S04.E04: Teambuilding Exercise

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Quote

When Richard reaches out to an unlikely ally, Jared worries about the company he's keeping. Gilfoyle gets tough on security in the wake of Dinesh's latest dalliance; later, he considers whether to put his pride aside for a job. Concerned about Jian-Yang's commitment to his app, Erlich takes matters into his own hands.

Promo:

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Oh, Richard. No good will come of teaming up with Gavin.

So the CS class was fine with just watching movies, but when Erlich gave them scut work to do they finally decided to be proactive? I mean, I'm totally fine with them stealing the stupid Seefood idea because it's not that unique or interesting and Erlich was an idiot for trying to get them to do all the work for free, but still.

It is no surprise that Bighead's approach to teaching is on par with the high school football coaches who are forced to "teach" a class too. Let's show movies!

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Jian-Yang talks Seefood Technologies and 'Not Hot Dog' with Emily Chang of Bloomberg Technology (HBO has this listed as a S4.E4 clip but I don't remember seeing this in the episode, so I guess it's a deleted scene?). The video description also has a link to Jian Yang's Seefood app: Seefood Technologies
 

Professor Bighead:

 

Not Hotdog:

Jared wants a job;

[jbrecken]

Creepilyy devoted Jared is the best Jared.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Ha, I loved how concerned Richard was that Jared might really stab someone. The scared look he had on his face when Jared grabbed the cheese knife in Gavin's office was priceless!

After all the shit that Erlich has said and done to Jian-Yang, I loved that Jian-Yang got such great revenge.

I also loved that Big Head congratulated his class on stealing the concept of Seefood from Erlich.

Edited May 15, 2017 by ElectricBoogaloo

[hoodooznoodooz]

Ha! I love the way Emily Chang responds to Jian-Yang telling her that she can address him as Mr. Jian-Yang. 

[dinkysquid]

Why on earth would they decide to make that weird Laurie woman knocked up? TV/Movies are not happy until every single female between the ages of 15 and 50 is bloody pregnant. She's a stupid annoying character at best. And that is by far, the worst pregnancy "bump" I have ever seen!

This is usually the jump the shark moment but hopefully she won't be on much this season.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

I found it kind of sweet that the students' motivation for investigating Erlich was that they didn't like the way he was treating Big Head. 

[henripootel]

11 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Oh, Richard. No good will come of teaming up with Gavin.

Not if you tell him everything he needs to know to totally scoop you and cut you out of the picture.  Richard is still the dumbest person on this show, and that's with solid competition.  

I think they've massively overestimated how interesting and amusing I'd find Jian-Yang and Big Head.

Anybody else think their writing has gotten super lazy?  When Erlich made his deal for the car, it never even crossed my mind that the resolution would be anything other than 'they're gonna find out that Jian-Yang's crappy app is actually gold', and that Erlich would find this out while looking at a reflection of himself in the car.  There's a big difference between 'setting up a joke and paying it off' and 'copying a page from the big book of clichés', it's the difference between season 1 of this show and season 4 of this show. 

Why does no one seem to realize that there is at least one huge benefit to partnering with Gavin (even with the likely huge downsides) - no need to grub for startup money.  I'd think that Gilfoyle would like to get paid at some point, and that this would make him a bit more amenable.  

Edited May 15, 2017 by henripootel

[mojoween]

Big Head could disappear and never be seen again and I wouldn't even notice he was gone. His scenes drag down the show for me.

I know Gavin is a snake but at the beginning when Richard drew on the picture and Gavin immediately knew what it meant is what I wish the show had more of.  I love watching smart people talk about smart things competently.  Also, and there is probably residual affection for the late actor, but I love how they talk about Peter with affection.  Sure he was batshit crazy, but apparently also likeable to everyone.

[Traveller519]

I liked the payoff with Seefood ultimately becoming and anti-dickpic algorithm. The casualness with which Lorie defined it's work, then her recoil when Monica said Periscope had a "Dick Problem" is why I love her character. That said, I'm ready for Jian Yang to get cast back to the background, his character works in limited doses at best.

I think building the new Internet will deal more with Gavin's eccentricities than much malice. This is everyone's second or third time through all of this, so I'm going to be disappointed if Gavin has sneaked some clause into the agreement that lets him run off with all the IP. There's no excuse for Richard and Jared to not have anticipated that and specifically reviewed for it.

[RealReality]

On 5/15/2017 at 1:08 AM, jbrecken said:

Creepilyy devoted Jared is the best Jared.

"Does he even have a pen?!??!!"

[MaggieG]

So I watched this episode right before watching the movie Patriots Day and imagine my surprise when Jian-Yang appeared! He portrayed Dun Meng, the guy whose car was stolen by the terrorists and they were going to drive to New York. He escaped while they were stopped at a gas station and was able to report it, that's why they were able to track them down in Watertown.

Jared with his maniacal laughing was the best.

Edited May 16, 2017 by MaggieG

[qtpye]

I was wondering, since Erlick talked about using a large chunk of the Raviga money to pay Dinesh...how much do guys like Dinesh, Richard, and Gilfoyle actually make?  I know they are all really good at what they do.

