Silicon Valley: “Third Party Insourcing” Review

Richard brings in a hacker to keep Pied Piper on schedule, while Dinesh and Erlich vie for the attention of Gilfoyle’s new girlfriend.

(Credit: HBO)

Note: The following review goes into detail about the episode. SPOILER ALERT!

“Silicon Valley”’s hilarious send-up of the tech world continued this week in one the biggest (and best) episodes of the season. With the live demo approaching and Richard being off schedule, he’s finally convinced to bring in some outside help in order to finish parts of the software he doesn’t know how to code. That help comes in the form of Kevin (guest star Austin Abrams), a hacker who took down Bank of America’s servers and now consults for various tech firms. The opening, which had the Pied Piper crew walking through the office of a failed start-up to meet him, was hilarious, with smoking computers and furniture lying everywhere like it was a war zone. Erlich’s warning of “Don’t touch anything, failure is contagious” was perfect.

(Credit: HBO / Via: ReadWrite.com)

However, Kevin turned out to be nothing more than a gifted high school kid. I was initially wary of this, considering several other sitcoms have done the “young kid is better than the protagonist; they compete” thing before, and the concept is getting a little tired. While Richard and Kevin initially do have a rivalry, “Silicon Valley” wisely veers in another direction with Richard accepting Kevin’s expertise to the point where he has him helping out on his projects as well. This led to the best part of the plot, where Richard combed the neighborhood in search of Adderall in order to keep Kevin going.  While this too followed some well-trodden territory, the late addition of Erlich interrogating kids about where to obtain the drug kept the momentum going and provided some laughs along the way.

The B-story involved Gilfoyle bringing his new girlfriend Tara (Milana Vaytrub) to the house and informing Dinesh that for some reason Tara has a crush on him. Since her and Gilfoyle have a sort of open relationship, Gilfoyle gives Dinesh permission to have sex with Tara if he wants. Dinesh’s reaction to this is priceless and really showcased the talents of Kumail Nanjiani. I loved the bit where he has a pros and cons board with “Gilfoyle’s stupid face” written under cons. Erlich naturally hears of the proposal and cannot believe it, leading him multiple times to try and impress Tara. Much like Richard’s plot, this story wasn’t anything new, but it provided a good amount of laughs, especially when the four head to a Satanist meeting where free Chick-Fil-A is offered. (“It may be made by Christians, but the dark lord will understand.”)

(Credit: HBO)

Finally, Jared got an entertaining, if brief, C-story as his quest to get Peter Gregory to sign a check got him stuck in a world of automated machines. Riding home in Peter Gregory’s self-driving car hilariously had Jared speaking in his usual calm voice to it, saying polite things like “Hello, Mr. Car,” and due to a glitch he’s hilariously driven onto a barge which is then shipped to a warehouse full of more automated machines. This was probably the most cartoonish plot the show’s had, but it worked well in the show’s mantra of providing a humorous take on the tech world.

THE BREAKDOWN

Overall, this was a fine, although sometimes generic episode. Richard, Dinesh and Gilfoyle’s stories were entertaining, if a little familiar. Jared, on the other hand, got a hilariously absurd plot that I hope will get a follow-up next week. The characters are as entertaining as ever and as the live demo approaches, it’ll be intriguing to see how the crew handles it.

Did you enjoy the smackdown delivered by Erlich? Let us know in the comments below?