S02.E10: Two Days Of The Condor

[ElectricBoogaloo]

SEASON FINALE!

 

As the guys await the verdict on Pied Piper’s fate, an unexpected real-life drama draws a spike in traffic to their livestream and leaves them fighting to hold things together – literally. While Erlich considers his future, Richard scrambles to save Pied Piper’s.

 

Promo:

[JTMacc99]

Heh. That's a solid preview, and it makes me really look forward to the season finale. (I may have to watch it before I watch GoT, because God knows what they're planning to do to my emotional state on that show.)

 

Dinesh [looking at his computer] "There are over 7,000 people watching this stream, and it's working flawlessly."

Gilfoyle [leg up on desk, hands crossed, watching a badly injured man suffering] "And the quality is great."

Edited June 11, 2015 by JTMacc99

[Primetimer]

It might lose style points every now and again, but this show sure knows how to stick the landing.

Read the story

[revbfc]

So the scene with Bighetti and Hendricks was misdirection? That's dirty pool. Still a great episode.

[chocolatine]

OK, I'm not a legal expert, but how does Raviga buy out Russ and fire Richard without so much as a board meeting? Pied Piper is a corporation, which means it has bylaws, and bylaws have pages and pages of rules about such things, and no decisions are ever made without board meetings, which have to be called weeks in advance and have all board members present.

 

Aside from the legal issues, they're shooting themselves in the foot by firing the person that invented the algorithm. The way this would have been done in real life is either by bringing in seasoned executives to support Richard in his CEO role (e.g. Sheryl Sandberg/Facebook), or by having Richard focus on the technology while a seasoned executive serves as CEO (e.g. Dick Costolo/Twitter). Either way, it would have happened over several months with Richard's full involvement, and not with an after-the-fact phone call.

Edited June 15, 2015 by chocolatine

[TVSallyS]

I was a bit confused too. I know what they have built so far is still worth a lot (taking the platform from Richard would have been worth tons to Huli even without Richard), but I thought Monica's boss made it clear she had huge admiration for the technical accomplishment. Richard is clearly a genius. And he himself kind of hates doing the CEO stuff. Why wouldn't they have worked something out without firing him immediately without consulting him? Have a meeting. Discuss the problems in management over the past few months. Give him support staff. The company is worth much less without him. Tons less. You go behind his back, buy board seats, and fire him without even warning or talking to him on the day of his victory, you have established yourself as an adversary. You risk him walking away entirely. And his team walking away. Then you are just a bunch of investors who own some digital material and a name? That's lives in Richard's house that he can delete? I don't know enough about board seats, investors, CEO's, etc to understand whether this rings true.

[henripootel]

Aside from the legal issues, they're shooting themselves in the foot by firing the person that invented the algorithm.

It wasn't clear to me that Richard really is fired (although he thinks he was), only that he was removed as CEO.  Alle-fuckin'-luia - he's a criminally bad CEO and since he presumably retains a big hunk of ownership, they'll make him rich.  They'd be fools to fire their biggest asset.  But since this show has started to key their plots on ridiculous nonsense, I guess we'll see.  Speaking of which ...

 

No lawyer me but that judgment sounded like utter shash.  There's one line in Richard's lengthy contract which might be bogus, and which has nothing to do with Richard's use of Hooli equipment, but this frees Richard from any and all obligations to Hooli?  And what was that shite about Jared's (possibly illegal but turns out legal) hiring away from Hooli that led to the discovery of PP's malfeasance?  None of this made sense to me.

 

Also, if PP had lost the case, is it even possibly legal to trash the system that is now legally theirs?  When it'd be easy to demonstrate that it was up and working fine right before the judgement?  And after Richard sent a recoverable text saying 'delete it'? Seriously?

 

Crappy episode but not their worst.  Here's hoping they get their swing back by next season.

[hincandenza]

Other than the "it can't all be rainbows" 'twist' ending of Richard getting fired, this was a happy ending all around.

 

They did say Riviga called an emergency board meeting, and since they have 3 of 5 seats, they are always in charge as a board.  Why they would even do that so soon is questionable, but they don't need to involve Richard or Erlich at this point.  Which is supposed to be bad... except Laurie was right.  Everything Richard did this season- including almost deleting his own fucking company after they'd won- was a nightmare.  He shouldn't be the CEO, although he still a) has the vast majority of stock (80-90%?) and b) would presumably be a kick-ass CTO, since that's his real skill.  I don't know what share Hanneman even had; he extended them a loan with an option to buy them out, so he had no apparent % stake, and never actually paid almost any of that $5M, so...?  But even if he had the same 5% that Peter Gregory initially bought in season 1, then if Russ was paid at least $15M to go away (putting him back in the three comma club) that translates to a valuation of PP at $300M, right now... of which Richard owns a good $250M worth, and technically he is still on the board.

