Silicon Valley: “Runaway Devaluation”

Normally in an episode of Silicon Valley, I expect the funniest moment to be a legendarily obscene T.J. Miller rant or a joke that blends profanity with business jargon so seamlessly it’s impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins. “Runaway Devaluation,” however, breaks that mold with a closing moment that becomes one of the show’s best gags. Faced with the potential collapse of his company, Richard responds to a phone call from none other than Gavin Belson, who invites him to a Mexican restaurant and points out he could make all of this go away with a lucrative Hooli buyout. Richard opens his mouth to respond, but before the decision comes out, a mariachi band comes over to serenade them—a performance that runs over the entire end credits as the two CEOs sit in uncomfortable silence.
It’s the most awkward scene to take place in a Mexican restaurant since that time the Whites and the Schraders couldn’t settle their differences (even with the healing power of table-side guacamole), and a win in the absurdity column. Silicon Valley is such an assertive show in so many ways that it’s rewarding to see the show spend time on a joke that could have been made by simply cutting to the credits before Richard could give his answer. And the little details, like Richard finally grabbing a chip toward the end of the song, punctuates the glorious cringe comedy of the whole affair.
The moment is even more darkly funny for the way it caps off the downward spiral that comprises the whole of “Runaway Devaluation.” While “Sand Hill Shuffle” was an episode all about how Pied Piper’s star is ascendant and how success had given the team even more swagger than before, this week shows the fragility of their gains by stripping them away bit by bit. They were walking into meetings as “three-foot cocks covered in Elvis dust,” and now they’re watching their stack of term sheets become ever more pitiful, sabotaging Kickstarters to save money, and getting picked apart by intellectual vultures.
Triggering this downward spiral is Gavin’s lawsuit over who owns Pied Piper’s intellectual property. Last week in the comments there was a discussion about how feasible Hooli’s lawsuit was, and this week establishes that it succeeds by virtue of merely existing. Gavin doesn’t need to win his fight, he merely needs to bleed Pied Piper dry by forcing it to expend the resources to stay in that fight. And it’s working right off the bat, as Laurie puts funding on indefinite hold until the lawsuit resolves and sends Monica to be the bearer of bad news. Despite brief screen time for Laurie this week, the writers continue to do well by defining her in her interactions with Monica, first as she reels off her tips for interacting with other people—tips delivered while looking at both her phone and computer—and then by citing one of Monica’s outfits last week as the perfect unattractive ensemble to deflect anger.
The loss of Raviga’s funding turns out to be only the first domino in the chain of bad luck. Silicon Valley makes a brilliant decision here to depict Pied Piper’s fortunes falling in the exact same way they showed their ascent last week as the series of meetings with other venture capital firms go worse and worse as firms grow increasingly less eager to invest the more they’re rejected as a bad investment. And adding insult to injury, all of the VCs turning them down are more than eager to throw Erlich’s words back at him, the confidence draining from his face as every creative insult is called back. What makes Erlich such a fun part of the show is that there’s as much enjoyment in watching him fall as there in his success (see also last season’s terrific “Signaling Risk”) and there’s something deeply satisfying about the punchline where all he has left is a weak deployment of Richard’s boilerplate response.
The reversal of fortunes means that the rest of the Pied Piper team is also scrambling, which helps “Runaway Devaluation” recapture the ensemble feel that was muted in the premiere. Losing the Raviga investment means that the $50,000 from TechCrunch needs to go to company expenses, a revelation that horrifies Dinesh given that he’s pledged half his share to his cousin’s Kickstarter for an app called Bro. (Dinesh: “It’s a messaging app that lets you send the word ‘bro’ to everyone else who has the app.” Gilfoyle: “So it’s exactly like the Yo app.” Dinesh: “Exactly, but less original.) Season one proved that Jared, Dinesh, and Gilfoyle are a perfect triad, and the discussion of Bro and Dinesh’s role as the “cool cousin” maintains that vibe. This scene’s physical comedy is terrific, from the anticipatory way Gilfoyle flops down on the couch to hear Dinesh explain himself to Jared’s encouraging nods as Dinesh goes over all the ways his being responsible made him cool.