S03.E05: The Empty Chair

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Quote

Richard lets his ego get in the way at an interview; Dinesh, Gilfoyle and Jared misplace hardware; Erlich pitches his plans to Big Head.

Promo:

[PinkRibbons]

I have to say it was a great treat to finish an episode without something new and horrible arriving just when I thought everything was finally alright.

[Accidental Martyr]

Why didn't they just get a new hard drive and switch it with the old guy's?

[PinkRibbons]

52 minutes ago, Accidental Martyr said:

Why didn't they just get a new hard drive and switch it with the old guy's?

Because Gilfoyle enjoys being a dick. I'm pretty sure what you say is what Dinesh thought the plan was.

[RabbitEars]

After a couple of hilarious episodes, I was disappointed. Most of this was weak sitcom plot writing for yucks. Ha ha, Big Head is NOT instantly suspicious of Erhlich. Richard is NOT in the right room. Guilfoyle is NOT excruciatingly careful with hard drives. Every character turned into the densest possible version of themselves. 

Except Jared. Of course he's friends with many elderly people. Shit, he should have been the one to go to the old fellow's house to retrieve the hard drive. He probably could have sweet talked him into giving up some antiques to sell to raise capital. 

Edited May 23, 2016 by RabbitEars

[Accidental Martyr]

33 minutes ago, PinkRibbons said:

Because Gilfoyle enjoys being a dick. I'm pretty sure what you say is what Dinesh thought the plan was.

Sure, but it seems like it would be pretty easy to figure out who he was. It would be much simpler, easier and safer just to switch it out with a new one and not risk getting arrested. 

But that wouldn't be as funny.

[RCharter]

I didn't think it was funny to ruin the hard drive, its not his fault that you accidentally sold him the hard drive.  Hard drives are like what....200 bucks?  Why should the old man have to be out the money because you two made a mistake?  I guess it was supposed to be funny, but I think it would have been more amusing had Guilfoyle drilled the hard drive, but left another one (a new one) on the counter.

[chocolatine]

Well, it was Chekhov's drill - it was mentioned in the beginning of the episode, so it had to be used before the end.

Why were the media coach and the blogger waiting for Richard at the same time? Wouldn't it have made more sense to have the coaching an hour or so before the interview?

Poor Jared. I figured he must have experienced some trauma in his life when he talked in German in his sleep about how he was going to sneak up on someone and slit his throat, but I didn't expect it to be CPC-level bad.

It was made very clear when Big Head was let go from Hooli that he had to sign a non-disclosure/non-disparagement agreement to get the $20MM severance, so is Gavin going to sue him now? I'm worried that spilling the Hooli beans to the blogger and signing the deal the Erlich are going to spell an end to his lucky streak.

Edited May 23, 2016 by chocolatine

[hincandenza]

4 hours ago, PinkRibbons said:

I have to say it was a great treat to finish an episode without something new and horrible arriving just when I thought everything was finally alright.

Preach it.  It's funny, I had that same thought: "Well, at least the writers sort of learned their lesson, and now at least the completely implausible screw-ups resolve themselves by episode's end", so at least this time I wasn't ranting and raving angrily after watching.  But as RabbitEars says below, that just makes it more cliched sitcom.

As a fun side note, I was reading through and literally ended up clicking "Like" on every single post in here.  Turns out, I like kvetching about the show with you guys more than I like the show itself! :)

 

3 hours ago, RabbitEars said:

After a couple of hilarious episodes, I was disappointed. Most of this was weak sitcom plot writing for yucks. Ha ha, Big Head is NOT instantly suspicious of Erhlich. Richard is NOT in the right room. Guilfoyle is NOT excruciatingly careful with hard drives. Every character turned into the densest possible version of themselves. 

Except Jared. Of course he's friends with many elderly people. Shit, he should have been the one to go to the old fellow's house to retrieve the hard drive. He probably could have sweet talked him into giving up some antiques to sell to raise capital. 