[chocolatine]

38 minutes ago, qtpye said:

I was wondering, since Erlick talked about using a large chunk of the Raviga money to pay Dinesh...how much do guys like Dinesh, Richard, and Gilfoyle actually make?  I know they are all really good at what they do.

Compensation in SV is usually a "package" of salary and equity. At startups, the salaries tend to be lower but the equity stakes higher; at larger companies it's the opposite. In a very early stage startup like Seefood, Dinesh's salary would have been very low, but he would have been given a large chunk of equity. Equity usually vests over 3-4 years though, with the first year being a "cliff" - i.e. you don't get anything until the first year is up - which is why Dinesh is now stuck looking at dick pics for a year if he wants to collect the Periscope buyout money.

[Nordly Beaumont]

12 hours ago, RealReality said:

"Does he even have a pen?!??!!"

I don't know why that line made me laugh so hard, but it did!

[hincandenza]

On 5/15/2017 at 11:14 AM, henripootel said:

Not if you tell him everything he needs to know to totally scoop you and cut you out of the picture.  Richard is still the dumbest person on this show, and that's with solid competition.  

I think they've massively overestimated how interesting and amusing I'd find Jian-Yang and Big Head.

Anybody else think their writing has gotten super lazy?  When Erlich made his deal for the car, it never even crossed my mind that the resolution would be anything other than 'they're gonna find out that Jian-Yang's crappy app is actually gold', and that Erlich would find this out while looking at a reflection of himself in the car.  There's a big difference between 'setting up a joke and paying it off' and 'copying a page from the big book of clichés', it's the difference between season 1 of this show and season 4 of this show. 

Why does no one seem to realize that there is at least one huge benefit to partnering with Gavin (even with the likely huge downsides) - no need to grub for startup money.  I'd think that Gilfoyle would like to get paid at some point, and that this would make him a bit more amenable.  

Well, I mean.... guilty.  :) My only connection to this season is you guys writing about it, and confirming that they're still engaged in the script writing equivalent of doing donuts in the parking lot.  And yeah, my dissatisfaction is with the near-constant avoidable failure.  I recently saw a clip of Noah Hawley (creator of the amazing TV series "Fargo") talking about how the essence of tragedy is that things go bad, but you as the audience can see how it all could have been avoided and no one really made "bad" choices given who they were and the situation they were in.  Comedy, to me, has the same rules: it's funny because no one did anything completely absurd or unbelievable, yet wacky shenanigans ensued.  If you have to force the joke by making someone be out of character for the one line, one scene, or one episode, then that is "super lazy" writing.

SV is just all set-up with no humanity; the characters act as stupid or smart as that week's script requires, with no real continuity or character consistency.  Given how dumb the characters are, this show in retrospect would have been better as an "IT Crowd" style satire of the rank-and-file of SV, instead of inexplicably struggling tech geniuses.

 

On 5/15/2017 at 2:26 PM, Traveller519 said:

I liked the payoff with Seefood ultimately becoming and anti-dickpic algorithm. The casualness with which Lorie defined it's work, then her recoil when Monica said Periscope had a "Dick Problem" is why I love her character. That said, I'm ready for Jian Yang to get cast back to the background, his character works in limited doses at best.

I think building the new Internet will deal more with Gavin's eccentricities than much malice. This is everyone's second or third time through all of this, so I'm going to be disappointed if Gavin has sneaked some clause into the agreement that lets him run off with all the IP. There's no excuse for Richard and Jared to not have anticipated that and specifically reviewed for it.

Oh sweet summer child... :)  Hasn't Judge outright said in interviews they will never, ever let these characters win since then they somehow "won't have a show"?

[kieyra]

On 5/15/2017 at 1:54 PM, dinkysquid said:

Why on earth would they decide to make that weird Laurie woman knocked up? TV/Movies are not happy until every single female between the ages of 15 and 50 is bloody pregnant. She's a stupid annoying character at best. And that is by far, the worst pregnancy "bump" I have ever seen!

This is usually the jump the shark moment but hopefully she won't be on much this season.

I love that "weird" Laurie woman. They needed to replace the uber-intelligent and correspondingly eccentric Peter Gregory after the actor sadly passed away, so they did a female take on the stereotype of people who are so smart they're incapable of relating to "normal" people. I don't know if you've met people like that, but I have. I'm guessing they're fairly common in the real SV.

The pregnancy setup was worth her utterly dispassionate and confused response to Monica trying to congratulate her. 

(Second episode thread in a row where someone is making weird hateful comments about this (female) character but doesn't seem to comment on the show otherwise.)

[dinkysquid]

13 hours ago, kieyra said:

(Second episode thread in a row where someone is making weird hateful comments about this (female) character but doesn't seem to comment on the show otherwise.)

Okay....I like the show!!! And I do not consider my comment weird of hateful. I think it's fair to refer to someone so stunted socially that they can't even make eye contact, as "weird." I certainly wouldn't call her normal!! 

It's an opinion...that's all. You don't have to agree with it. 

Edited May 19, 2017 by dinkysquid