Silicon Valley: Third Party Insourcing
May 12, 2014 7:37 AM - Season 1, Episode 6 - Subscribe
Pied Piper needs a hacker, "The Carver" to work out cloud computing, Jared gets a signature and Gilfoyle's girlfriend moves in for a while.
This is the first episode without Peter Gregory, as the actor was unwell during filming, and died recently. AV Club review.
This is the first episode without Peter Gregory, as the actor was unwell during filming, and died recently. AV Club review.
Zach Woods who plays Jared is also on Playing House, a fantastic tiny sitcom just started, where he is even funnier in a very different way.
posted by viggorlijah at 8:01 AM on May 12, 2014
posted by viggorlijah at 8:01 AM on May 12, 2014
The teasers for this episode looked really funny, it's a bummer it didn't deliver. I mean, they spent 15 minutes building up a super hacker kid only to reveal he was a sham and trashed their code and then they fixed it? The subplots of Dinesh with Gilfoyle's girlfriend and Jared going to a libertarian super island were good for laughs but overall a pretty boring episode in terms of story.
posted by mathowie at 8:05 AM on May 12, 2014
posted by mathowie at 8:05 AM on May 12, 2014
I got the impression that he was really good and delivered on the cloud part, but then overreached and crashed badly because he didn't know the system as thoroughly or have the experience to tread carefully and with plenty of back-up.
It was too many separate threads that didn't combine together at the end.
posted by viggorlijah at 8:47 AM on May 12, 2014
It was too many separate threads that didn't combine together at the end.
posted by viggorlijah at 8:47 AM on May 12, 2014
The show seems to exist in a universe without version control?
Also, was it a little tone deaf that they hired him to make up for the protagonist's deficiencies with "the cloud"? I'd understand executives using that sort of language, but wouldn't engineers say something more like "networking code"?
posted by nobody at 9:09 AM on May 12, 2014 [2 favorites]
Also, was it a little tone deaf that they hired him to make up for the protagonist's deficiencies with "the cloud"? I'd understand executives using that sort of language, but wouldn't engineers say something more like "networking code"?
posted by nobody at 9:09 AM on May 12, 2014 [2 favorites]
Yeah, everyone uses git or some other version control, I think there was one throwaway comment by the kid that he trashed the repository, but in github you can *always* backtrack.
Agreed on "the cloud" being difficult was weird in how he described it as a black box kind of problem when it's a pretty straightforward network interaction/storage and I/O problem not much different than dealing with local storage.
posted by mathowie at 9:45 AM on May 12, 2014 [2 favorites]
Agreed on "the cloud" being difficult was weird in how he described it as a black box kind of problem when it's a pretty straightforward network interaction/storage and I/O problem not much different than dealing with local storage.
posted by mathowie at 9:45 AM on May 12, 2014 [2 favorites]
Yeah, I was pretty meh on this episode overall, largely for the reasons mathowie points out as well as the wasted potential of the Tara character. I did like Dinesh's post-its, and the portrayal of the Satanist characters rang pretty true to some of my geekier (non-Satanist but similarly niche interest) social groups.
posted by capricorn at 3:37 PM on May 12, 2014
posted by capricorn at 3:37 PM on May 12, 2014
Silicon Valley is more open minded about religious rituals than Harvard, apparently.
posted by sparklemotion at 6:57 PM on May 12, 2014
posted by sparklemotion at 6:57 PM on May 12, 2014
Who was that playing the Satanic priest? I would swear I recognize him.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:11 AM on May 13, 2014
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:11 AM on May 13, 2014
Not my favorite either. Would at least have liked Gilfoyle to complain that "cloud" was a "fucking bullshit term" or something else that he would say. Kids on cognitive drugs seemed like on-point commentary, but is Satanism actually a big thing in Silicon Valley? Those Satanists looked like they could have been from Minnesota. I don't want to dive too deeply into Gilfoyle's weird personal life if it doesn't lead to things that are specific to the geography and culture that are the focus of the show.
Driverless cars are that kind of specific, though. I thought the joke would be that Peter Gregory is apparently using them illegally! But, no. Hopefully Jared rejoins the group quickly, because while the island might be funny, I like him better with the group. That said, I understand they had to quickly rewrite Peter Gregory out of the show when the actor died, and in exchange, we got to see him in the first half of the episodes, so I am okay with this episode and maybe a couple more in this season not being as good.
posted by michaelh at 7:23 AM on May 13, 2014
Driverless cars are that kind of specific, though. I thought the joke would be that Peter Gregory is apparently using them illegally! But, no. Hopefully Jared rejoins the group quickly, because while the island might be funny, I like him better with the group. That said, I understand they had to quickly rewrite Peter Gregory out of the show when the actor died, and in exchange, we got to see him in the first half of the episodes, so I am okay with this episode and maybe a couple more in this season not being as good.
posted by michaelh at 7:23 AM on May 13, 2014
I laughed out loud several times. This show is really likable for me personally. The Gilfoyle--Dinesh dynamic rocks so hard.
I was very sad to read hear that Peter Gregory died, his character also rocked.
And come on, trepiditiously getting into a driverless car and ending up in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on an uninhabited robot island? That pretty much surpasses any nightmare scenario involving a robot car I can dream up.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:37 PM on May 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
I was very sad to read hear that Peter Gregory died, his character also rocked.
And come on, trepiditiously getting into a driverless car and ending up in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on an uninhabited robot island? That pretty much surpasses any nightmare scenario involving a robot car I can dream up.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:37 PM on May 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
(Not sure if you were replying to me but) I did think it was funny! Part of me is just happy to have Office Space, Cloud Edition and the other part wants something super accurate and painful about the real Silicon Valley, and that's the part that keeps me from fully loving it. Maybe I need to deprive that other part of Adderall.
posted by michaelh at 4:59 PM on May 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by michaelh at 4:59 PM on May 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
They tried to paper over Richard not understanding "the cloud" when The Carver explains something to him and then condescendingly adds, "You know, a key-value store?" It seems like they're almost getting the tech right though. Mostly.
posted by ob1quixote at 11:48 PM on May 14, 2014
posted by ob1quixote at 11:48 PM on May 14, 2014
This was the most cringy episode for me; the whole bit with Richard trying to score Adderall and getting beaten up, and then Dinesh with Tara, oh dear. I was watching through my fingers. And *then* Jared getting trapped in the car. I adore Jared. So much unrecognised talent, so little charisma.
Laughed at loud at the initial shot of their Kamban board with the overflowing Icebox. That Richard, he's so hapless.
posted by tracicle at 12:26 AM on May 17, 2014
Laughed at loud at the initial shot of their Kamban board with the overflowing Icebox. That Richard, he's so hapless.
posted by tracicle at 12:26 AM on May 17, 2014
Why wouldn't they just ask Erlich where to get Adderall?
posted by drezdn at 12:02 PM on September 5, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by drezdn at 12:02 PM on September 5, 2014 [1 favorite]
"When Kevin the "Carver" destroys the Pied Piper platform, many tech geeks wondered why they couldn't just revert the platform to an earlier build. However, in the DVD commentary it was revealed that there was a line cut out of the final dialogue that actually explained why they couldn't revert to an earlier build."
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 5:20 PM on June 28, 2016
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 5:20 PM on June 28, 2016
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posted by Lemurrhea at 7:55 AM on May 12, 2014