Silicon Valley Season 5 Premiere

"Silicon Valley" operates under something akin to a Murphy’s Law but, if you've come to like these guys too much to want to see them become repeatedly screwed over, it’s fotunately become gradually less pessimistic:  The show now operates under a rule of chaos where things never go as expected and there’s some unexpected conflict. Granted, most dramatic television relies on the unpredictable but this show always amps up that variable to the extreme. Every week, the five partners of Pied Piper walk a careful tightrope between massive success and financial ruin. One of the missions of this show is trying to show us that the stakes in Silicon Valley are always high and we get a sense of this when we see just how much these guys are often sued for or how close these guys are to bankruptcy.

As someone who didn’t catch the last season and a half, I’ll readily admit lacking the perspective of someone who might have witnessed Erlich Bachmann’s progression towards obsolescence firsthand, but his departure still seems like a massive hole. This show treads heavily in character-based comedy in the vein of “Parks and Recreation” or “The Office” but (judging by this episode) "Silicon Valley" doesn’t appear to have expanded its universe of recurring characters which puts a lot of pressure on the existing slate to carry all the facets of this multi-layered world. While the eccentricities of Gavin Belson and Laurie Bream are nicely developed and Jian-Yang looks to be getting more screen time, the majority of the show’s dialogue was the main quintet set apart from the outside world in their alternating between trouble-shooting and internal squabbling. My suggestion here: Monica, Jian-Yang, or some newcomer needs to be worked closer into the gang’s inner circle to be able to provide the necessary counter-balance in this new dynamic.

While I’m only marginally qualified to review this show considering I’ve fallen by the wayside for the last season and a half (though I will defend TO THE DEATH the practice of jumping into a show midway through as a viewer), the plot fell so easily into the template of past episodes that I’m starting to theorize that Silicon Valley is designed to appeal in syndication as non-serialized. Sure, the status of Pied Piper has constant changes but the company is fluctuating so constantly and the characters stay constant enough. Besides, there’s generally a nicely-laced narrative within the span of each episode.

This week saw Richard continue his war of attrition with Gavin Belson. As opposed to the first two seasons where Richard and crew were simply taking beatings left and right, we’re seeing two equally matched opponents playing high-stakes chess. As a sign of Richard’s newfound status somewhere between little and big fish in a pond of fluctuating size, he’s able to outmaneuver two more green and naïve competitors. More significantly, he comes into the interactions with these two with a far nastier demeanor and a resolve for vengeance. Considering the Sliceline CEO was more aloof than someone with the vindictiveness of Gavin, Richard’s moral exoneration isn’t as clear-cut and that’s what’s making this show a must-watch. During the heyday of “The Office” we used to have endless debates on the IMDB boards over the morality of the Dunder-Mifflin employees and the grey territory of Pied Piper can be debated in a spiritual fashion along these same grounds.