Yeah, I've been in tech for about 21 years now, and outside of a couple of hilariously wacky characters I met in my earliest years doing Windows 95 tech support I've never encountered anyone as impossibly dumb, naive, or gullible as these characters.  Since the hard drive thing didn't go anywhere (and I was actually worried when they first mentioned it that somehow, all of PP's code would leech to the web and instantly make it a free, open-source platform), it was literally just filler as a B plot.  Which is fine, some of my favorite comedies of all time would have entertaining but ultimately meaningless B-plots.  What makes the show frustrating is that they never learn from even their most glaring mistakes; this marks the what, 873rd time the PP code or algorithm has been at risk of being leaked/stolen/copied/deleted?  And still not patented, I see... *le sigh*.

And agreed, Jared is Love.  I'm sure I've said this before, but I hated his character on "The Office" and yet I simply adore him here.  He is less masochistic whipping boy than he was in season 1, and now just a goofily weird but interesting dude.  And while they never acknowledge it verbally, the truth is the other characters don't really make fun of him at all, and whenever he speaks- they immediately listen.  Richard's ego aside, Jared would make the best CEO out of all of them, since he knows the ins and outs of SV finance well, has shown almost unwavering business competence throughout the show's run, and is fiercely devoted to the company.  And given the foreshadowing (as much as this cocktease of a show can ever foreshadow anything) of the previews with Bachman once again saying "past, present, and possibly future CEO" about Richard, who knows...?

 

1 hour ago, chocolatine said:

Well, it was Chekhov's drill - it was mentioned in the beginning of the episode, so it had to be used before the end.

Why were the media coach and the blogger waiting for Richard at the same time? Wouldn't it have made more sense to have the coaching an hour or so before the interview?

Poor Jared. I figured he must have experienced some trauma in his life when he talked in German in his sleep about how he was going to sneak up on someone and slit his throat, but I didn't expect it to be CPC-level bad.

It was made very clear when Big Head was let go from Hooli that he had to sign a non-disclosure/non-disparagement agreement to get the $20MM severance, so is Gavin going to sue him now? I'm worried that spilling the Hooli beans to the blogger and signing the deal the Erlich are going to spell an end to his lucky streak.

Right- gliding right over why this wasn't done ages ago given his now-acknowledged insanely poor conversational skills, you'd at least have him meet and train the day before, not at literally the same time.  Was their plan to make sure the reporter was pissed at being left sitting there for an hour?  Of course Richard said "I'm not a fucking idiot" and then didn't even establish who the person was, especially since he would have known the reporter was in the building.  He'd have seen both entries in his calendar, what with them having scheduled the training and the interview at the same time.  Since the show has apparently turned over a new leaf of not having multi-episode dickpunch plotlines, I think that too was resolved with the tit-for-tat trade.

I also had the same thought about an NDA with Hooli and a potential clawback of that money, but we can (hopefully) fanwank that he was an anonymous source, and Gavin will more likely blame it on any of the other Nucleus employees he fired (or the 1/5 of overall staff cuts).  Bighead was let go before Gavin insisted on the scrubbing, and his phrasing in that interview was "... and then they told me to my face that Gavin..." so he's clearly quoting one/some of the Hooli people with whom he was friends, further lessening the connection to him as the source.  The reporter was a online muckraker, but even so would probably not burn a source; if anything, a failed intimidation of her to do so would only get her more clicks on her blog/site when the Hooli story blows up.  Unlike PP, Hooli is actually fairly competent at the day-to-day business stuff, and they'd know better than to be so heavy handed once the story broke. 

That said, with this show, you never know what will be a meaningless side point, and what will be the next season-long existential crisis for one or more of the characters.  At this point, I'd rather this show just churn out fairly amusing but empty sitcom episodes rather than be a sadistic voodoo doll for Mike Judge to continue working out his long-standing hatred of the tech industry.

[Should Be Working]

So they've spent six episodes of Season 3 rehashing the end-of-Season 2 news that Richard had been fired as CEO and demoted to CTO, replacing him with the eagerly-wooed and well-compensated moron Action Jack with his PP metal box obsession, fired Action Jack, had Laurie pretend to be looking for yet another CEO so that an upset Richard could almost blow it all with a valley tech blogger, and here we are, finally, with Richard back as PP CEO once again.

Oh, and nice touch for the team to gloat about how little they were paying the new overseas programmers while those programmers were setting in on the video conference call. And, for the final fitting comic touch, we get Richard doing battle with the CEO chair, which seems to sense that he is not qualified to sit in it. 

It just keeps getting better and better. 

