a PR rep and provides a horrendous interview airing all of his grievances. His reinstatement as CEO hinged on that interview.
Richard trips into a better story that pre-empts his interview. He is now the CEO of PiedPiper.
The Big Head Bachman partnership is decidedly in Bachman's favor as dictated by Bachman.
Episode 6 - Bachmanity Insanity
Richard meets a girl at a bar and of course tells her he's CEO as he had to explain why he was at the bar. As Dinesh comments, whenever you're near a girl you need to explain why.
The Gavin Belson internet scrubbing scandal breaks, but he doesn't seem to have many options for recourse. Belson threatens to sue the reporter, and of course this reporter wants to give up the source, Big Head. This could affect Bachman's Hawaiian themed Alcatraz party he's planning to rub everyone's nose in his success. Bachman buys the blog to stop the outing of Big Head. With that Big Head is insolvent.
Gilfoyle and Dinesh don't expect Richard's girlfriend to last. Richard has a great track record of ruining everything. In perfect fashion, he does just that, freaking out over using tab versus spaces in coding. It ends the relationship.
Inspired by Richard, Jared re-enters the dating world. Dinesh suffers his own dating woes.
Episode 7 - To Build a Better Beta
Dinesh and Jared want Richard to release a beta to help track bugs. Of course Richard doesn't want to. He's afraid it could generate bad press, and Pied Piper isn't on solid ground. Gilfoyle manages to convince him.
Each of the team members gets a few beta keys to hand out, but Dinesh is having trouble filling out his list.
Bachman is on the hook with the Big Head bankruptcy, but Jared discovers that seventy percent of Big Head's funds were earmarked for taxes. Turns out the business manager did move around some funds.
Bachman goes to the DA, but is shot down. Bachman isn't a sympathetic plaintiff. He's in essence rich already with his Pied Piper shares. He sells his shares to pay off the vendors and squash a potential story chronicling his epic failing.
A Hooli employee finds out about the Pied Piper beta but deletes the email since they're two to three months out from being beta ready. Since Gavin Belson spies on employees, he finds the email and wants in on the beta.
When Gavin gets access to the beta, the team finds out and Dinesh can safely say it's not his fault as he has no friends to invite. The team fries the user's computer, which is Gavin's personal computer and phone.
Episode 8 - Bachman's Earning's Over-Ride
Bachman and Richard are on television with beta installs and their popularity soaring. Is the user interface a non-issue?
Bachman hasn't told Richard that he sold his shares to cover his debt.
When Richard hears rumor that someone is dumping shares, he thinks it's Monica as an effect of her user interface complaints. Monica tells Richard the truth, and Richard wants to issue a press release denouncing Bachman. Richard is cutting Bachman out completely.
Richard discovers that Lori was able to buy all of Bachman's shares for next to nothing. Bachman falls on his sword to protect the company and Richard offers him head of PR. It turns out his misdeeds weren't coming to light anyway.
Gavin Belson is defending his mismanagement, but the meeting is to transition Belson out of the CEO position. He's headed to the roof.
Episode 9 - Daily Active Users
Richard has to admit to Monica that she might not have been right about the user interface. The daily number of users for Pied Piper is way too low.
Pied Piper runs a focus group and the average person hates the user interface. Everyone is "totally freaked out." Richard denounces the focus group and is told this is the least hostile group.
Richard realizes that he didn't send it to anyone that wasn't an engineer. He got no feedback from an average person. He then tries to convince the focus group of Pied Piper's merits. He succeeds, but it took an explanation that lasted all night.
Gavin Belson discovers that Pied Piper is highly downloaded, but not actively used. Gavin hires Jack Barker and Hooli begins developing the box.
Richard's last ditch effort is a variant of the Microsoft Clippy animated paper clip. Pied Piper is on the brink of shutting down, when their daily users jump. Jared bought users. This deviation from oblivion seemed too good to be true, and it turns out it is. What will result from this?
Episode 10 - The Uptick
Bachman has gotten them funding. Richard already knew Jared juked the states. Dinesh and Gilfoyle know as well and give Richard tips to obscure the user data. Gilfoyle admits he may finally respect Richard.
Dinesh's video chat using the Pied Piper IP is taking off. While the company is tanking due to the fraudulent users, this might be the savior.
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