S02.E04: The Lady

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Richard and Erlich disagree over a potential employee. Dinesh and Gilfoyle worry that someone they recommended for the company will be receiving more money than they make.

 

Promo:

[APSimpson]

Just got finished watching here on the west coast. Another enjoyable episode.

 

Funniest part for me was when they called up Big Head but instead called him "Bag Head". I was cracking up! Also, the redhead usher at that event I thought was really pretty and warm. She seemed to like Big Head too, so I hope we get to see more of her.

 

The conference at Russ' house was interesting. The "Lady" voice they used to get their kid in bed. I had to chuckle at the use of technology there that affluent people always seem to have. And the three comma painting referring to there being three commas in a billion dollars was clever.

 

The cyborg was funny, and I was secretly hoping they'd hire him but liked the twist when it was Russ who hired him. I like the new girl so far, she seems to fit in. And I always love scenes with Monica. This show is always a nice little treat on Sunday nights.

[chocolatine]

Has Jared (a.k.a. OJ) had a lobotomy? We know he's socially awkward, but he's also supposed to be uber-professional. The Jared from last season would know better than to bring up the candidate's gender in the interview, thereby opening the company up to *another* lawsuit. 

 

Funniest part for me was when they called up Big Head but instead called him "Bag Head". I was cracking up!

 

 

That was hilarious, I only wished the guy who played the lead scientist for hooli.xyz had been given some lines. I'm blanking on the actor's name, but I really liked him when he was on Mad Men.

 

Anything to do with Russ Hanneman is still falling flat for me. I wouldn't have so much of a problem with him being a douchebag if he were a fun douchebag, but (a) he isn't fun, and (b) we already have a fun douchebag in Erlich.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

I love that the new girl was just totally screwing with Dinesh and Gilfoyle. Buying a fake Dolce & Gabbana bag ahead of time was pure genius. She is going to fit in just fine.

 

I also found it amusing that Hanneman has no issue being a dick to other people but he wants to be his son's friend so he foists all the parenting onto faux Siri. Of course, in real life I would be horrified by a parent who refuses to actually parent because he doesn't want his kid to think he's mean, which is an all too common problem today.

 

Poor Big Head. He just wants to hang out on the roof and he somehow got sucked into being the co-dreamer of the new division.

[chocolatine]

Poor Big Head. He just wants to hang out on the roof and he somehow got sucked into being the co-dreamer of the new division.

 

He'll still get to hang out on the roof. The HR guy made it clear that the other co-dreamer wanted no involvement from Big Head. He'll just keep doing what he's been doing, but with "a significant pay increase, greater equity, more favorable vesting schedule", his own office, and an assistant. 

[hincandenza]

Well... this was an improvement at least, we're finally getting to the part where creating an actual company and hiring people has its own challenges, and thus new areas for comedy (I like the new coder so far). It's not like we're already halfway through the season, after all.

Still a lot of "wtf" behavior and situations, such as chocolatine's point about Jared never being dumb before about matters professional (excepting the pivot situation), or how a giant company like Hooli would have HR people whose sole job is to sit down with Baghead and explain the new changes and his new role and assistant before pulling him on stage or thrusting him in front of Wired for a public interview, and all the other little things that only make sense if we presume the whole cast have become almost braindead. It's also not hard to get office space, and it's absurd to still be staying at a disgruntled Erlich's house.

I don't get the point of Hanneman, how they got into such a shitty contract, how they seem almost oblivious to his attempts to destroy the company, or why they aren't taking more of a stand. The swag thing was put to a vote at least, the first sign of actual business decisions this season... but couldn't we have just skipped the lawsuit and VC funding issues and Hanneman, and been here much earlier, with PP trying to compete as a growing startup?

[ElectricBoogaloo]

I can't believe I am taking Erlich's side on anything, but I have to agree about wide spoons not fitting into the filling side of Fage yogurt cups. It's so annoying.

[BusyOctober]

The more I see of the Russ Hanneman character the more I'm convinced the actor is trying to channel Jeremy Piven.  The beard, the toolishness, the chewing of the scenery in every conversation...

[Should Be Working]

Using Season 1 as a standard of reference, I'm still disappointed with Season 2. The show seems to be all over the place now, with too many character changes and lame story lines crammed into its short half hour running time. To top if off, it's beginning to reek of PC.

