SILICON VALLEY – Live-action comedy developed by Mike Judge; rated TV-MA; airs Sundays on HBO; 30 minutes. Episode 1.2: “The Cap Table” (original airdate, April 13, 2014). Directed by Mike Judge; written by Carson Mell (6 out of 10)
The story so far: Richard Hendrix (Thomas Middleditch), Big Head (Josh Brener), Gilfoyle (Martin Starr), Dinesh (Kumail Nanjiani) are four programmers working out of Erlich Bachmann’s (T. J. Miller) incubator on various projects. Hendrix’s project, Pied Piper, includes a lossless algorithm that could change all digital media as we know it, allowing for quicker streaming and less space needed for storage. This begins a bidding war between philanthropic rebel billionaire head of mega-corp Hooli Gavin Belson (Matt Ross) and angel investor Peter Gregory, who offers less money but allows Hendrix to retain ownership of the company. Ultimately, they decide to keep control of the company for themselves and go on their own, turning down ten million dollars offered by selling the product outright to Hooli.
In this episode: The boys have a “launch party,” which is really just them sitting around in front of laptops, until Erlich calls “Mochachino,” a stripper, whom he then forces Richard to pay. And who else shows up, but Jared Dunn, the personal assistant of Gavin Belsom, who is interested in joining the company.
After a disastrous meeting with Peter Gregory, Richard realizes he doesn’t know the first thing about running a business and calls Jared to help him put a business plan together. The roommates then squabble over how many shares each of them should get, and everyone craps on Big Head.
Best lines:
“You look like somebody starved a virgin to death.”
“Did you just take a sip from an empty cup?”
“That’s why he’s a billionaire. He knows how and why to be an asshole.”
“You’re like a Norse hero from Valhalla.”
“He’s as useless as Mass Effect 3’s multiple endings.” “Mass Effect 3? That’s harsh.”
“So, what are you– the VP of spite?”
Final verdict: 6 out of 10
While hard to live up to last week’s stellar premiere, this episode mostly just moved the plot and characters forward. That’s ok, as it needed to happen so we can get good episodes going forward. It’s still a good indictment of the ridiculousness that is the culture of the startup world. TJ Miller continues to dominate this cast, especially with his rousing speech about the importance of being an asshole.
CAST:
Thomas Middleditch as Richard Hendrix, T. J. Miller as Erlich Bachmann, Zach Woods as Jared Dunn, Kumail Nanjiani as Dinesh, Martin Starr as Gilfoyle, Josh Brener as Big Head, Christopher Evan Welch as Peter Gregory, Amanda Crew as Monica, Angela Trimbur as Langdon