S06.E07: Exit Event

[ElectricBoogaloo]

SERIES FINALE!

Quote

Richard and the Pied Piper team look to pull off a spectacular feat on the day of a big launch.

Promo:

Original air date: 12/2/19

[chocolatine]

I didn't mind the ending, even though the premise of an AI that taught itself how to break every encryption algorithm and remotely drive a car is preposterous. A traditional happy ending wouldn't have worked for this show. I just wish they had told us why Laurie Bream was in prison.

Small nitpick: when Dinesh came to the roof door, the one that said "authorized personnel only", it had a clearly visible, active badge reader, i.e. the door couldn't have been opened without a badge.

[link417]

The series finale was the best episode of the season, by far. Makes me sad the series is over, but it was a good way to end it. (“The ending we deserve,” even!)

Loved Monica bodychecking Jian Yang, and that Gilfoyle and Dinesh went into business together. I want a Golden Girls reboot starring Dinesh, Gilfoyle, and John.

Fucking Gabe, man.

Loved that Laurie somehow ended up in prison, and acclimated quite nicely. Her quip about figurative rats being dealt with was great.

Hey, the snack dick logo made it to the billboard!

[Aulty]

The show got a bit repetitive over the years but they rounded it off with a strong finale - retrospectively it almost affirms that everything that has happened, even the annoying bits, happened for a reason. I have no complaints.

'10 years on Gilfoyle' looked like a skinny Witcher.

Of course Monica would go and work for the NSA. Thats my girl.

How nice that they got Bill Gates to do a cameo in the final - he has done a few very small guest appearances over the years and his delivery is always pretty good. TVline has an interview with one of the show's producers and apparently Bill Gates is a fan and has consulted them on the show.

[Eyes High]

I did laugh at this bit from the TVLine finale interview with Alec Berg. I guess T.J. Miller really burned his bridges there:

Quote

TVLINE | Was there any effort made to get T.J. Miller to make a cameo?
None.

I read a Fortune post-finale interview with Mike Judge and Alec Berg, and apparently the rat thing came from a tech consultant talking about someone in their building using a sonic pest repellent and their apartment being flooded with fleeing rats and bugs. They also made clear that the rat bit wasn't something that was planned from the beginning of the show or anything.

Laurie always seemed like someone who would end up on top no matter what shady business she was involved in, so I was surprised by the reveal that she was in prison (and for something pretty terrible, since the orange jumpsuit is used for medium/high security prisons, as Berg said).

Edited December 9, 2019 by Eyes High

[qtpye]

35 minutes ago, Eyes High said:

I did laugh at this bit from the TVLine finale interview with Alec Berg. I guess T.J. Miller really burned his bridges there:

I read a Fortune post-finale interview with Mike Judge and Alec Berg, and apparently the rat thing came from a tech consultant talking about someone in their building using a sonic pest repellent and their apartment being flooded with fleeing rats and bugs. They also made clear that the rat bit wasn't something that was planned from the beginning of the show or anything.

Laurie always seemed like someone who would end up on top no matter what shady business she was involved in, so I was surprised by the reveal that she was in prison (and for something pretty terrible, since the orange jumpsuit is used for medium/high security prisons, as Berg said).

I think the real story of Silicon Valley is how the at the first break out star of the series destroyed his own career in such a short amount of time. The man was in Deadpool for Christ's sake.

I agree the finale was satisfying. The show no longer was the smart take down of tech culture. It kind of became stale to watch these guys keep failing and the reasons for them failing started to become unbelievable. 

For five seconds I thought they were going to reveal that Gilfoyle and Dinesh were a romantic couple.

I also love the way that Pied Piper was such a giant tech disaster but was already forgotten by the upcoming generation in less than a decade.

The truth is very few of us will change the world or be remembered but it does not mean people should stop striving.

The ending reminded me of the way Halt and Catch Fire ended, which I mean as a compliment.

Bye Silicon Valley...glad you went out with a little dignity...unlike some other shows.

[Carolina Girl]

There was a part of me that wanted to see Richard become the anti-Gavin - a rich, rich, tech billionaire like Steve Wozniak - that took his money and did great things. 

[Corgi-ears]

I never thought I would see and hear someone on TV sing a karaoke version of:

[kicksave]

Sorry to see this show end...great ending and loved seeing the aging Pied Piper gang and where they landed after the end of their company. It is sad that TJ Miller wasn't a part of the ending, especially since he was the first member of this ensemble that became a break out star of several movies. He really did burn the house down after he left with several interviews where he dissed Thomas Middleditch and the creative team. I think he kind of blew up his career with his obvious substance abuse issues and all the bad behavior that got him into trouble with a lot of different things including the Feds. Hope to see all of them in other shows, movies, etc...

