
Erlich was facing an amount of debt so large he had to sell his shares in Pied Piper. The reasons for the plotline with Erlich Bachman and Big Head began to become clear in this episode. I’ve been expecting a plotline about Dinesh and Gilfoyle being horrified to realize they’re best friends since season 1, but I couldn’t have predicted the sheer adorableness of Jared telling them, “Jinx! You owe each other a friendship!” At the end of the episode, Jared told them that they’re each other’s best friend which is exactly what I’ve been saying. Gilfoyle smugly hugging a man as Dinesh shakes his head in disgust is the scene I never knew I needed from this show.

This led to some fantastic bits, like the stand out scene when Gilfoyle made a friend just to spite Dinesh. As always, Dinesh was quickly karmically punished for making fun of someone else when he himself couldn’t think of any friends to send codes to. When Gilfoyle said that he doesn’t have anyone he trusts enough to send the beta to, Dinesh immediately mocked him for not having friends. Richard told everyone on the Pied Piper team that they get ten invite codes to send to people. The callback to “Runaway Devaluation” was thankfully not commented on and I enjoyed the subtlety, especially after last week’s clunky “Russ was right” callback. The best thing the main plot gave us was the return of Monica’s beige rejection outfit. (That said, I did enjoy the touch of setting the scene in a hookah bar because that’s how Monica spends her spare time). It was interesting to see Richard and Monica have their first real heart-to-heart since the season 2 premiere and it was definitely nice hearing Richard acknowledge how much he respects Monica’s opinion, but overall the conflict just lacked real punch. The only thing resembling an obstacle in this plot is the fact that Monica didn’t really like the website, but even that fizzles out quickly. The one exception is that Monica Hall doesn’t like it, but other than that the website is in good shape and the team decides to launch. He does, after some encouragement from Bertram Gilfoyle’s girlfriend Tara, and it gets almost universally positive reception.

The episode begins with Dinesh Chugtai urging Richard Hendricks to release the beta of Pied Piper. Its one real weakness was that there just wasn’t much substance to the main plot. This week’s episode of Silicon Valley didn’t have the adrenaline-pumping excitement I’ve come to expect from this show, but it was a solid entry with some good laughs.