 

Kinda makes getting fired a little easier to swallow.  For all his sad mopey face, dude is now likely worth a couple hundred million dollars in SV equity.

 

So that wasn't exactly a cliffhanger ending.  As I mentioned, if this season showed anything it's that he shouldn't have been the CEO anyway.  Maybe season 3 will mean PP is a thriving company, and has new challenges that don't have them staying in that same fleabag incubator yet another year (not sure what Laurie was hinting at beyond video; perhaps data compression licensing?).  And with what Gavin said to Richard in the bathroom about the board potentially forcing him to offer $250M to buy out PP, then Hooli under new leadership with Bighead will probably execute that plan to save Nucleus- or at least a lucrative licensing deal, since PP now knows Hooli is over the barrel.  That would push PP's paper valuation almost immediately into the three comma club. 

 

So I guess Judge & Co. are going to have to work extra hard next season to find hellish new ways to keep PP from succeeding...

Edited June 15, 2015 by hincandenza

[TVSallyS]

Can the board majority do anything to take away his 80-90 percent or otherwise screw him? If not then I guess that's motivation to keep working there to keep making himself rich, even if he isn't working as the ceo. And yeah he is a crappy ceo. I am just remembering the Facebook movie where some dude suddenly got diluted to nothing. I don't know how any of this works.

If running one test of one platform on a Huli computer was going to mean they owned the entirety of the current company, algorithm, and platform (when the test he ran was a test of his old technology and he actually built it on his own computer anyway), then I can certainly buy that the employment contract was rendered void due to an illegal clause. That's no more implausible to me than the rationale for him losing everything.

Edited June 15, 2015 by TVSallyS

[chocolatine]

It wasn't clear to me that Richard really is fired (although he thinks he was), only that he was removed as CEO.  Alle-fuckin'-luia - he's a criminally bad CEO and since he presumably retains a big hunk of ownership, they'll make him rich.  They'd be fools to fire their biggest asset.

 

 

As TVSallyS said above, even if he's not fired-fired, Laurie has needlessly alienated him (and probably also the rest of Pied Piper by proxy) by doing everything behind his back. She still needs Richard for Pied Piper to live up to its valuation, so screwing him over was a really bad move.

 

No lawyer me but that judgment sounded like utter shash.  There's one line in Richard's lengthy contract which might be bogus, and which has nothing to do with Richard's use of Hooli equipment, but this frees Richard from any and all obligations to Hooli?  And what was that shite about Jared's (possibly illegal but turns out legal) hiring away from Hooli that led to the discovery of PP's malfeasance?  None of this made sense to me.

 

 

I'm not a lawyer either, but my understanding is that an entire contract can be nullified if any clause of it is illegal. In this case, Hooli's non-solicitation clause went beyond what's legal for a normal non-solicitation clause, therefore making the entire non-compete (which is a separate document from the employment contract) null and void.

Edited June 15, 2015 by chocolatine

[ElectricBoogaloo]

I know I am going to hell for this, but it totally cracked me up that you could hear the condor guy moaning and talking to the camera in the background throughout the episode and everyone in the house completely ignored it (except when he said he was going to drink his own pee).

[ZoqFotPik]

I really liked that scene between Jared and Elrich. For a group that doesn't seem to like him very much and gives him a lot of crap, it was nice that someone acknowledged what he gave up to join Pied Piper.

[TVSallyS]

I adore Jared. I mostly watch for him (both the actor and the character/lines they give him). It's all gold.

[stanleyk]

I'm not a lawyer either, but my understanding is that an entire contract can be nullified if any clause of it is illegal. In this case, Hooli's non-solicitation clause went beyond what's legal for a normal non-solicitation clause, therefore making the entire non-compete (which is a separate document from the employment contract) null and void.

 

That at least was the in-show explanation (though I'm not sure they said the non-compete was separate; I thought it was a clause in the employment contract), but of course in reality it would be much more complicated. Most contracts have a clause saying that if one clause is found unenforceable, the rest of the contract still stands. So that issue would then have to be litigated. But the show's explanation was in line with the rest of the legal stuff (i.e., didn't make much sense, doesn't really matter).

