The question
with Silicon Valley was not if it
would get better, but when. Watching Season 1 was frustrating because it boasted a stellar
all-star cast, from the dapper and awkward Thomas Middleditch (who leads the
show as Richard Hendricks, the creator of Pied Piper’s algorithm) to the erratic and bizarre
Zach Woods, from bro-ish (Critics' Choice Winner) T.J Miller to
Rosencrantz-and-Guildenstern types Martin Starr and Kumail Nanjiani, not a bad
apple poisons the chemistry of this excellent ensemble cast. Yet season 1 rarely
found enough playable stakes to allow to the viewer to truly invest in the
show’s comedy or characters. It certainly had its chortle-inducing moments, but
Silicon Valley didn't find
sure-footing in season one.
But it’s all
changed with Season 2. Hooli creator Gavin Belson (Matt Ross) senses the threat
Pied Piper poses to his new streaming device (or code?), Nucleus, and throws a
$20 million lawsuit their way. As Silicon
Valley shows us, there is no safe-haven for newbies trying to pop their way
into the tech-bubble. Any disruption in the status-quo places everyone else
in the industry (this case, Hooli) in immediate danger of losing status. The
credits, now, coincide perfectly with the story as I now understand it: a tale about
the absurdity of our new American empires and the logic that follows in their
wake.
Like the best of
comedic ensembles, the Pied Piper clan cannot survive apart. Richard doesn’t possess the brash ego of his predecessors, like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. This
is where Erlich Bachman (Miller) fits into Pied Piper, as his absurdly-confident,
bulldog-ish bodyguard with an overdone Einstein haircut and a penchant for talking
up his usefulness, even though his technical contributions are minimal. His
usefulness is primarily aesthetic, in other words.
Jared (Woods) is the MBA
on the team, with enough talent to be working in the higher echelons of Hooli,
but he doesn’t really fit the mold of traditional business-type either: he’s
shy and bizarre, and spent the season either sleeping with rats, flirting with
scary-female coders or creating charts to solve problems. (Dinesh and Gilfoyle,
let’s just say, don’t really understand their fellow-colleague.)
And the company
wouldn’t work without its faithful stewards and comedic jesters, Gilfoyle and
Dinesh, who find more meaning in obsessively bantering with each other
about the most inane topics (like the pros and cons of letting some stuntman
fall to his own death) than in meaningfully connecting with someone sans technology.
Mike Judge has
found this season not only enough stakes to propel the story forward, but a
reason why this gang of misfits needs
each other to keep Pied Piper running smoothly.
***
Gavin Belson
puts a prick into the company’s immediate plans for finding a solid investor,
forcing them to get into business with the longtime billionaire Russ Hannemen (Chris Diamantopoulos),
the man who brought radio to the internet. He’s obscene, obtuse and unable to
process anyone’s ideas but his. (“Yes Russ, nobody asked you to buy $15,000 dollars
in brand-merchandise for Pied Piper, you obnoxious prick!” John Oliver probably
comments as he watches the show) He’s the type of guy that gives out fancy cars
as gifts… to himself! Judge has done well by bringing this macho-millionaire
into the fold, as a pointed juxtaposition to Middleditch’s self-deprecating, nerdy demeanor.
It’s rare to
watch a comedy with as tight as a dramatic construct as Silicon Valley – like Breaking
Bad, it's interested in exploring the way people are corrupted by power
and ego. The Richard Hendricks of Season 1 is certainly not the Richard
Hendricks of Season 2 – whereas before he was quieter, more timid and easily
flustered, now Richard has more of a handle on what he wants: recognition for
his accomplishments. He relies on Erlich’s often-grotesque behavior to achieve his
wishes, going so far as to deliver one of Erlich’s crude insults to a potential
investor with titillating glee and childish excitement.
Middleditch
works best in those moments of misplaced self-confidence, as we laugh at a man
clearly unable to interact in the most basic of circumstances. The bat of an
eyebrow, the feigned casual smile, the twitchy hands, the sly neck tilt – Middleditch not only deserves an Emmy for his performance, but he would
stand a good chance if he had the name recognition of somebody like Don Cheadle or Matt LeBlanc. The main source of comedy in Silicon
Valley comes from Richard's unbridled power, and his simultaneous inability to
communicate on a normal plane.
