Skip to Content

Silicon Valley, Ep. 2.10, “Two Days of the Condor” is a fleeting victory

What’s most impressive about “Two Days of the Condor” is how it gives the most visceral ending to every possible arc of the season, while still committing to the perceived outcome last week of Richard losing Pied Piper. Richard’s code and the core group get to prove their bona fides, Erlich realizes the importance of his relationship with PP, Gavin Belson gets the boot, Big Head continues to fail his way upward, Russ is back in the three commas club, and even Richard’s lawyer gets to feel the high of a “second chance.”

Read More about Silicon Valley, Ep. 2.10, “Two Days of the Condor” is a fleeting victory

Silicon Valley, Ep. 2.08, “White Hat/Black Hat” doesn’t let Richard win

Richard Hendricks can’t have nice things. It’s not that he doesn’t allow himself to have nice things or even that he doesn’t want to have nice things, it is that he is almost karmicly incapable of having nice things. Through either incredible worry or the incredible stupidity of others, Richard is never allowed to be on unqualified winner. Part of this is due to Richard being an unconfident dweeb, but it is also due to the fact that Richard is the main character on a TV show and thus can’t be top dog for very long. Stories of winners constantly winning become boring because deserved success is boring. It’s fun to watch a single arc of a story be about winning (Friday Night Lights season one) but eventually that team has to start losing (Friday Night Lights season two). So, by the transitive property of TV trope math, because Richard Hendricks is a TV character, he can’t have nice things.

Read More about Silicon Valley, Ep. 2.08, “White Hat/Black Hat” doesn’t let Richard win

Silicon Valley, Ep. 2.07: “Adult Content” sets the season up for success

For as much as the show splits up the cast into Richard/Erlich A-plots and Dinesh/Gilfoyle B-plots, with Jared playing utility man, the core of the show is still the interaction between all of those characters, so by having them all sit down to discuss what they’re going to do about End Frame gives the show that opportunity to have its main cast play off of each other. Gilfoyle gets to dryly ask a series of “What ifs”, Erlich righteously declares that he solely increases porn traffic on the interent by one percent, Richard and Dinesh get to vacillate between shock and supposed moral authority, Jared is there to provide background information. It’s a good scene that gets to the heart of what makes the show enjoyable: Easy chemistry resulting in banter in either hyper-nerdy tech speak or insults like calling someone a “fucking king-sized asshole.”

Read More about Silicon Valley, Ep. 2.07: “Adult Content” sets the season up for success

Silicon Valley, Ep. 2.04, “The Lady” reveals how season two changes the pacing

Silicon Valley is on a real slow burn. Part of that has to do with the expanded episode order from last season. Following the death of Christopher Evan Welch, the show restructured its back half in order to accommodate the absence of Peter Gregory, shortening its episode order for the first season from ten to eight. So part of the experience of watching season two involves trying to refigure out how the pacing of the show works. With two extra episodes of content, the show feels like it is taking longer to reach its endpoint this season even though, with the show being renewed for at least a third season, season two is more indicative of how the show operates than season one.

Read More about Silicon Valley, Ep. 2.04, “The Lady” reveals how season two changes the pacing