[ElectricBoogaloo]

ITA - Gabe on The Office sucked, but Jared on Silicon Valley is so much more endearing (even though I initially thought the characters would be really similar and that I would therefore dislike Jared).

Like many of you, I wondered why they didn't just replace the hard drive? And I don't mean when Guilfoyle showed up at the guy's house pretending to be part of the Geek Squad either. When they initially called the person who bought it, all they had to do was offer to give her a brand new one in exchange for the one she had and I'm sure she would have been fine with it. I know that if that happened to me, I would have gladly given back something used for something new. But instead of even thinking to lay out all of $200, Guilfoyle decided to sneak in and destroy it.

Similarly, once Richard realized that he had just spewed a vitriolic rant to a reporter (instead of PR), he just let her walk out. If he had just grabbed her phone and then deleted what she recorded, that would have at least destroyed any record of what he said which would put them in a he said/she said situation. Instead he let her just walk away and then he chased her into the parking lot and tried to talk her out of writing the article. I guess at least in that situation, I'm more willing to believe that he just panicked and wasn't thinking straight. But in both cases, the most obvious immediate solution was ignored in favor of something else that seemed risky and stupid.

[lovinbob]

She would have been able to write the story without the recording.

Proving that I think too much about TV, I was thinking how Jared would be a great boyfriend for Kimmy Schmidt. And then I remembered that on The Office, Zach Woods's Gabe dated Ellie Kemper's Erin and was a total douche to her. But Gabe and Kimmy could make a great team -- esp. since she's into the PTSD thing and all.

[riverheightsnancy]

Ok, Richard is the reason Xanax was created. Geez, the guy needs to calm down a little. His hysteria and constant screw ups is not funny when it is on 10 all the time (or "11" for Spinal tap fans). ;) 

[scrb]

Would Judge's ultimate satire be that these bumbling characters in the end all becomes famous and rich?

But they'll keep tripping over themselves for a few seasons in the mean time?

The easy satire would be to show all these characters saying all these lofty things about producing something cool and something that makes the world better but in reality be driven by money.  That's certainly a valid criticism of many tech executives or "visionaries" and startups today.

But maybe the ultimate joke would be that middle-out ends up being something entirely inconsequential but the guys become rich.

Edited May 23, 2016 by scrb

[Grumpbump]

This show has become the equivalent of Three's Company.  When I realized that Richard was spewing to the reporter,  not to the coach,  I turned to my husband and said,  "He's channeling Jack Tripper".  

[Maysie]

When Richard started throwing his fit about not being CEO during the opening of the episode I found myself thinking "for fuck's sake: you're never going to be CEO of anything if you keep acting like a dick about everything when you don't get your way." So I was happy when he decided to actually behave like a CEO and take control of the situation. That was smart and I needed/wanted to see that from Richard because his bumbling bullshit only goes so far. It kind of went off the rails for me when he blew it with the reporter. I guess it makes sense because I don't expect him to mature overnight and become a great (or even good) CEO, and I think it says a lot about his character, but it just didn't work for me, for some reason. It seems to be more of the same with all of them - one step up, two back. It's making me think that this show should have a pretty limited shelf-life - probably about the lifespan of one of the unicorns the show lampoons. It's going to get tiresome to see this go on continually.

Jared had the best lines of the night. It occurred to me that he would be an interesting choice for CEO because he does seem to understand the business side of it in a way that Richard doesn't, and he understands that it's important to let tech do its job. I think that could be an interesting watch - seeing this guy who's sleeping in the garage, etc. become the leader of the pack. I'm not real interested in watching Richard dick around with CEO/CTO duties and all the hilarious mishaps and hijinks that are sure to ensue because the two jobs can be at odds with each other.

And I know I'm in the minority, but Bighead bores me. It seems his biggest purpose is to provide a reason for Ehrlich.

[Accidental Martyr]

10 minutes ago, Maysie said:

When Richard started throwing his fit about not being CEO during the opening of the episode I found myself thinking "for fuck's sake: you're never going to be CEO of anything if you keep acting like a dick about everything when you don't get your way." So I was happy when he decided to actually behave like a CEO and take control of the situation. That was smart and I needed/wanted to see that from Richard because his bumbling bullshit only goes so far. It kind of went off the rails for me when he blew it with the reporter. I guess it makes sense because I don't expect him to mature overnight and become a great (or even good) CEO, and I think it says a lot about his character, but it just didn't work for me, for some reason. It seems to be more of the same with all of them - one step up, two back. It's making me think that this show should have a pretty limited shelf-life - probably about the lifespan of one of the unicorns the show lampoons. It's going to get tiresome to see this go on continually.