He is as
inadvertently mentored by Russ as he is by Erlich – even as he clashes with his
self-obsessed patron, he finds himself being influenced by his disregard for
others – which leads to some strong emotional outbursts. When Richard is mad, he isn’t the nice guy we want him to be: he attacks character and he gets
mean. After finding out that Russ rested his name-brand tequila bottle on one
of their keyboards, deleting the content of a potential Pied Piper client,
Richard lets him have it and it’s not as satisfying as you might think. His
inability to be direct or authoritative constantly allows
for these types of screw-ups to occur. Endearing as he is, poor Richard is incompetent as a CEO – even as he detests Erlich’s proprietary attitude
towards Pied Piper, he feels unable to commit to the task presented
before him, of truly owning what he has created.
Richard owns it most
when he wills its destruction in the penultimate episode's courtroom scene. It’s a significant moment
for his character, considering his previous rantings about how, as coders, Pied Piper must create and not destroy. The
Orientalist philosophy, however, doesn’t quite work for Richard when,
(half)-hearing the results of the trial (did he expect his honesty to really
pan out for him?), he texts his friends frantically to “destroy it all,” in
order to prevent Hooli and Gavin Belson from stealing his creation. Mike Judge
peppers Richard with just an ounce of the evil-genius genome in this
moment, showing us how twisted and repressed his mentality really is.
These meaningful
characterizations always rest alongside moments of spectacular comedy. Take,
for instance, the moment before the judge reveals the verdict, when Gavin is doing Richard's tie in the bathroom. It is a strangely
paternal yet also damning moment for Hendricks, as he steps into shoes
(or, to be more exact, fits himself into the tie) of a man he doesn’t want to
become. It’s also, perhaps, more indicative of the lack of social skills these
men have, that – even as mortal enemies – there is civility and cordiality.
After all, Gavin asks his guru if he’s surrounded himself with people
who only tell him what he wants to hear (newsflash: he has!) without even a
slight recognition of irony. It’s not that he’s necessarily evil, he’s just not
aware of what his environment has turned him into. His disconnection from the
daily grind at Hooli (a big theme this season) speaks to his overall
disconnection from the real world. Mike Judge’s characterizations are always
funny and absurd, but also true to character.
Silicon Valley wouldn’t work without the supporting
characters. Woods definitely wins MVP of the ensemble cast, as he consistently
steals every scene that he is in. He channels Middleditch and brings a looser vibe to Jared, the business manager of Pied Piper; every line-reading feels
like a peaceable deliverance to demonstrate Jared's amiable qualities. He’s more
like that friend you had in high school who just wanted everyone to get along
– he takes this start-up seriously, the opportunity to create something with
others as a spiritual calling rather than a financial one. His best scene finds him insistent that the two main females on the show –
Monica (Amanda Crew) and Carla (Alice Wetterlund) – get to know each
other. He’s trying to create a family, yet he’s not aware of how deep the
dysfunction (and sexism) really runs.
And then there's Miller, Starr, Nanjiana and so many others – Mike Judge has not only given each of these actors great comedic
material, but a place within the larger dramatic construct of the show. It’s a
perfectly calibrated alchemy. In the season finale, Erlich rediscovers
the thrills of coding, Gilfoyle and Dinesh save Pied Piper by being (gasp!) incompetent, and Bighead, Richard's hapless friend who Gavin drafted for Hooli, is as useless as ever, even if the very fate of Pied Piper (and Hooli) rests in his hands.
It speaks to the
Mike Judge’s concise vision of Silicon
Valley that, by the very end, Pied Piper’s streaming abilities are demonstrated to
the world by mere chance: a man falls down a cliff and is stuck for three days
in a remote cranny of a mountain, with nothing but the company's live feed to signal his location. As viewership increases, the Pied Piper clan rises to the
challenge, nearly leaving Erlich's house in flames to avoid the risk of the
losing the stream. It turns out well for them, and – with the trial over
– it all seems to be going their way.
But a stroke of
misfortune occurs: with the company saved, Monica's boss Jill (Suzanne Cryer) buys Russ out, and takes his two seats on the board. She promptly votes Richard
Hendricks out as CEO. It’s the twisted politics of the new American empire
playing out, as technically absurd as it is viciously hilarious.
Grade: A
Grade: A