Silicon Valley Season 5 Episode 2: Reorientation Review

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

Synopsis: Panicked by suddenly leading a much larger team, Richard finds himself managing a number of small conflicts in his efforts to unite his new employees. Dinesh celebrates a new purchase that Gilfoyle looks to spoil. Jian-Yang goes to court. Gavin meets pushback over his signature and what it says about him. (HBO)

Writer: Carson Mell

Director: Mike Judge

Rating: TV-MA

Running Time: 29mins

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

In the season premiere, Richard got a team but now he has to bring them together. Meanwhile, Jian-Yang completes his takeover of Erlich’s estate and Gavin is having trouble with a signature.

Gilfoyle and Dinesh’s petty squabbles are one of the best parts of the show and this episode started with another one. Dinesh bought a Tesla so of course Gilfoyle wasn’t going to let him enjoy it and the premium parking spot that came with it. This episode saw the two try and outdo each other for the right to that spot.

Richard was struggling with his new leadership position. The beginning of the episode saw him suffering from an off-screen injury that would have been nice to see. He wasn’t interested in holding orientation as to Jared’s plan to bring the team together which would prove to have been the right decision. Richard’s plan was to leave the coders from each acquired company working on different projects. The problem with that was that each group had their own habits which didn’t quite work with everyone else. As he spoke with everyone, he learned that each company did things differently.

In an attempt to accommodate everyone, Richard simply made things worse. Seeing that what he did wasn’t working, he made another speech where he tried to inspire everyone by being honest about himself and the importance of the task at hand. When it was over, the employees left.

Jian-Yang this season has served as a replacement for Erlich and this continued here. He couldn’t get a human body to prove that Erlich was dead so he cremated a dead pig instead. With no next of kin to speak of, he was named beneficiary of Erlich’s estate and be privy to all it entailed. Unfortunately, that would also mean paying all of Erlich’s debt and knowing how fiscally responsible he was, there was a lot of it. Because he wanted to stick it to Erlich so much, Jian-Yang decided that he would pay all the debts.

The new Pied Piper employees weren’t gone for long as they were inspired by seeing Richard take on a mountain of work on his own. All the pressure caused him to have the same episode he had at the beginning of the episode, ultimately ending with him going through a glass wall. This led to another meeting with that same doctor with the strange sense of humor.

Gavin was having issues with the version of his signature that would appear on the box 2 as it would give customers the wrong message. After going through several incarnations, he appeared to agree with a phallic looking signature. Also, Hoover had someone working on the inside at Pied Piper and reported to him after Richard’s last speech.

After being named beneficiary of Erlich’s estate, the episode ended with Jian-Yang kicking the guys out of Erlich’s house.

Overall, this was a good episode that continued what the first episode started. It took a long time to get going, however, was still compelling to watch. Richard’s attempts to bring the team together in the most Richard way may not have been successful yet he still got it done by the end. Dinesh and Gilfoyle were funny to watch as always while Gavin’s subplot here was a little lame. It will be interesting to see how far Pied Piper goes and what the guys will do now that they are homeless but they’ll surely find a way.

Score: 8.5/10

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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.