[walnutqueen]

I will miss this show - I really did enjoy it from beginning to end.  It is one of the few shows that could make me laugh out loud, and that's something I need more of in my life.

[Chippings]

We rated this episode Pretty Much Perfect.  Could not have come up with a better resolution 10 years out for everybody -- the cherry on top of the sundae being Big Head being president of Stanford University.  (Kind of like Peter Sellers' character in "Being There" -- so much simple idiocy can take you far.)  As noted above, it would've been nice to know how Laurie ended up in prison, but like Big Head's story it's something to muse about on a cold winter evening.  

[tennisgurl]

Even after a few rather "meh" seasons, this was a really good finale, and probably one of the best episodes the show has done in ages. Loved seeing where the Pied Piper crew all ended up, loved seeing them at the old house again, love that Dinesh and Gilfoyle founded a business together, love that Monica is working for the NSA, love that Jared is working at a senior center, it all wrapped up really nicely. In the end, despite their frequent skirting the edge of decency, the gang made the right choice, and while they arent the billionaires they dreamed of being, they did make the world a better place, even if no one knows it, and things seemed to have more or less worked out. 

Laurie being in jail isnt that surprising, although I am kind of amazed she didnt find a lawyer to get her out of whatever she did. She doesent have much in the way of morals and ethics, so I am not shocked that she crossed too many lines. Should have taken one of Richards classes! 

Pied Piper being taken down by rats really is just perfectly poetic. 

T.J. Miller...just such a cautionary tale about getting ridiculous amounts of money, fame, and success in such a short amount of time, and then crashing and burning almost immediately. Yeah, I dont blame them for not wanting to give him a call. 

Fucking Gabe, man.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

I loved that Guilfoyle's outgoing voicemail ends with "and fuck you, Dinesh."
 

[RealReality]

I didn't really love the ending, but in reading all your replies I guess I appreciate it a little more.  

To me, the show was always a little unrealistic and fun, so it might have been nice to see them accomplish their goals.  

I DID think it was interesting that a decade after their sacrifice at the  launch debacle......the daughter from Stanford was using AI.......so, since everyone has forgotten rat-ageddon....if middle out compression is developed again the same thing they tried to avoid could happen.  

Also, are we to assume jian yang has that orange thumb drive with the original code on it?

Oh well - off to read up on TJ Miller.  I had no idea about all this.  I had assumed his career was going so well he had turned down being in the finale.....which seemed a little petty to me.  But I'm shocked it was the other way around and no one even asked. 

Edited December 10, 2019 by RealReality

[MaggieG]

I thought this was a great finale as well. I liked seeing what everyone else was up to and happy to see Dinesh and Guilfoyle still working together. And Monica at the NSA! Of course Gavin is still writing those romance books. Of course Jared is working with the elderly.

Was Bighead always this clueless? I feel like he was somewhat smarter in the first few seasons. I laughed at the docu people explaining the reason his nickname was Bighead was because of his last name, not his actual big head. His face was priceless.

I had read up on the TJ Miller debacle so I didn't think they would ask him back. When they said Jin Yang was dead and the docu people got to "Erhlich's" house, I knew Jin Yang would be there. So are we to assume Jin Yang went to Tibet, killed Ehrlich and assumed his identity?

I LOL'ed when Jin Yang told Monica to get on her broom and fly away.

Edited December 10, 2019 by MaggieG

[AAEBoiler]

I thought it was a satisfying finale. I liked the call-back to Peter Gregory from Season 1 - RIP Christopher Evan Welch. I really liked his character and it was a shame that he passed away.

[opus]

Was that ball/thing they were tossing around at the end from early in the series? I don't remember it.

[RealReality]

35 minutes ago, opus said:

Was that ball/thing they were tossing around at the end from early in the series? I don't remember it.

I remember it from earlier seasons

[Bcharmer]

I didn't remember the ball thing, either. I was curious.

[heatherchandler]

On 12/10/2019 at 11:37 AM, AAEBoiler said:

I thought it was a satisfying finale. I liked the call-back to Peter Gregory from Season 1 - RIP Christopher Evan Welch. I really liked his character and it was a shame that he passed away.

I missed it, what call-back?

On 12/10/2019 at 12:11 PM, opus said:

Was that ball/thing they were tossing around at the end from early in the series? I don't remember it.

I remember them during a few early season episodes with the "always blue, always blue, always blue."  I never understood what they were doing though, so now I see it is a ball that changes color.

[Aulty]

13 hours ago, heatherchandler said:

I missed it, what call-back?