 

But where the legal stuff did take me out of things was that this whole case was premised on Richard's contract with Hooli - all the lawyers in the case, from Hooli's fancy lawyers to Richard's can't-legally-call-myself-a-lawyer, would have gone over that contract line by line looking for ways to strengthen or invalidate the underlying case, so to have the arbitrator spring an issue that neither side raised is pretty unbelievable. 

 

I guess at this point I just have to accept that PP will never really get an unqualified win; I personally find it kind of exhausting to go through a whole season of the team getting shit on to have one semi-triumphant moment in the season finale. I'll keep watching, because there's enough funny stuff, but I suppose I just have to work that into my expectations.

Edited June 15, 2015 by stanleyk

[fastiller]

But where the legal stuff did take me out of things was that this whole case was premised on Richard's contract with Hooli - all the lawyers in the case, from Hooli's fancy lawyers to Richard's can't-legally-call-myself-a-lawyer, would have gone over that contract line by line looking for ways to strengthen or invalidate the underlying case, so to have the arbitrator spring an issue that neither side raised is pretty unbelievable. 

 

 

Picking a nit here:

 

I think that Pied Piper's legal adviser can call himself a lawyer, but not an attorney, since he's either been disbarred or suspended from the bar.

 

 

 

An attorney or attorney at law is also a lawyer. They have attended law school and presumably “practice” the study of law as a career. However, attorneys by definition have passed a bar examination and have been admitted to practice law in the particular jurisdiction.

From The Law Insider.

Edited June 15, 2015 by fastiller

[Should Be Working]

Not as good as the final S1 episode, but a redemptive finale for a disorganized and frustrating S2. Sure, Laurie's last-minute actions pretty much took the wind out of their short-lived triumph over Belson, But Judge takes peverse pleasure in doing the unexpected,toying with his audience, keeping them guessing (granted, sometimes to the point of tuning out).

 

Assuming he intends to do several more seasons of Silicon Valley, I'd hope that S3 is their breakout season, where Richard and his PP pirates are finally recognized (and properly rewarded) for being the technical visionaries they are. Which means that Laurie will probably keep them constrained on a tight leash all season long. But then again, Monica might use her charm and persuasive skills to intercede in their favor.

[Wouldofshouldof]

They need another D2F moment.

 

Just sayin'.

[CMH1981]

I felt the Judge wanted to rule in favor of Richard/PP but legally he couldn't, but while reviewing the contract he found this mistake and decided to use that as how to make the little guy the winner versus Hooli.  

[biakbiak]

I felt the Judge wanted to rule in favor of Richard/PP but legally he couldn't, but while reviewing the contract he found this mistake and decided to use that as how to make the little guy the winner versus Hooli.

I totally read this as Judge as in Mike Judge not the Judge in the arbitration and was confused because Mike Judge can write anything he wants laws be damned (as he has shown repeatedly), I then realized I should go back to bed. Edited June 15, 2015 by biakbiak

[Traveller519]

I felt the Judge wanted to rule in favor of Richard/PP but legally he couldn't, but while reviewing the contract he found this mistake and decided to use that as how to make the little guy the winner versus Hooli.  

That was similar to the situation I got as well. It was pointed out last week that the Arbitrator noted he appreciated humbleness, which was all too rare in Silicon Valley. And then Richard showed to be that humble, small guy when he testified. I believe (and this was no where stated in the show) the Arbitrator saw Gavin's lawsuit as more of the egomanical bullying he loathes. Gavin had built a case to lay claim to software that wasn't his, and had forced the litigation of such a point. PP's defense was based on the fact that Richard had not used their hardware to build PP, so when that fell through, that point was resolved. However, I think Monahan was shown to have played it right, but not going after Big Head on the stand. The Arbitrator sympathized with the little guy and took that into consideration in looking for a reason to give them the win.

 

I don't know that the show will ever be able to top last season's finale, but between the fire scene and the lemon scene there were some great laughs. These are the things the show does so well. As frustrating as the set backs are to the plot it responds to them really well with these items. They've had their wins and their losses. And I appreciate that through the latter half of the season the show figured out how to balance those two things better.

 

Ultimately this season was about the lack of direction that Peter's void left. Russ as a Surrogate lead failed miserably. Laurie showed the brass to take charge of the scenario and get things fixed up. She saw what we all saw, a good product being ruined by terrible strategic leadership, something all to common in business. Her methods were dire, but she also decided to apply the tourniquet before their next fuck up (They were close to opening the garage door to ventilate the servers for Christ's sake.

