Silicon Valley 4.01: "Success Failure - Review:"
Directed by Mike Judge & Written by Alec Berg
Silicon Valley is back and back in fine form, establishing the new status quo and direction of the series following the fallout from Season 3 where Pied Piper was left heavily damaged as a result of its faked number scam, meaning that Big Head and Erlich are its owners with Richard being its CEO. But Richard is having problems as he wants to take the company in a new direction and doesn't fully believe in the project that he's trying to sell, which creates tension with Dinesh, who is already annoyed at being pushed to the limit on something that he then finds out that Richard doesn't even want.
Pied Piper itself has been rebranded as Piper Chat, which now deals in video tech having basically created their own version of Skype. At the start of the episode Richard is looking for people to fund the company to take it to the next level to the point where he's stealing Ubers to try and promote their brand, but they're being turned off by Pied Piper's chequered history. However they will support it if it reaches a certain threshold, which creates further problems. Richard decides to quit and leave Piper Chat, taking the name Pied Piper with him and his algorithm which he shares with Piper Chat. Much like Gary was the only one who supported Selina's decision to continue for President in Veep, Jared still wants Richard to remain on board having joined in large part because of Richard. However he's in a minority, as Gilfoyle, Dinesh and Big Head all want him out. The hilarious moment of the team preparing to surprise him by standing up just inside the front door only for Richard to arrive through the back was one of the best moments of the episode, perfectly timed with Jared rushing in later having waited outside in a bid to attempt to convince Richard to stay before he could hear what Gilfoyle, Dinesh and Big Head all had to say. Jared is promptly devastated by Richard's announcement that he planned on quitting anyway, leaving the group to part their ways on mutual terms.
It's going to be interesting to see how this develops and what happens to Piper Chat and Richard's new direction going forward in this episode. The premiere was mainly establishing the groundwork for what presumably will be the course of action for the season to come, as no doubt the escalation of both teams will bring each other into conflict at some point down the line. Will Jared be able to stick with Piper Chat for long or will he inevitably join Richard at some point? If Richard needs something from Piper Chat I can potentially see Richard exploiting Jared in the near future. But for now the two groups are on the same, good terms after mutual termination of Richard's role as he's replaced by Dinesh, who accepts the offer to become the new CEO. the fact that Richard was willing to seek aid from Russ Hanneman, someone who isn't particularly held in high regard, shows how desperate he's become, and Russ doesn't hold back on the metaphors, frequently resorting to crude ideas despite the fact that they were right outside an elementary school at pickup time. It turned out that Russ' son had already been dismissed from school, prompting his departure, but it was long enough for Russ to make his point about Richard, in that he needs to believe in his product. Both scenes for me, this scene outside the school and the one where Richard arrived home were particular standouts for me this week, and hopefully we'll be seeing plenty more great scenes like this going forward.
The episode itself is interesting because it marks that the series is taking a similiar approach to Veep in that Selina is also off in largely her own direction whilst the rest of the cast are separated doing their own thing. Hopefully Silicon Valley doesn't tread too many familiar beats to its sister series, but so far it seems to be proceeding with a greater sense of direction than Veep at least from this premiere which is a good thing.
It's also worth noting that we spent time with Jack Barker and Gavin Belson who have returned from China after pushing Hooli Endframe overseas instead of in the America. Jack Barker's actions on the flight home and the fact that he got to take a longer direction back to where he wanted to go before he could reach Gavin's destination was something that particularly irked Gavin who decided that something needed to be done and after having a man check around a dozen times which destination was the longer distance away, he came to the conclusion that the perfect response would be to send Jack where nobody could find him, to the back of a server room where the men's bathroom is clearly visible from his desk. So it looks like Jack is out of the way for now, but the question remains for how long.
Whilst not quite at the level of the premiere of the previous season, Success Failure was still a very strong episode that had plenty of great scenes contained within it. The characters are as fun as ever and this exciting new direction should be interesting to explore over the course of the rest of the season.
What did you think of Success Failure? Let me know in the comments below.
