Silicon Valley: Terms of Service
May 1, 2017 4:40 AM - Season 4, Episode 2 - Subscribe

Richard clashes with Dinesh when the latter's new position goes to his head. Meanwhile, Richard uncovers interesting data about PiperChat's users; Erlich tries to get involved in Jian-Yang's new app; and Jared sets ground rules in his friendship with Richard. At Hooli, Jack's enthusiasm causes a paranoid Gavin to make a rash decision.
posted by noneuclidean (12 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
And there goes PiperChat. There are few things about this show that bug me, but their ability to start down a potentially interesting plotline and then abandon it almost immediately (cf. Meinertzhagen's Haversack) is chief among them.

Annoyances aside, I particularly enjoyed the Jian-Yang's story line in this episode.
posted by noneuclidean at 4:46 AM on May 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


So Gilfoyle is just there to insult Dinesh now? That's his only job on the show? I get that Martin Starr is really good at the whole deadpan wiseass thing and I'm happy to see more of that but I wish they'd give him a little bit more to do than just wish for Dinesh to fail.

I'm also loving Jian-Yang. He takes no shit from Erlich.

their ability to start down a potentially interesting plotline and then abandon it almost immediately

Yeah, no kidding. I could totally watch an entire season of Dinesh letting the power of being CEO go to his head.

Loving the Jack/Gavin pettiness.

Man, Erlich sure smokes a lot of weed and owns a whole lot of different bongs.
posted by bondcliff at 6:28 AM on May 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


I'm of mixed feelings on this.

I had genuine hopes that the rest of the season would be Dinesh learning some humility and turning into a good CEO. He was right to stand up to Richard - there was no good reason for him to hand over all the data, and I thought it underscored how and why Richard wasn't a great leader. So I'm sad to see him lose the spot after one episode because it could have made a great B-plot for the rest of the season.

As much as I hate seeing Hooli come and muscle their way into the plot again, losing Piperchat to Hooli might set up an ethical hot potato between Jack and Gavin that I am very interested to see play out. I'm really hoping that Jack gives Gavin serious competition for CEO because watching Gavin try and bite and claw his way back from a smackdown like that would be good television.

In other news: this show desperately, DESPERATELY needs people who are not men. Fucking hell would it have killed them just to move Monica onto the Piper team permanently? At this point I don't even care if it's "accurate" to Silicon Valley reality, I just want to see more women on the show because I am tired of the sausagefest.
posted by Tevin at 7:08 AM on May 1, 2017 [20 favorites]


+1 that Jian-Yang's plot was amazing in this episode. I was watching with someone who's lost a lot of sleep to COPPA compliance over the last couple years and they were laughing pretty damn hard.
posted by potrzebie at 7:55 AM on May 1, 2017


Fucking hell would it have killed them just to move Monica onto the Piper team permanently? At this point I don't even care if it's "accurate" to Silicon Valley reality, I just want to see more women on the show because I am tired of the sausagefest.

Seconded. Maybe they'll do that now that Piperchat is dead? Have everyone form back under Richard's internet 2.0 idea?

Jimmy O. Yang (Jian-Yang) just got cast in the Crazy Rich Asians adaptation - it's great to see his career taking off.
posted by bluecore at 11:14 AM on May 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


In other news: this show desperately, DESPERATELY needs people who are not men. Fucking hell would it have killed them just to move Monica onto the Piper team permanently? At this point I don't even care if it's "accurate" to Silicon Valley reality, I just want to see more women on the show because I am tired of the sausagefest.

Carla extorting them when they asked her to come back was funny, but cutting out one of like three prominent female characters the show has ever had like that was not especially smart.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:10 PM on May 1, 2017


Carla extorting them when they asked her to come back was funny, but cutting out one of like three prominent female characters the show has ever had like that was not especially smart.

I could be wrong, but I think that's because the actress left to star on People of Earth. I agree that was a big mistake.
posted by bluecore at 1:42 PM on May 1, 2017


Regarding the Erlich/Jian-Yang interation while they were waiting to see the VC, when Erlich found out what Jian-Yang's app was, without spoilers, I haven't laughed as hard in a long long time. Serious snorts and tears and runny nose and the whole bit. It feels like that joke was the culmination of three seasons of Jian-Yang hating on Erlich.
I still love this show, still look forward to every episode.
posted by conifer at 6:55 AM on May 2, 2017 [2 favorites]


Now, who else thinks that changing to a HooliChat login is "hella lame?"

Madison?
Alison?
Jennifer?
Stephanie?
Quinn?
Ingrid?
Kaylee?
Amber?
Sarah?
Janelle?
Carl?

Now, Carl, you said the new sign-in page made you "nervous." Did anyone else feel "nervous?"
posted by aabbbiee at 7:24 AM on May 2, 2017 [8 favorites]


Regarding the Erlich/Jian-Yang interation while they were waiting to see the VC, when Erlich found out what Jian-Yang's app was, without spoilers, I haven't laughed as hard in a long long time.

Yeah, that was certainly the funniest thing in the episode. My prediction: Jian Yang's app will be a runaway success, but Bighead's dad will wind up owning Erlich's 10%.
posted by uncleozzy at 5:19 AM on May 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


Since Richard gave PiperChat a perpetual license to his algorithm, now that Hooli owns, for better or worse, PiperChat, does that mean Hooli now has a perpetual license to the algorithm?
posted by General Malaise at 11:03 AM on May 7, 2017


I really enjoyed this episode!

Amazing to me how nothing takes any time in this world.
posted by iamkimiam at 11:31 AM on August 27, 2021


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