‘Silicon Valley’ season 3, episode 8 review: The fall and slow ascent of Erlich Bachman
Through the third season of “Silicon Valley,” we have been on a heck of an emotional journey with one Erlich Bachman, mostly in that he’s went from ultimate narcissist to Big Head sponge to now tech industry failure. Yet, we still somehow root for the guy, and this is after him commandeering every interview with the company, being incredibly vulgar, and doing almost everything in his power in order to ensure that he didn’t have to tell Richard that he sold off his stake in Pied Piper.
Unfortunately, for him it all came out before he had a chance to figure out the time, thanks to a PR guy who noticed something a little bit awry courtesy of a meeting he had with Laurie. This construct is probably the one weak point of the episode, since to us Laurie is so whip-smart that she’d never let someone get an advantage over her like this, even on accident. Nonetheless, this information led to Monica telling Richard about the shares, which in turn led to an explosion between him and Erlich over it.
From here, we had probably some of the best work we’ve seen TJ Miller give as he had to admit to some of his failures and basically beg Richard to not publicly shame him as a loser who burned through all of his money having a tiki party on Alcatraz island. After CJ called him and mentioned the words “Pied Piper” and “ugly,” he interpreted that to mean that people had found out the truth already, and he self-wrote his own takedown.
In the end, he never had to do this since CJ was really just referring about the ugly company jacket that Jared bought, thinking that it would take the company to the next level. This was a funny little sideplot, mostly because it became equivalent to the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.
The good news for Erilich is that after realizing how devoted he was (and even getting to see Russ in order to explain what really happened at the end of last season with the shares), Richard let him back in … as head of PR. He can be the face of the company still, but he now has a boss and can’t just bluster his way through anything.
Surprisingly, we got emotional watching Erlich’s downfall and subsequent slow rise in a way we did not predict. Maybe it was Miller’s performance, or the fact that this show is often so funny that it is noticeable when things get serious. On another note, Jack Barker and Gavin Belson meeting up has to be bad, right? We’re betting on it. Grade: A-.
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