‘Silicon Valley’ season 2, episode 5 review: The ferret fiasco
Did you have any clue that it was illegal in California to have a ferret as a pet? This is one of the things that we learned from the surprisingly-educational “Silicon Valley” on HBO Sunday night.
Last week, we were critical of the show for trying to do too much, mostly to the point where it was not altogether effective in doing anything. This time around, the show was much more focused, and therefore funnier as a result. We had Jared’s night terrors, Richard’s night sweats, Erlich’s glorious gift of a kimono, which he did not even fully understand, and Pied Piper having to make a huge decision between getting adequate office space, or having to build their entire server from scratch after Hooli basically had them blacklisted from most major providers of server space.
Richard chose ultimately to stay at Erlich’s and use the server space, but quickly found opposition after a neighbor tried to turn him in for a zoning violation. This is where the ferret law, and a little bit of blackmail, came into play. There’s nothing funnier than watching a ferret change the course of Pied Piper’s history, and also allow Jared to actually have a place of his own rather than being forced to stay either in the garage or with Richard, shouting German in the middle of the night.
The side story with Hooli tonight was glorious in that it took just the right amount of time, and was basically funny from start to finish in the process. We learned through here that Big Head was doing just about everything that we expected him to with his new title (i.e. nothing), and Gavin fired the actually-successful man who was trying to complain over him. Of course, he continued to mention constantly in the process that “Bag Head,” as he chooses to call him, is the co-founder of Pied Piper working to continue to make dreams come true. Meanwhile, we learned that Hooli’s own Nucleus project was actually sagging far behind.
Overall, no major criticisms are to be had to this week, save for maybe that it didn’t pack as many laughs in as the very best. Still, a funny and engaging “Silicon Valley” episode that did push the story forward. Grade: A-.
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