But also: jokes. No wonder T.J. Miller is leaving at the end of this season. Erlich Bachman is having an incredibly rough time. At first in “The Keenan Vortex” everything seems to be coming up Erlich. Keenan works into his contract with Lori and Monica that he’ll only work with them if Erlich is there. Then Keenan uses that muscle to get a bigger deal from Raviga AND bring Pied Piper into the fold. Not everything is at it seems when it comes to Keenan Feldspar and his bitching VR demo though. Monica tells Richard that they were ok with dropping Keenan because his technology will never work for the mobile market. Then Keenan dumps Erlich by teaming up with Hooli. The end result of the devastation is an ashy-faced, unemployed Erlich burning the gazebo he loves so much to the ground. That’s some cold shit, Haley Joel Osment.
4. “Suck it, Jin-Yang”
This has been an excellent season for callbacks. The best was certainly Gavin Belson destroying his mansion twice. But don’t sleep on this subtle one from “The Keenan Vortex.” In the episode preceding this, Gilfoyle hacked Jian Yang’s new smart fridge to a .gif of a mime, um, miming fellatio with the message “Suck it, Jin-Yang (“Jian Yang” being spelled wrong obviously). The shot of the hacked fridge lasts little more than a second in this episode but it’s among the best laughs in the half hour. Apparently, this is just that smart fridge’s destiny now.
3. “Oh Richard, I forgot how much of a jealous crone you can be.”
There’s that saucy Erlich Bachman we know and love! By episode’s end, Erlich will be jobless once again and near catatonically depressed. But before that happens he has the opportunity to point out Richard’s stuffiness again. After Erlich that Keenan “gave me one of the first opportunities to shit myself over (the VR tech),” Richard gives a typically bitchy response to VR. So Erlich points out what a jealous crone he is…because somebody need to.
1. “He came in the front this time.”
Someone say something about callbacks? Here is another great one. Richard comes home to deliver some bad news to the rest of the Pied Piper boys. He’s breaking off their contract with Keenan. Unbeknownst to Richard, however, Dinesh, Gilfoyle and Jared have almost the exact same bad news for him: Keenan broke off the deal, himself. But it wouldn’t be Silicon Valley season 4 if we didn’t have some staged confrontation hijinx. Last time the crew tried to confront Richard, he came in the back door of the Bachman household so they’re all facing the wrong way to begin their intervention. This time, they all face the back door and Richard comes in the front. It’s such a stupid joke and a needless callback…but it’s also so, so great.
