riprock

Monica is a named partner?! As far as I know the only thing she's done is invest her own money in Pied Piper and serve on their board in her capacity working for Laurie. In contrast, at least Erlich working at the new firm has some grounding, seeing that he created Pied Piper's (failed) Series B round out of nothing and he runs an incubator. On the other hand, Laurie has only treated him with disdain. This setup doesn't feel hilarious or promising. I like the idea of Richard having to work with a "boring" company, but this part of the plot is decidedly not a satire of the real Silicon Valley: there's nothing specific to the valley about accounting companies or affairs. Remember the server farm? The box? The porn company? This feels so uninspired. I did like Russ peeing in Jian Yang's car and the sight gag of Jian Yang eating cereal behind Gavin's picture, then shuffling off without a word. The Dinesh / Gilfoyle storyline better not be over here. Dinesh is the software guy. The cloud must have Gilfoyle's dirty laundry somewhere.

I want character development for Monica so much, as she's the only regular who doesn't get anything to do. But am I really supposed to just go with the fact that she's so bad at corporate politics that she's taking Erlich's advice on how to deal with her boss? She has almost no agency. Laurie is so right when she says she hasn't given her any actionable advice. "Fourth child?" jared erupting all over the blood boy stole the entire episode. Gilfoyle has really been reduced to walking snark and meta-commentary, and it's getting stale.

I am terrifically excited that she won, but part of me cannot get over how ultimately pointless this all would have been had she not pulled it out. So I am just a little suspicious. It was a fast-paced episode, with a lot of the human side of Iron Chefs Symon and Morimoto being shown (Symon throwing out his pasta; Morimoto asking cutely for fish as the last secret ingredient). And of course, Stephanie herself nearly blowing the 2nd challenge and struggling with the ice cream machine. There was a lot less time for snark from Alton. Tense and engaging. Seemed like the Iron Chefs were a little rusty, what with all the comments about just being back in the kitchen. Stephanie had the advantage of practice. Nevertheless, she definitely deserved it, and the respect and congratulations from the assembled Iron Chefs struck me as genuine. Can't wait to go to one of her restaurants.

All the talking heads that Nakajima was getting had me convinced he was getting the winner's edit. I really wanted one of those skewers! loved the color and plating on Nakajima's side, and not really sure about chicken liver ice cream ever being yummy. All three remaining chefs express so much self-doubt in their interviews. Is that all they ever talk about? It just makes me uncomfortable.

I was very excited to see Laurie in the opening bit, before the HBO logo, where all the actors try to emulate the HBO hum. She didn't have to be there. It gave me hope that she would again appear this season.

Man, I'm a little confused. Was there an S3 plot point when Barker became a Hooli employee? The last thing I remember is he and Gavin getting on separate planes to Jackson Hole. Dinesh's comeback to Richard about the platform having failed despite it being exactly what Richard wanted cut really deep. It rang with frustration, rejection, and just a hint of animosity, both on personal and professional levels. I kind of hope Russ Hannemann is in for the season, but also don't want it to be a retread of his S2 appearance. Maybe he needs his own storyline? the guys' bathroom gags (twice!) were too funny.

I am still eagerly awaiting some freaking sustained character development for the new characters. Hopefully Maia transforms into something more watchable over the break and they give Barbara something to do. The case of the week stuff is usually interesting, but it's not what keeps me thinking after the show is over!

I was a little confused by the flashback device while Maia was being interviewed. We're supposed to think that Maia is reclaiming her memories, but then the Jane Lynch character points out that much of what Maia is saying isn't true. So what are the flashbacks for? There's no in-episode explanation. And I give this show more credit than to use flashbacks as expositional tools. There's too many times on this show and on TGW when we've needed to suss out whether a character is telling the truth or not. Hopefully the season finale is satisfying, because there's not much momentum from any of the storylines. They haven't done any new character development (Adrian, Barbara, Maia, Lucca), and I think the window may be closing.

Promo monkeys want us to think Kimberly is going home next week. So, she's safe. Maybe it is Paulie's turn! I think his exit interview will be riveting like the idea of changing up the challenge going into black jacket time, but the third challenge really lowered the difficulty by basically letting them just pick whatever they wanted to make.

As pleased as I am that Matt is kicked out, I would feel remiss not to point out that Devin is skeezing out all over Ryan, which feels gross and off-point. I don't get Wendy. She has the chops, but gets lost in group situations. Guessing that she gets fairly close to the final You'd think the blue team would be overjoyed to have Ryan's skills on their side, but noooo...

Koop got robbed. No one on the blue team really disputed that Paulie kept asking for more time on his lamb, which blew the ticket. And if they're supposed to always have one spare lamb ready to go (a surprising policy; I would have thought Gordon would insist that the lamb be just finished, given how much emphasis they put on how food "dies" at the pass), then he blew that part of his job too.

Watching Ramsay pulverize salmon is unusually mesmerizing.