In his presentation before the big (fail) launch, Richard thanks his mentor Peter Gregory and you can see a picture of him in on the screen in the background

[ElectricBoogaloo]

The Piper Net final build party:

The reunion:

[BuyMoreAndSave]

On 12/9/2019 at 1:16 AM, chocolatine said:

I didn't mind the ending, even though the premise of an AI that taught itself how to break every encryption algorithm and remotely drive a car is preposterous.

The show didn't go into this for some reason (probably too complicated for a comedy show) but really the only way it would be possible is if the AI had proved that P=NP (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P_versus_NP_problem)

I guess that's what TVTropes would call a "Genius Bonus" (my husband being the one who told me about this while we were watching the episode...and then gave a very long explanation of P vs. NP and its implications afterwards LOL.)

However in real life there's a good deal of evidence pointing to P!=NP.

Edited December 15, 2019 by BuyMoreAndSave

[link417]

2 hours ago, BuyMoreAndSave said:

The show didn't go into this for some reason (probably too complicated for a comedy show) but really the only way it would be possible is if the AI had proved that P=NP (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P_versus_NP_problem)

I guess that's what TVTropes would call a "Genius Bonus" (my husband being the one who told me about this while we were watching the episode...and then gave a very long explanation of P vs. NP and its implications afterwards LOL.)

However in real life there's a good deal of evidence pointing to P!=NP.

The show didn’t go into it, but they did have a scrum board with a “p=np” post-it in the “Done” column, LOL.

[Bcharmer]

On 12/13/2019 at 2:13 PM, Bcharmer said:

I didn't remember the ball thing, either. I was curious.

I rewatched the very first episode last night. It ended with them playing the "always blue" game. I guess that just did not stick in my memory... I barely remembered the first episode, at all. 🙂 

[BuyMoreAndSave]

12 hours ago, link417 said:

The show didn’t go into it, but they did have a scrum board with a “p=np” post-it in the “Done” column, LOL.

Hahaha I didn't notice that! My husband actually got kind of mad that they didn't discuss P=NP, I have to tell him about that!

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Ten Years Later: The Extended Pied Piper Documentary

 

[Prower]

 

On 12/9/2019 at 7:16 AM, chocolatine said:

I didn't mind the ending, even though the premise of an AI that taught itself how to break every encryption algorithm and remotely drive a car is preposterous. A traditional happy ending wouldn't have worked for this show. I just wish they had told us why Laurie Bream was in prison.

Yeah, that bothered me, but less than I was expecting. I guess I swallowed so much bullshit over te course of this show, that this was just a blip on the radar.

Still, it's dumb. With enough computing power I guess it's realistic that the system cracked one key in a few days or weeks, but not crack the entiry encryption standard.

Also even though nobody really knows how or why AIs do things, you can tell them specific things not to do. That's not that hard. In this case it would have been "don't touch encryption".

Also also, the dot being missing is not proof that encryption was broken, so they probably should have only noticed after launch. The piper software is running on the phones, which means it can edit the message before it is encrypted.

On 12/9/2019 at 3:06 PM, qtpye said:

For five seconds I thought they were going to reveal that Gilfoyle and Dinesh were a romantic couple.

Well, they basically are an old married couple. Including the not having sex with each other.

On 12/10/2019 at 4:37 AM, tennisgurl said:

T.J. Miller...just such a cautionary tale about getting ridiculous amounts of money, fame, and success in such a short amount of time, and then crashing and burning almost immediately. Yeah, I dont blame them for not wanting to give him a call. 

Don't forget the brain damage. The brain damage probably helped. Which makes it kinda sad, honestly.

On 12/10/2019 at 4:58 PM, MaggieG said:

Was Bighead always this clueless? I feel like he was somewhat smarter in the first few seasons. I laughed at the docu people explaining the reason his nickname was Bighead was because of his last name, not his actual big head. His face was priceless.

Jared hinted that Bighead might have early onset dementia, which would make sense...

[auntiemel]

On 12/10/2019 at 7:22 AM, RealReality said:

Also, are we to assume jian yang has that orange thumb drive with the original code on it?

I just assumed that not keeping close track of it was just one final Richard doofus move. 🙂

[Tachi Rocinante]

• Finale was OK.  The completely inconsistent aging makeup on the actors was laughable, though.
• I also want to know what Laurie did.  White collar criminals don't go to prisons like that.
• No TJ Miller was no big deal.  The character was a self-unaware douchebag and his story had run it's course. (I don't think TJ was a "breakout" star, either.  He had been doing high-profile voiceover work and was in a few other shows before this one.)
• Nice to see John from Hooli working with Dinesh and Gilfoyle.
• They dumbed-down Big Head a little too much.

[Tachi Rocinante]

Just re-watched the first few episodes, and man, they dumbed-down Big Head a lot. He was at least competent and aware.