 

I believe next season will have Pied Piper in proper office space, with proper funding, and proper leadership. And Richard is going to hate it, because he wants things to be different and that reconciliation will be the biggest component.

[heatherchandler]

So the scene with Bighetti and Hendricks was misdirection? That's dirty pool. Still a great episode.

Was this in the promo? I didn't see Big Head (Bag Head) until the end.

Edited June 15, 2015 by heatherchandler

[DrSpaceman]

I enjoyed the finale and the whole season, even though I do find the legal issues and ruling a bit implausible.

Having someone else in charge of Pied Piper may not be such a bad thing. While everything worked out in the end, to truly make it big with the company they may need more experience and more input from a traditional company.

[jbrecken]

Pied Piper needs a new CEO and it looks like Gavin's out of a job...

[Cthulhudrew]

Wow.

 

The brilliance and comedic gold of "Optimal Tip-to-Tip Efficiency" and then the paint by numbers, faux angst of "Two Days of the Condor."

 

There were some funny moments this season, but they pale in comparison to the hilarity of the first, and are virtually indistinguishable from the mediocrity of the rest of the season. Gah. 

 

Hope they can get it together for season 3, but they'd better do it quick.

[Cthulhudrew]

Something else that really irked me (probably irrationally):

 

When Guilfoyle was tearing the place apart for the servers, and Erlich gets all pissy because "Not on the day I'm supposed to show the house!"

 

It was the SAME FREAKING DAY!!!

 

They didn't even bother to have the actors change their clothes. So, among the questionable legal issues thrown in just because they had to try and get the show to go the (not so amusing) way they wanted it to, I'm also supposed to believe that this Real Estate lady has buyers lined up less than a few hours after Erlich decided to show his house? C'mon, man. 

 

(Then again, this is Silicon Valley real estate, so... maybe.)

[chocolatine]

I'm also supposed to believe that this Real Estate lady has buyers lined up less than a few hours after Erlich decided to show his house? C'mon, man. 

 

That's actually the one thing that rang true for me. The real estate market in areas with a large tech presence - SF Bay Area, Seattle, etc - is absolutely crazy these days, and a lot of sellers do get multiple cash offers over asking price the same day they list. It was already competitive in 2012 when I bought my house, now it's just insane.

[tennisgurl]

 

I believe next season will have Pied Piper in proper office space, with proper funding, and proper leadership. And Richard is going to hate it, because he wants things to be different and that reconciliation will be the biggest component.

I hope that's the angel they go with next season, with Pied Piper becoming more of a successful company, and the guys having to deal with that. I feel like that would be a lot funnier than just watching them fail over and over again. 

 

Is Richard really fired, totally? I can understand removing him as CEO, but getting rid of him completely seems like a pretty terrible movie.

 

Overall, one of this seasons better episodes, but I wont miss this show like I did last season. I just hope the developments of this episode lead to a better season 3. 

[mojoween]

What was the point of the scene with Bighead and that guy who was at the food cart? Is Bighead going to end up CEO of Hooli?

[JTMacc99]

I do think they were foreshadowing Big Head getting moved up AGAIN at Hooli, which should lead to a lot of fun.

 

And I'm not sure anything bad can come from Richard being removed as CEO other than a little pouting as long as Monica has a voice in the decision making going forward.

 

However, putting those two thoughts together, what are the chances that Laurie doesn't listen to Monica, but does hear about this Bighetti guy over at Hooli and bring HIM in to be the CEO of Pied Piper?

[Curio]

While it wasn't as good as last season's finale, I laughed way too hard at Erlich smoking out of a watering can and the guys yelling at Jared to not put out the fire.

[EyesGlazed]

Jeff Drake, whaddaya mean "there is no real suspense" about deleting PP?!  I was on the edge of my seat!  Since this show loves setbacks for its heroes so much, I wouldn't have put it past the writers to make Richard & Co. have to reconstitute the whole thing.

 

I am interested to see what will happen to Big Head next season.  It would be hilarious if he became the CEO of Hooli.  Also, I love watching bad things happen to Gavin Belson.  Or, as someone posted above, maybe he'll be brought in as CEO of PP.  If he becomes CEO of PP, then Richard can go on running things from behind the scenes.  

 

I join in the Jared love.  He's awesome.  

[Traveller519]

Personally I never really felt like the stakes were all that high for them actually deleting Pied Piper. As much as the show loves showing the setbacks for these groups of misfits, killing it would not have really served any purposes, as you'd basically have them having to rebuild. That's what I found so funny about the Richard rushing back to the house/lemon for the beers scene. The show seemed to know it was going to work out, so they decided to send up the notion of the countdown clock cliche in so many movies. Kind of like how last year's "random thing that spurns a flash of genius" cliche evolved into the dick joke.

