‘Silicon Valley’ season 2, episode 6 review: The Blaine debate

“Silicon Valley” has delivered many good episodes throughout its season and a half on the air, but to us there is almost no questioning that Sunday night’s new episode may be one of the HBO series’ finest achievements. While it was completely absurd in so many different ways, it also delivered in packing in what are quite possibly more laughs per second than any episode so far this season. It was hilarious, to be frank.

The story that led the way in this episode was all about an energy-drink company founded by a college friend of Erlich’s who was willing to use Pied Piper to show off what was a live stream for an extreme-sports event led by stunt driver Blaine. At first, the arrangement seemed perfect, but only before Richard realized some after that A.A., as we will call him given that this is Erlich’s chosen name for the game, actually hated his old pal and called him Kool-Aid because he would burst in on any conversation without hesitation.

Erlich eventually warned Richard that the guy was bad news, so much so that there was a particular nickname that people called him. It seemed appropriate then for Richard to fire off the term when the two were in a disagreement, only to then realize that it was actually a reference to a real medical condition that he had. Awkward, and then made so much worse when Richard later learned that the company used the same “compression company” that stole Pied Piper’s ideas for the stream. Yep, there’s a new competitor out there.

As fun as this was, the real shining story to us was Dinesh’s crush on Blaine’s girlfriend, and how after the guy was a jerk to him and Gilfoyle, he debated seriously whether or not to let the guy die in a stunt crash after he realized there was a flaw in his math. Later, Blaine found out about their “let Blaine die debate,” and let’s just say this ended very badly.

As a whole, this was an excellent episode of the series from start to finish. It packed in the humor, moved the story forward, and even gave us good running gags like Jared’s insistence that two women in the company automatically need to get along. We probably haven’t laughed this much at an episode of anything all year. Grade: A.

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