I've got pretty much the same feeling. Sooner or later Pied Piper has to get up and running or not. How long can they drag out the "almost getting off the ground, but....not."? It seems like at some point they're going to have to move on to a new storyline if this keeps going on and on.

[sjankis630]

I have never been a fan of the whole stoner humor going all of the way back to the Cheech and Chong days.

But Erlich coughing through his whole attempted explanation of why Hooli challenging them in their own back yard could potentially help them made me laugh outloud.

[candall]

3 hours ago, Grumpbump said:

This show has become the equivalent of Three's Company.  When I realized that Richard was spewing to the reporter,  not to the coach,  I turned to my husband and said,  "He's channeling Jack Tripper".  

That was exactly the sort of pickle Jack Tripper would have bumbled his way into.  And that's why Jack Tripper revolutionizing the communications industry would have been a reach no one bought.

[RCharter]

1 hour ago, sjankis630 said:

I have never been a fan of the whole stoner humor going all of the way back to the Cheech and Chong days.

But Erlich coughing through his whole attempted explanation of why Hooli challenging them in their own back yard could potentially help them made me laugh outloud.

For me, it was like three too many coughs.....I really just wanted to jump through the screen and give him a glass of water towards the end.

[KnoxForPres]

4 hours ago, Grumpbump said:

This show has become the equivalent of Three's Company.  When I realized that Richard was spewing to the reporter,  not to the coach,  I turned to my husband and said,  "He's channeling Jack Tripper".  

That's exactly what I thought. Though I fear I may have to see your Tripper and raise you (gulp) Screech. That's how predictable and stupid I found that scene.  

They did get me. I predicted BigHead saying "Whole Foods" and liked "I've got a fruit guy". 

I did appreciate them not making the overseas guys sound stupid. That would have been the easy and their intros sounded normal/educated. When that would have been an all to easy gag too. 

[biakbiak]

They telegraphed the scene with the reporter to much because the receptionist pointed in the other direction when she said she was waiting in the "small" conference room so I knew he was talking to the reporter before he even walked into a clearly large confrench room.

[Hootis]

Wellp.  So much for the big Internet Haversack horseshit.  Turns out they are all fools, with only the sitcom gods to protect them.

[Subrookie]

I really want to like this show, but it's getting hard. I read the theory here after the Meinertzhagen's Haversack episode that the whole skunk works plan could have been smoke and mirrors to throw the CEO off, but as usual that theory was smarter than the show writing.

Take the Richard walking into the "small conference room". The second he said he knew where it was I knew exactly what was going to happen and when he started to talk I knew it was the reporter he was talking too. There's so much unrealized opportunity in this show. I can't just watch Richard lose over and over again.

[hincandenza]

It's worse than just him losing; when I watch a quirky little boutique show like Hulu's "Deadbeat" (which I binged on a month or so ago), or when I was into "Trailer Park Boys" some years ago,  it's not that surprising when the leads- who are meant to be fairly dim stoner types- make dumb decisions.  That's who they are as characters, so we laugh at their stupidity because we're in on the joke.  

The Richard Hendricks character is a tech genius, and his supporting team- including Jared, Erlich, and even Monica- are not remotely dumb either.  While that's not a guarantee he'll be smart about other things, he's so consistently stupid and reckless about every interaction that his character is a walking paradox; we can't believe any more that someone this dumb could have ever invented middle-out.  Three seasons in, he hasn't learned to just shut the hell up, and consult his smarter friends before reacting to everything like a hyperactive toddler throwing a fit.  How did he even get a job at Hooli, when presumably his interview loop consisted of him screaming incoherently at random people, completely misunderstanding every question he's asked, and then eventually soiling himself?  Heck, his closest friends have so little faith in him, his first act as CEO was... to find out they went behind his back and hired an entire outsource team.  Nice job being CEO, dipshit.