[SlappyBags]

Part of the Deal Richard made with Raviga was that Monica specifically was supposed to be the board rep.  So, unless that was just a throw-away line, that means Monica also cast her vote to remove Richard as CEO.  He isn't fired completely.  That would be idiotic.  Did Richard make himself sign a non-disclosure or non-compete agreement?  No.  If they fully fired him, he can just walk right over to Hooli and offer to sell them the algorithm for $250 million.

 

And the stakes WEREN'T that high about them deleting PP.  Richard wrote the core algorithm in one night.  I am sure he could do it again.

[morgankobi]

I was also on the edge of my seat during the whole delaying-the-deletion bit, but laughing the whole time ("lemon sniper") because at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if they had done that to PP.  Silicon Valley was oddly similar to GOT this season, in that they both had the good/better guys suffer defeat after defeat without much in the way of victories. 

[TVSallyS]

Also, I love watching bad things happen to Gavin Belson. Or, as someone posted above, maybe he'll be brought in as CEO of PP. If he becomes CEO of PP, then Richard can go on running things from behind the scenes.

While we may hate Monica's boss for what she did to our boys, she hasn't been painted as dumb in terms of her business decision making. Everyone appears to be talking about how Gavin royally screwed up everything for his company (illegal employment contracts, etc). He's being painted publicly as a disaster and liability. I can't see how she could think it would be a remotely sane or profitable decision to make him the face of of PP. Don't see how they could possibly explain her thinking if she did that.

[TVSallyS]

Part of the Deal Richard made with Raviga was that Monica specifically was supposed to be the board rep. So, unless that was just a throw-away line, that means Monica also cast her vote to remove Richard as CEO. He isn't fired completely. That would be idiotic. Did Richard make himself sign a non-disclosure or non-compete agreement? No. If they fully fired him, he can just walk right over to Hooli and offer to sell them the algorithm for $250 million.

And the stakes WEREN'T that high about them deleting PP. Richard wrote the core algorithm in one night. I am sure he could do it again.

Ok. You raise several questions here I am interested in because I don't know enough about this crap. Can anyone help? I also remembered that Monica had the seat and I was totally confused because I couldn't see why she'd screw him, even to please her boss and save her own job, so I figured he was safe as long as Monica was on the board. But then I immediately realized I was being stupid and she would not have had the power to save him even if she was in a self sacrificial mood, right? Obviously Monica doesn't personally own or control that board seat in perpetuity no matter where she works - Raviga got the board seat as part of their contract when they invested. Richard just said he wanted Monica to be the representative from the company who sat in Raviga's seat. So they probably made either a personal (or in writing) agreement that she would serve as the rep for Raviga's seat as long as she was an employee there. But if Monica started doing things to sabotage Raviga in her boss's mind, it's probably pretty clear she just would have been fired and replaced on the board with someone else immediately and they would have had a new meeting and voted Richard out anyway with their 3 votes. So, this really wasn't something she could prevent, so I doubt Richard or anyone would care that much about her voting against them since a vote in their favor wouldn't have helped anyway. We might find out next season how it all played out - whether she protested and this fact was conveyed to her and she decided to stay for the time being and cast her vote the way they wanted her to just to at least attempt to help advocate for Richard in some small way by sticking around instead of being replaced, or whether she got so disgusted she quit before the vote even though she had no ability to stop it anyway. They didn't show the full scene to us with her boss and I am assuming we will be seeing more of what happened with Monica and how she is reacting to or handling this next season.

[missy jo]

For me, Erlich Bachman is the show's saving grace, while Richard comes off as an annoying developmentally-delayed incompetent.

 

"You do not call a man a fool on the transom of his own home." Just the choice of the word "transom" sent me into giggles.

 

Also when ferret man said he was moving to New Mexico: "You'll be dead within a month."  The actor's delivery is priceless in that he can make something so mean, so funny.

[lucindabelle]

I loved when Ehrlich put his hair back, put on his carpal tunnel gloves, and began coding, felt like old times.

I really really wish they'd let this season end on an up note.

[morgankobi]

"You do not call a man a fool on the transom of his own home." Just the choice of the word "transom" sent me into giggles.

 

Also when ferret man said he was moving to New Mexico: "You'll be dead within a month."  The actor's delivery is priceless in that he can make something so mean, so funny.

"Transom" got me, too!