S04.E09: Hooli-Con

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Quote

The Pied Piper guys try to pull off a stealth plan at Hooli-Con.

Promo:

[Nordly Beaumont]

OMG, when "young Jinathin" threw Erlich's suitcase and nearly nailed that passerby I laughed my butt off! Then I watched it three more times! And of course, Jin Yang had his cigarette ready for "special occasion."

I love the way people react to finding out bits of Jared's past. Like Dinesh's reaction to the forced adoption comment, small but so funny!

Jared's freak out over "Poop Fair" was perfection.

[riprock]

I love me some Flula Borg! He's great when you don't overuse him.

So is Richard all good with Dinesh and Gilfoyle for dropping Keenan Feldspar? He seems to have gotten away with a lie.

Dinesh's meeting with his ex is easily the highlight for me. "What's your policy on anonymous tips?" "I am going back to Pakistan right after this." Kumail Nanjiani is on fire.

I feel like the storytelling is a little muddled. I guess the idea is that their hacked app caused these phones to overheat, and their shadow network is going to get taken down because everyone will delete the hacked app next ep?

[chocolatine]

Richard is the worst! When Jared raises his voice at you, you know you've done a bad thing. Of course there was a deus ex machina save, but Richard really deserved to crash and burn - and I guess he kind of did with the exploding phones.

11 hours ago, Nordly Beaumont said:

I love the way people react to finding out bits of Jared's past. Like Dinesh's reaction to the forced adoption comment, small but so funny!

Zach Woods and Kumail Najiani have really been killing it this season. The scene between Dinesh and Richard when Richard's instructions sound exactly like instructions for a suicide bombing and Richard is being completely oblivious - both Dinesh's and Jared's reactions were priceless!

Edited June 19, 2017 by chocolatine

[PinkRibbons]

Honestly, I appreciated that for once, Richard's perpetual usually self-destructive kindness actually came around back to him. The announcement he made specifically to cheer up Gavin, which did absolutely nothing for him or Pied Piper (and actually screwed them after Gavin left), rebounded to Hoover paying him back for it in spades. And in a show where they get so few wins, I will savor that.

I don't hate Richard, I think of him as an artist struggling with his masterpiece being pawed at and torn apart while he tries to keep it together. Although when he does petty shit like the screensaver thing I do want to pimp-slap him.

My guess (and really my hope) is that the phones exploding is Keenan's terrible tech haphazardly redone to be ready for Hooli-con. I don't doubt next week will be one long saga of paranoia for the Pied Piper team, but I really hope that things turn out okay for them.

I love the idea of Gavin and Erlich. Gavin needs someone to talk to him that cuts through the bullshit. And when Erlich is on point, he can be masterfully eloquent. I can see him playing along with every pretentious thing Gavin does until finally he has enough and just unloads on Gavin everything wrong with him. And then they sit around smoking weed. Lots and lots of weed.

[jbrecken]

Security guy is totally Gavin's Jared.

[woodscommaelle]

2 hours ago, riprock said:

Kumail Nanjiani is on fire.

Off-topic: I hope his movie does well. Can't wait for it.

Edited June 19, 2017 by woodscommaelle

[scrb]

Erlich described the perfect metaphor for the show, about the pelican who always drops a 4.5-pound shit on them whenever they taste even a bit of success.

Of course none of these guys can ever succeed (because then the show would no longer be about these aspiring, bumbling nerds any more)  but in this case, Richard decided for the group that they weren't going to take the money.  He's had multiple chances to walk off with millions over the course of the series but the ongoing joke is that he never will.

Pineapple is a play on Tomato router firmware.  But if they're ingenious enough to access Hooli's routers without downloading the Hoolicon apps. themselves (through their pineapple routers) and then also get their code embedded in a legit app, then anything would be possible.  But mobile devices today would throttle way back before the CPU would overheat.  Maybe they hacked the OS and the firmware of the chips in the phones too.

However, it's poetic license for the the visuals of the phones exploding, burning people in the crotch and so on.

I guess the new boyfriend is also suppose to be a caricature of the humorless nerd, who called in security about a so-called hack, which was just a juvenile prank played on him by Richard.

[biakbiak]

Jared losing faith in Richard was seasons in the making and Zach played it so beautifully.

[J-Man]

Were the exploding phones a reference to those ill-fated Samsung Galaxy phones that were such a huge disaster last year?

[msani19]

I don't know if the exploding phones were a reference to Samsung's issues last year. I took it as being related to Keenan's terrible VR tech being shoehorned into the Hooli platform. I really hope it's not from the "malware" the guys snuck in there.  

The cycle of success and crashing failure is getting tiresome and another season of that will be difficult to swallow but also hard to believe. Either they are successful, even on a small scale or they completely crash and burn. Although, Richard doesn't seem capable of holding onto any success because he seems to sabotage his progress.  I thought Jared was going to throttle Richard for his moric Poop Fare stunt. Jared has a tight handle on his rage, but I thought Poop Fare was going to unleash a torrent of fury. Even Dinesh and Guilfoyle looked worried. 

