Normally Rob Marvin reviews each episode, but as he was unable to watch this week’s, the job fell to Christina Mulligan, with help from her editor, Adam LoBelia. As neither one of us has watched the show before, please bear with us.
Last night’s episode opened with Richard and Jared interviewing a series of prospective engineers for the Pied Piper team. From asking whether or not they could bring their dog to work, to putting “crushing it” as a job on their resume, to proclaiming to be a cyborg, the interviewees did not seem to be completely sane.
(Related: On the last episode of “Silicon Valley”)
Speaking of not completely sane, outside Erlich gives Jian Yang lessons on how to recycle and throw trash away. “I never burn trash,” Jian repeats after Erlich. Erlich then looks up to find the cyborg, Jared Patakian, leaving, sounding a note of recognition.
Inside, the team, reviewing the interviews, seems very impressed with Jared the cyborg. “He is qualified and definitely seemed interested. It is a programmer’s market right now,” said Jared. “I think if we like him we should pursue him aggressively. My only concern here, and it is a small one: He is also named Jared. Will it be confusing with two Jareds?”
(Henceforth, other (or original) Jared is known as O.J.)
Erlich comes inside and agrees with the team that Jared the cyborg is great, but doesn’t like how he previously handled a job offer he tried to give him, so he suggests they not hire him. But Richard says Erlich doesn’t have a say and that they are going to hire the Android.
Meanwhile, Gavin Belson is giving a presentation of Moonshot, which Big Head walks in on. Belson announces a new division called Hooli.xyz with Big Head as the “co-head dreamer.” Big Head is confused, considering no one told him he was going to be promoted and he doesn’t want to leave the job he already has. And the other “head dreamer” does not like Big Head and makes it clear he wants to run Hooli.xyz alone. But the company gives Big Head a new office and assistant anyway.
Back with the Pied Piper team, they are preparing to interview their last interviewee Carla, who already knows Dinesh and Gilfoyle. Dinesh and Gilfoyle both say that she is awesome, and O.J. realized that there is a significant male imbalance on the team. Everyone agrees that they should hire the best person for the job, regardless if they are female or not. (Though it would be nice if they hired a female.)
During the interview, O.J. awkwardly brings up the fact that Carla, who is clearly the most normal of all the interviewees, is a woman and that they should hire women. But she states she is not a female engineer; she is just an engineer.
In the kitchen, Erlich is upset about spoons, yogurt and pretty much life in general.
Later at a board meeting with Richard, Monica, Erlich, Russ and his girlfriend, the Lady appears. From the title and O.J.’s awkward comments about hiring a woman, I assumed the titular Lady Carla. But she is actually an it: an AI program Russ uses to take care of his son.
“I get to be his friend, and she is the bad guy,” he says. “We disrupted fatherhood.”
During the meeting the idea of hiring the cyborg and Carla comes up. Everyone but Erlich approves the vote, so he retaliates by voting for Russ’ $30,000 swag idea. Before Russ leaves, he gives Erlich tickets to a charity event.
Back at the Pied Piper house, Dinesh is showing Carla around the house. Richard comes in and announces that, as part of the company’s mandatory human resources policy, if anyone has any questions or problems, they can let him know anonymously.
“Don’t do or say anything that might offend anyone,” he says.
Carla keeps hinting about how much money she is making, and she announces she is getting a new Mercedes Benz and brags about her Dolce & Gabbana bag.
Dinesh gets worried that the new hires are going to be making more money then him. “I am not jealous; I just want to make sure she is making less than me,” he says.
At the fundraiser, Erlich and Jian arrive but are unable to make a donation of $25,000 per ticket, so they leave in embarrassment. Later, Jian tells Richard that Erlich was crying at Taco Bell afterwards.
Richard then tells Carla that some employees have complained that she is creating a hostile workplace. She reveals to him that she is messing with Dinesh and Gilfoyle, but promises to stop.
In the kitchen, Richard tells Erlich how he appreciates using his house, so he will not hire the cyborg. But Erlich says he should hire him. To settle it, Richard calls Jared the cyborg to tell him they aren’t going to hire him, but finds out that Russ actually poached the cyborg from then for another one of his companies for a lot more money.
The show ends with all the swag arriving outside, which consisted of t-shirts, foam fingers, ping-pong balls and hats.
“What event could this possibly be used at?” Dinesh says waving the foam finger.
Odds & Ends:
- Jian Yang seems to have enough of a command of English to not be confused by Erlich’s garbage-disposal instructions. What the heck!
- The Lady was an interesting concept that went unexplored for the episode. It’s kind of one of those things you wish the show was about instead, at least for one episode.
- Is Carla acquiescing to O.J. (sorry, Jared) another form of her messing around?
- Exactly what was the point of the gala scene anyway? Seemed like mildly amusing filler at best.
- Overall, half the episode seemed a bit extraneous. The crisis with Carla was interesting enough, while the Erlich subplot went nowhere aside of showing some character development from Richard. Maybe the cyborg guy will reappear later on down the line though.