The only way any of this makes sense is if Mike Judge and his writing staff are so irrationally and profoundly hateful of the entire tech world that they can't imagine anyone in it being remotely competent.  The first season was brilliant satire, in part because it poked fun at how SV is full of actually smart people who have- due to market forces and tech bubbles- channeled their energies into ultimately useless fluff: the idea that the best minds of our generation aren't curing cancer or working on nuclear fusion, but instead on finding the best way to make you click an embedded ad.  The Cult of Silicon Valley is ripe for satire, for believing that they are "changing the world" with some of this crap, or their myopia for anything other than their own narrow culture and way of life.  However, the last two seasons have abandoned that for something that is little more than "Ow, My Balls" levels of poking fun at the social awkward tech dummies, har har.

Edited May 26, 2016 by hincandenza

[Should Be Working]

13 hours ago, hincandenza said:

The only way any of this makes sense is if Mike Judge and his writing staff are so irrationally and profoundly hateful of the entire tech world that they can't imagine anyone in it being remotely competent.  The first season was brilliant satire, in part because it poked fun at how SV is full of actually smart people who have- due to market forces and tech bubbles- channeled their energies into ultimately useless fluff: the idea that the best minds of our generation aren't curing cancer or working on nuclear fusion, but instead on finding the best way to make you click an embedded ad.  The Cult of Silicon Valley is ripe for satire, for believing that they are "changing the world" with some of this crap, or their myopia for anything other than their own narrow culture and way of life.  However, the last two seasons have abandoned that for something that is little more than "Ow, My Balls" levels of poking fun at the social awkward tech dummies, har har.

I agree with your assessment of the very promising start with Season 1 and the noticeably disappointing letdowns of Season 2 and, so far, Season 3. I can only guess as to what's going on, but I'm not so sure it's due to the producers' disdain for the tech world, including the software engineers who drive it. We know Mike Judge spent some time in tech back in the 1990s and hated the experience on a number of levels. His first tech industry satire (1999's Office Space) focused all its venom on the self-absorbed and incompetent managers at IniTech and their heartless outside consultants, not the engineers, who it cast in a rather sympathetic light. The movie had some great characters (Gary Cole's Bill Lumbergh, Steven Root's Milton Waddams), but not much in the way of incisive or compelling story telling.

So what else might explain the post-Season 1 letdown? Well, the tech industry has changed significantly in 15-16 years, and you'd have to be immersed in the middle of it to really understand all of its 21st century foibles, not writing and filming from Los Angeles and occasionally contacting tech experts for advice. Perhaps a large part of Season 1's success was simply due to the eminently watchable genius and strangeness of Christopher Evan Welch's billionaire Peter Gregory, With his untimely passing just before the season's end, the show suddenly had to rely entirely on Judge and company's creative story-telling skills to keep up the momentum. They failed, and a previously promising show prematurely jumped the shark.

Edited May 25, 2016 by Should Be Working

[guilfoyleatpp]

I definitely think that Big Head is going to pay for spilling the beans. That NDA was applicable to the entire universe in perpetuity.

I got a little tired/annoyed at Richard almost fucking blowing the entire thing again - slapstick, thy name is SV.

But I agree with PP that Jared is just adorable in this one. 

[biakbiak]

24 minutes ago, guilfoyleatpp said:

I definitely think that Big Head is going to pay for spilling the beans. That NDA was applicable to the entire universe in perpetuity.

Big Head had already left Hooli when the idea for scrubbing happened. An NDA doesn't cover repeating gossip that former coworkers told you. Even if there was a no disparagement clause those aren't typically aren't upheld if what you are saying is factually true.

[guilfoyleatpp]

I believe the writers wouldn't have introduced it if they weren't planning on pulling the trigger later...we shall see... :) 

[Camera One]

These guys are so idiotic that I'm starting to want to throw stuff at the TV while watching.  Richard is starting to grate with his annoying rants and outbursts.  Why wasn't he starting work on the platform now that he could instead of stewing over the CEO position?  This show doesn't work if you can't root for him, so it's on dangerous territory.  And then Dinesh selling his own personal hard drive with all their confidential data?  I was afraid that all the info would leak.  And Gilfoyle should have taken the hard drive so they could confirm it was the right one.  I pretty much watched half the season at one go, so I wonder if the show's more enjoyable watched once a week.

If Bighead wanted roommates and didn't need them to pay him, his house could have been Pied Piper's new home and office.

Edited September 18, 2018 by Camera One