• As mentioned previously, Jared/OJ's clumsy and inarticulate welcoming meeting with Carla was totally out of character. He seems to be the shape shifting chameleon of the show, his competence and skill set constantly changing to suit the needs of a given episode. Started Season 1 as the business plan genius, turned into a complete zombie after being hijacked to Peter Gregory's international dateline island (no doubt due to massive sleep deprivation), and now he can't even welcome a female new hire in a professional manner.
• I obviously missed it, but how did  Hanneman's moron girlfriend get a seat at the PP board of director's table, thereby doubling his voting power?
• Glad  that Jared the Cyborg took the job offer from Hanneman. Too weird a character, even for this show, who would have totally messed up the coder pool dynamics. Carla shows promise as a female version of Gilfoyle.
• If they couldn't write a worthwhile story line for Erlich for this episode, they should have sent him on another vision quest in the the Sierra Nevada. He's too talented and important a character to waste on yogurt/berry spoon rants and other time-wasting hissy fits.
• Please spend more time on product development and less on the PC, Erlich's and Chen Yang's language barrier, and Hanneman's tiresome over the top antics. These guys obviously need to work their asses off to build a successful beta product. It doesn't have to be boring. Create some classic Dinesh/Gilfoyle/Richard (and now Carla) interplay. Do something entertaining like Season 1's episode with the Carver. Stop wasting time dwelling on lame characters and trying to skewer political correctness with a mallet and spend it instead showing us how these guys actually build and get a successful product to market. Just make us laugh in the process.

[justjen]

I just figured Donald's* sudden incompetence with Carla was that she's a woman and he just can't communicate with women. I was honestly much older than I'd like to admit when I could talk to any male without blushing and being embarrassed regardless of the professionalness of the situation...

 

(I insist on calling him by his first name since that is the name he seems to prefer. I would call him Batman if he preferred that...)

[Traveller519]

This was a brilliant episode.

 

I think it addressed the male-dominated cast critique of the first season well through the running commentary on benefitting from adding a women, but it needs to be the right person, and all the best if it's a women, but it's great if she is a woman, but..." Trying to explain the situation from all sides. Glorious. And I think Jared captured it well. And of course the new Engineer is a lady, and shown to fit in perfectly with the screwing with one another nature of the group.

 

So of course the show is called "The Lady" but also reference's Russ's in home technology, where he also has his girlfriend vote his extra vote, while Monica is shown to be the one person on the board that knows how to walk the equation.

 

Then to tie it off, there's jilted Erlich who tries to regain some feeling of control by his interactions with Jin Yang, mirroring what's going on with Russ and his girlfriend, but as usual it's Jin Yang's outward and forthrightness that ends up exposing Erlich's insecurities.

 

Excellent examination of the Gender relationships of the show.

[Primetimer]

Bow before my many corners!

Read the story

[hincandenza]

I love that Fage writeup!  I have the same experience; at a previous tech job, they'd have the greek yogurt with Honey ones, and it was such a love/hate relationship.  I loved the taste, but hated the painstaking scraping of honey into the yogurt from that little extra section, followed by feelings of guilt for how ridiculously wasteful that packaging is.

 

That's the kind of thing that SV is best at: these little almost Seinfeldean observations about the tech world.  Far too little of that on display this season, but at least this last episode was a step in the right direction.

[chocolatine]

 

• I obviously missed it, but how did  Hanneman's moron girlfriend get a seat at the PP board of director's table, thereby doubling his voting power?

 

Hanneman's investment bought him two board seats. The votes were both his, he just had her pretend to vote for his own amusement.

[JTMacc99]

Anything to do with Russ Hanneman is still falling flat for me. I wouldn't have so much of a problem with him being a douchebag if he were a fun douchebag, but (a) he isn't fun, and (b) we already have a fun douchebag in Erlich.

I am hoping that it is the incompatibility of the two douchebags is where this pays off.  Most of Erlich's interactions with Russ have gone poorly for Erlich. At some point I would like to see Erlich come out on top as the sole remaining fun douchebag, and for everybody to be happy about it.

 

I liked the introduction of the new character very much.  Anything that makes D&G mildly uncomfortable has always been good stuff. The fact that she has the upper hand from the day she walked through the door is a great way to start.

[GrrArrgh]

I kept squinting my eyes and half looking away during the kid scene because surely, a house that has a robot nanny voice the child is afraid of is also a house that has floors that will electrify a noncompliant child. When this did not happen, I was simultaneously relieved and disappointed.

[hoodooznoodooz]

Just a nitpick. Ehrlich lectures the Asian tenant/engineer for throwing cans into the compost recycling bin. He tells him that he should put cans into another bin. I visited my sister in California about two years ago. Aren't there separate bins for cans/plastic vs. paper/cardboard?

[ElectricBoogaloo]

It depends on where you live. Some cities just have one recycling bin per house where you can dump plastic, cans, paper, etc. and it all gets sorted at the recycling center. In my very hippie California neighborhood, the only thing that has to be separated is green waste (lawn clippings, leaves, tree branches).

Edited May 7, 2015 by ElectricBoogaloo

[WicketyWack]

It's scary to think how many parents out there would install The Lady in a heartbeat. 

Loved Carla f*cking with D&G, dropping one more "Cunty" into the scene with Jared, and his reference to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.