[Seppuku]

I also LOL'ed real hard at the bit about people never deleting apps and then the team individually going through their phones  and finding all those silly apps

[Traveller519]

"Vine, God, rest it's soul"

I have to wonder if the trust is going to be significantly gone between Richard and his team. He's had multiple opportunities to tell them that there were reasons for him to turn down Keenan's offer, even with him pulling it eventually. Even with their seeming win, I can't believe the guys are going to be following him "once more, into the breach" as it were.

Potential issue of everyone's phones exploding too, that means that the app will likely be gone from most people's phones who hadn't had a back-up in the past 24 hours, or likely won't get reinstalled.

[Carolina Girl]

5 hours ago, msani19 said:

The cycle of success and crashing failure is getting tiresome and another season of that will be difficult to swallow but also hard to believe. Either they are successful, even on a small scale or they completely crash and burn. Although, Richard doesn't seem capable of holding onto any success because he seems to sabotage his progress.  I thought Jared was going to throttle Richard for his moric Poop Fare stunt. Jared has a tight handle on his rage, but I thought Poop Fare was going to unleash a torrent of fury. Even Dinesh and Guilfoyle looked worried. 

I have to agree.  It's starting to look like rather, rinse, repeat.  

Guys, it's been done - Charlie Brown / Lucy / Football.  Ring a bell?

[heisenberg]

10 hours ago, msani19 said:

I don't know if the exploding phones were a reference to Samsung's issues last year. I took it as being related to Keenan's terrible VR tech being shoehorned into the Hooli platform. I really hope it's not from the "malware" the guys snuck in there.  

The cycle of success and crashing failure is getting tiresome and another season of that will be difficult to swallow but also hard to believe. Either they are successful, even on a small scale or they completely crash and burn. Although, Richard doesn't seem capable of holding onto any success because he seems to sabotage his progress.  I thought Jared was going to throttle Richard for his moric Poop Fare stunt. Jared has a tight handle on his rage, but I thought Poop Fare was going to unleash a torrent of fury. Even Dinesh and Guilfoyle looked worried. 

I bet Richard will become the new Gavin for at least one season.  Seeing the whole team swimming in money could be quite funny.

[Moxie Cat]

I think it doesn't matter if it was the PP malware or the VR that made the phones explode. The end result was PP losing many of the phones they needed for storage and Hooli/Jack getting terrible press. 

Loved the security guy using the opportunity to get back at Jack even if it was deus ex machina.

Edited June 20, 2017 by Moxie Cat

[Accidental Martyr]

On 6/19/2017 at 0:44 AM, woodscommaelle said:

Off-topic: I hope his movie does well. Can't wait for it.

The latest episode of Off Camera with Sam Jones (DirecTV) features an interview with Nanjiani. They have a lengthy discussion about the movie, The Big Sick.

https://offcamera.com/

Edited June 20, 2017 by Accidental Martyr

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Jared ramping up to yelling at Richard was great to watch because it's been years in the making. To be honest, Richard doesn't deserve Jared's loyalty. Richard: Jared:: Selina: Gary (Veep)

Richard is so petty that I actually thought the way they were going to be busted was Richard just walking over to Winnie and straight up telling her what PP was doing with the pineapples in an attempt to make himself look better than her new boyfriend. I can't blame Jared for losing it - Richard risked everything out of jealousy and then he couldn't think of anything better than a poop joke? If you're going to blow shit up, at least make it spectacularly worth it!

Loved Jin Yang throwing Erlich's suitcase while Erlich was still trying to talk to him. Gavin's reaction to seeing Erlich was hilarious.

[qtpye]

7 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

Jared ramping up to yelling at Richard was great to watch because it's been years in the making. To be honest, Richard doesn't deserve Jared's loyalty. Richard: Jared:: Selina: Gary (Veep)

Richard is so petty that I actually thought the way they were going to be busted was Richard just walking over to Winnie and straight up telling her what PP was doing with the pineapples in an attempt to make himself look better than her new boyfriend. I can't blame Jared for losing it - Richard risked everything out of jealousy and then he couldn't think of anything better than a poop joke? If you're going to blow shit up, at least make it spectacularly worth it!

Loved Jin Yang throwing Erlich's suitcase while Erlich was still trying to talk to him. Gavin's reaction to seeing Erlich was hilarious.

It was so stupid.  He did not even like the girl that much, since he could not get over the space/tab issue.  She seemed perfectly nice and is probably too good for Richard.  He was just jealouse because the new boyfriend had muscles and was successful.

[Accidental Martyr]

I kind of want to hear Jamiroquai perform "Virtual Reality."

[henripootel]

On 6/19/2017 at 10:31 AM, msani19 said:

The cycle of success and crashing failure is getting tiresome and another season of that will be difficult to swallow but also hard to believe.

I think I'm done.  It just feels like they're barely trying anymore.  I think T.J. Miller is right, it's time to move on. 

[heisenberg]

On 2017-06-20 at 8:33 PM, Accidental Martyr said:

I kind of want to hear Jamiroquai perform "Virtual Reality."

Still love the old stuff but Automaton is quite good and can't be more "actual".

 

[hincandenza]

On 6/20/2017 at 9:30 PM, henripootel said:

I think I'm done.  It just feels like they're barely trying anymore.  I think T.J. Miller is right, it's time to move on. 

Yesssss... come to the dark side... :)

[Camera One]

Richard was such an idiot in this episode.  I was as angry as Jared.  The actor did a great job.