Silicon Valley Season 5 Episode 4: Tech Evangelist Review

If you would like to read my review of the last episode, click here.

Synopsis: Attempting to woo a gaming company to PiperNet, Richard inadvertently angers a prized ally. Dinesh deals with a betrayal. In preparation for a big launch, Gavin leaves his underlings with a cryptic message. Jared gets inside information from Big Head. (HBO)

Writer: Josh Lieb

Director: Jamie Babbit

Rating: TV-MA

Running Time: 28mins

Airs: Sundays at 10pm on HBO Canada (Canada)/HBO (United States)

Other than a few story developments and a return from Big Head, this was a weak episode compared to the rest of the season so far and one of the weakest of the series.

The episode started with Richard putting a team of web developers together to launch their sites on the PiperNet who Richard called the OctoPipers. These sites spanned multiple fields but the one that troubled Richard the most was a gay dating site run by a gay man who just happened to be Christian. Jared and Gilfoyle also found the mole who got his inside information by taking advantage of the comically gullible Dinesh. The guys confronted Dinesh’s roommate and instead of sending him to prison for violating their NDA agreement, they were going to hold on to him to chastise him.

During a meeting with Laurie and Monica, they announced a potential PiperNet partnership with a game developer who they were associated with. Richard decided to bring the OctoPipers along to vouch for him. Meanwhile, Jian-Yang showed up to force Richard to make a deal with his knock-off incubator companies. Richard refused but Jian-Yang wasn’t going away easily. He even left the yellow convertible he drove to get there because Hanneman urinated in it.

Meanwhile, Gavin was getting his box 3 presentation ready (that phallic signature is still kind of funny). Before leaving for a retreat, he sent a message to his staff about a sticky honey bottle but they took it the wrong way, thinking that it had some sort of deeper meaning.

With the game developer, Richard rambled off that the gay developer was Christian which was a real faux pas. The fact that he was a gay was not an issue, the fact that he was Christian was frowned upon in Silicon Valley. This could potentially jeopardize the deal. The others wanted Richard to drop the Christian but Richard was firmly against it. Instead he tried to get the Christian to tone down his Christian-ness, however, it didn’t work as he decided to drop out of the deal.

When dealing with the tow truck driver, Jared learned that the convertible was registered under Big Head’s name. When meeting him, in typical Big Head fashion, he didn’t dissolve his partnership with Erlich like he thought he did which means that Big Head was Erlich’s next of kin. With the OctoPipers, Richard made an unintentionally back-handed speech in support of the Christian but he was very out of the deal.

When the gang returned to the incubator, Jian-Yang had cleared out and left a note saying that he was going to China to build a Pied Piper knock-off.

Overall, this was a decent episode with some story developments, as mentioned, but the gay/Christian and Gavin’s overzealous staff bits weren’t very lame. The best part of the episodes were some great lines by Jared, as always, and Laurie. It’s been smooth sailing so far for the guys, however, now they must face competition from Jian-Yang and whatever he’s doing in China which may or may not be true. Though it’s difficult to gauge how seriously to take this because of the character of Jian-Yang, it will be interesting to see where it all goes.

Score: 7.5/10

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.