Richard sitting at his desk in Silicon Valley
By
Ben Sherlock
Published 33 minutes ago
Ben Sherlock is a Tomatometer-approved film and TV critic who runs the massively underrated YouTube channel I Got Touched at the Cinema. Before working at Screen Rant, Ben wrote for Game Rant, Taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop. He's also an indie filmmaker, a standup comedian, and an alumnus of the School of Rock.
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Silicon Valley is one of the best and most rewatchable TV comedies in recent memory. It’s one of the most well-plotted sitcoms of all time, and there’s no dead weight in the cast; everyone in the ensemble is hilarious in their own way, and brings their own unique energy to the table.
But, while Silicon Valley’s six-season run definitely holds up to a rewatch, it’s not all roses. When you revisit the show, there are some harsh realities that stand out.
Silicon Valley Takes A Few Episodes To Find Its Voice
Gilfoyle calculating mean jerk time in Silicon Valley
One of the most common issues with revisiting a TV show is that they usually don’t find their feet until midway through the first season, and that’s the case with Silicon Valley. The show’s satire of the tech industry arrived fully formed, but it took the writers a few episodes to settle on a comedic voice and figure out the best way to utilize their characters.
There were flashes of brilliance, like Jared getting kidnapped by a self-driving car, but it didn’t become a true comedy masterpiece until its season 1 finale. The combination of complex mathematics and a crass discussion of “jerk time” encapsulated the show’s signature mix of highbrow subject matter and lowbrow humor. It gave Richard the epiphany that led to “middle-out compression,” the driving force of the series.
Richard Gets Worse And Worse As The Series Goes On
Richard talks to Big Head in Silicon Valley
When we first meet Richard Hendricks in the pilot episode, he’s a meek, timid nerd who’s completely unsuited to the cutthroat business world. That was the ingenious comic conceit behind the character: he was a whiz kid when it came to the tech, but he was hopeless when it came to selling that tech to investors or negotiating with corporate rivals.
But as the series went on, Richard became more and more insufferable. He got increasingly selfish and demanding. He fired Jared, jeopardized Big Head’s job, and pretty much became a monster in his ruthless pursuit of success. He would expect unwavering loyalty from his friends, but didn’t give any in return.
Silicon Valley Has Almost No Female Representation
Monica at Tech Crunch Disrupt in Silicon Valley
The characters in Silicon Valley are all hilarious — Gavin Belson is a spot-on spoof of unscrupulous, self-aggrandizing billionaires; Martin Starr mastered dry, deadpan line readings in the role of Gilfoyle; and Big Head failing upwards never got old — but almost none of them are women. The show’s female representation is practically non-existent.
The only woman in the main cast is Monica Hall, who basically just acts as the “straight man” to the guys’ wacky antics. The series tried to address its dearth of female representation when Pied Piper hired a female coder, Carla, and Jared tried to force her to become friends with Monica. But this arguably made it worse; it just highlighted the show’s lack of representation.
The Bigger Pied Piper Gets, The Less They Feel Like The Underdogs
The Pied Piper offices in Silicon Valley
In the first few seasons of Silicon Valley, it’s a story about David going up against Goliath. This ragtag group of engineers working out of a garage take on the giants of “big tech.” The unlimited resources of companies like Hooli and Endframe are no match for the intellect and tenacity of the Pied Piper team.
But as Pied Piper gets bigger and bigger, they feel less like the underdogs. When they have a big, lavish office space and hundreds of employees answering to them, they essentially become the thing they were fighting: a soulless corporation. In the story of David and Goliath, David didn’t become Goliath at the end.
Jian-Yang Stole The Show
Jian-Yang looking off-screen in Silicon Valley
All the main characters in Silicon Valley are hilarious in their own way — whether it’s Laurie Bream’s robotic social skills or Jared’s milquetoast facade masking the trauma of a very rough life on the streets — but Jian-Yang stole the show. In season 1, he was introduced as Erlich’s most troublesome tenant, burning trash and leaving fish-heads in the sink.
But as the series went on, Jian-Yang developed into Erlich’s arch-nemesis, then became a full-blown Bond villain. He faked Erlich’s death, made himself his next of kin, and ruled over the incubator with an iron fist. The writers always came up with something delightfully diabolical for Jian-Yang to be doing, like recruiting children for an illegal click farm, and Jimmy O. Yang nailed every single deadpan delivery.
Silicon Valley's Shortened Final Season Feels Rushed
The Pied Piper team at RussFest in Silicon Valley
After an eight-episode first season, Silicon Valley got confident 10-episode orders for its next three seasons. But season 5 was shortened back to eight episodes, and the sixth and final season was the shortest of the entire series with just seven episodes. When you binge-watch the show, you can really feel the truncation of those last couple of seasons.
Those seasons have the highest stakes — Richard destroys Hooli, Laurie teams up with a Chinese manufacturer to take down Pied Piper, and PiperNet becomes too powerful for its own good — but they have less time to tell those stories. Silicon Valley’s final season, in particular, feels rushed. Just when it gets going at RussFest, suddenly it’s all over.
Jared Meeting His Biological Parents Never Gets Any Less Heartbreaking
Jared meets his birth parents in Silicon Valley
Throughout the series, Jared often alludes to his difficult childhood. He was state-raised, he bounced around from foster home to foster home, he was homeless for a while, and he never really had anyone to call family before joining Pied Piper. In season 6, episode 4, “Maximizing Alphaness,” Jared finally meets his birth parents — and it goes horribly.
They’re the coldest, most callous people in the world. They gave him up for adoption to streamline their airport routine, then had a whole litter of kids almost immediately after, and worst of all, they have no plans to introduce him to his siblings or even acknowledge his existence. It was unfair for a show this silly to include a scene so utterly heartbreaking.
Silicon Valley Was Never The Same Without Erlich
Erlich standing with Big Head in Silicon Valley
After the fourth season of Silicon Valley, T.J. Miller left the show and his character Erlich Bachman was written out. Gavin abandoned him at a Tibetan opium den, which would either allow the character to return at some point or be resigned to a mysterious fate. Unfortunately, the latter happened and Erlich never came back.
Erlich was one of Silicon Valley’s best characters, and he brought a very unique energy to the ensemble. He’s a brash, overconfident loudmouth, but all that bluster is just a cover for his deep insecurities. Erlich was an interesting counterpoint to Richard and the perfect foil for Jian-Yang. Silicon Valley was never the same without him.
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Silicon Valley
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