5 Magical Moments of Goodness from the Silicon Valley S2 Finale, “Two Days of the Condor” 

Oh man. Silicon Valley ended its second season with a painful cliffhanger. Painful for Richard, that is. After everything the boys of Pied Piper have been put through this year — and make no mistake, they’ve had to overcome a ton of obstacles both self-inflicted and from outside forces — you’d think things would go out on a high note. Nope. There’s one last heartbreak Richard and the guys have to endure.

Richard: “I just got fired.”
Erlich: “And what about me?”

Raviga, a company that’s been on the periphery all season long, exerted its influence when the time was right. Richard defeats Gavin in the Hooli vs. Pied Piper lawsuit. It’s all up from here, right? Wrong. Unfortunately, Laurie’s quick thinking and lack of faith in Richard, leads her to buy up all of Russ Hanneman’s interest in Pied Piper. That means Mr. “3 Commas” is back in the billionaires club and Raviga secures the majority on the board, which enables them to vote Richard out as CEO.

Poor Richard. I wonder what all of this will mean for him next season. He probably thought he could breathe for one second. That he could let this victory over Gavin soak in for a while. But in this world, rest is for the weak. He can’t sit back and relax. Figuring out his next move has moved up on his agenda. Just thinking about all of this exhausts me.

5 Moments of Goodness

The Philippines turns the Museum Tech’s bad luck into a meme. Jared’s call into the museum to see what’s up with the Mama condor’s egg domino’d into this viral video event. Where’s there’s a viral video, there comes a meme. Someone in the Philippines capitalizes on the agony this guy goes through after falling off the cliff and turns it into a meme complete with a guitar serenade to his pleas for help. It’s nowhere near as good as the perfect theme song on Netflix’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. However, I feel bad for laughing at this guy’s rotten circumstances. I mean, the rescue takes so long he has to drink his own urine. But the scenario’s hilarious, it shows exactly what Pied Piper’s made of, and it results in another favorite moment involving Erlich that I’ll get to in a bit.

Gavin helps Richard with his tie. I’m not going to say this is a feel good moment at all. In fact, Gavin’s smugness knows no bounds. But when the two rivals are in the bathroom right before the verdict announcement, the last thing I thought I’d see is Gavin helping Richard with his tie. It’s weirdly paternal or smacks of a bro moment. Belson proceeds to quickly ruin the conversation by first bringing up the fact that Richard’s blackmail attempt came at an opportune time. The Hooli CEO was about to go back to the board to ask for 250 million to buy Pied Piper out. As douche-y as he comes off, he’s not an idiot. He admits that Nucleus could only work with Richard’s algorithm. He then dangles a ten million dollar offer and immediately takes it back. He loves to rub people’s failures in their faces. And then tries to find someone else to take the blame when he’s the one doing the failing. Gotta love Gavin.

Erlich changes his mind about selling his house and then gets to coding. When Erlich’s ferret-loving neighbor sells his house for a good price, he decides that’s a good move for him, too. But then the whole condor egg disaster with the museum tech becomes huge (Manny Pacquiao even tweets the link to his two million followers) and things get “magical.”

By the way, I don’t think I want to be privy to what goes on in Jared’s brain. He has this optimistic streak a mile long, calling what they’re all going through “magical” and “intoxicating” one second and then making reference to suicide pacts the next. While Erlich’s real estate conflict flashes in and out of the action in 2.4 seconds, I do love the moment when he tells Louise the real estate lady off:

Erlich: Madam, do not call a man a fool on the transom of his own home. A home that happens to be the world headquarters of a company keeping streaming video of a man whois about to drink his own urine online for tens of thousands of Filipinos. Does that sound like foolishness to you? So you can tell your clients respectfully that they may go f–k themselves.

And despite initially rejecting Dinesh’s pleas for coding help, he changes his mind and dons his old gloves — Carpal Tunnel Syndrome be damned! Bachman codes like there’s no tomorrow. Dinesh has this impressed look on his face, which only happens when a hot girl is around. And I am completely impressed. I didn’t know he had it in him. It was a sexy moment for Erlich. Don’t judge.

Richard wins the lawsuit. Everything looks dire. Richard confessed he used Hooli equipment to help develop his algorithm. That one time threatens to ruin everything he’s ever worked for. The judge, who I like a lot because in last week’s episode was supremely impressed with Big Head’s humble nature, seems to come down on the side of Hooli. It’s so bad Richard texts Jared and tells them to delete everything. If he can’t be the one working tirelessly to make his compression algorithm the next big deal in the tech world, no one should be able to. Then the turn happens.

The judge apparently paid attention to every detail. In Jared’s Hooli contract, there was some language that prevented him from going to work for the competition. Well, that’s illegal. Richard’s contract when he was at Hooli had the same language, leaving his employment contract null and void, meaning his agreement with Hooli was never valid. Hooli has no claim to Pied Piper’s intellectual property. It’s fair to say my head hurt a little listening to this legal mumbo jumbo. Upside is Richard wins. Hooli gets nothing. Downside is that text of doom which ordered the guys to delete Pied Piper. Ruh roh.

The race is on. Okay, anytime there’s a comedy of errors preventing a character from phoning pertinent information to specific parties, I roll my eyes. I mean, Richard’s phone ran out of juice. He couldn’t remember the numbers of his friends (I’m kind of on board on that one, we don’t have to actually punch numbers in anymore). The email he tries to send goes straight to the spam folder. And back at Erlich’s “manse” (it’s a manse in his mind), the guys hesitate to delete Pied Piper. They decide to share one last toast but since it’s wheat beer, they need to go out and pluck the lemon off the ferret-loving neighbor’s tree; they have to go back to the tree when the lemon they pick is bruised. And when Richard finally shows up at the house, that’s when Gilfoyle presses the key. Thanks to what Gilfoyle claims is Dinesh’s shoddy coding, the algorithm is safe. I love how this all goes down, mostly the stuff that goes on at Erlich’s. Not as much the stuff that goes on with Richard. But it doesn’t matter. The company is in business. Too bad there’s that last hiccup regarding Richard being replaced as CEO of Pied Piper.

Some Questions

-What’s going to become of Gavin Belson? I can only imagine there’s no way to save his job.

-Belson’s guru takes an interest in Big Head. Does that mean Big Head will end up taking over all of Hooli if/when Gavin gets fired? That scares me but it’s something I want to see. I love how he keeps stumbling upward.

-Erlich proves he’s more than just an incubator for these guys. Was his coding relapse a one-time thing?

-Will Dinesh and Gilfoyle ever compliment each other on what they bring to the table? All they do is put each other down. Honestly, I’m loving their little rivalry. And I’m loving Martin Starr’s Gilfoyle more and more every episode.

-How much are things going to change with Raviga at the helm? Who will be the next CEO? Once again, I’m afraid. Not just for Richard’s sake but also, I wonder if things will move out of Erlich’s house. I love it there.

Okay, let the painful hiatus begin. Let’s hope the show and the guys earn some Emmy love — especially in the acting categories. They deserve it. I loved Season 2 of HBO’s Silicon Valley.

New episodes of the hit comedy will return in 2016.