Season 5 should be out this month, but let's look through Season 2 and see if it's worth watching.
Warning - so crass, so much profanity you wouldn't believe!
This season follows in the footsteps of its predecessor in terms of being utterly vulgar. While it doesn't actually up the ante here, it does follow up strongly in that department.The Premise
We continue the adventures of the Pied Piper team following their wild success from TechCrunch Disrupt, where they are now being courted by several companies for their breakthrough tech. With the death of Peter Gregory, their future with investment firm Raviga is now in doubt and they have to seek new funding. A lawsuit from their rival and tech giant Hooli spells trouble, only for Russ Hanneman to show up. However, his presence ultimately does more harm than good, and after a whole slew of mishaps, our heroes prevail.The Characters
The cast has been expanded, though the core remains and do their thing very dependably.Thomas Middleditch is still the very adorkable and awkward Richard Hendricks. If I had a drink for every time he put his foot in his mouth, the liquor cabinet would be empty. Add to that, his earnestness at the right moments and his commitment to doing the right thing by just about everyone, gets my approval. Now if he could just be less of a pussy.
Also, his habit of being pedantic gets carried over from the previous season and receives a bit of air time. There are also some cute segments where he and Dinesh argue using mathematical principles such as the Reflexive Property, Transitive Property and Additive Inverse Property.
TJ Miller, in the same over-the-top performance as Erlich Bachmann. Crass and arrogant, often hilariously so. Miller doesn't disappoint as he carries on with his extravagant and bombastic portrayal from Season 1.
Zach Woods as Jared Dunn. Sweet and earnest, even as he's unintentionally being sexist towards Carla by trying not to be sexist and possible being too considerate. This is a guy who does comedy even without appearing to try. Also provides a sound platform for the season's solemn moments.
Kumail Nanjiani is the awkward Dinesh Chugtai. He's got his snarky moments, but this season shows us a less likeable side of him - the guy who's so insecure that he'll go to extraordinary lengths to present an image.
Martin Starr, excellent as Bertram Gilfoyle. Same as last time we saw him - cold, deadpan sarcasm and nihilism to the hilt. In this season, he becomes the team's de facto hardware guy.
Chris Diamantopoulos as Russ Hanneman, the brash, self-centered tech businessman. Diamantopoulos, like many of the cast, is obviously enjoying himself hugely hamming it up with that "don't do what you should do, do what you want" schtick. He's entertaining as hell to watch too.
Josh Brener reprises his role as Nelson "Big Head" Bighetti. Awkward, clumsy, and possibly even more of a loser than he was in Season 1. I mean, in Season 1, he at least was shown coding. Producing stuff. Here, he's just a huge goofball. That said, he's certainly a lovable one.
Amanda Crew as Monica Hall. She looks really pretty this time round for some reason, but she's not just a pretty face at all. In fact, she acts as exposition sometimes and provides some very sound advice. And she is the straight man to some of the more outlandish performances in the cast.
Matt Ross as Gavin Belson, the scheming, ruthless CEO of Hooli. Emotional and utterly dramatic at times, this season really hammers home his flair for theatrics and his unparalleled showmanship. The character is such an utter tool, but his talent for persuasion cannot be understated. Whether he's smooth-talking his way through a Board Meeting or inspiring Bighead to further acts of inanity, or suckering some fool into becoming his fall-guy, Belson is the quintessential snake oil salesman.
Ben Feldman plays Ron LaFlamme with aplomb. Has a lot more to do this time as the smarmy lawyer giving Richard legal advice. It never seems to be enough. I love every scene he's in.
Comedian Jimmy O. Yang as Jian Yang. Seems to exist purely as a foil for Erlich, but it's not like TJ Miller doesn't have plenty of material for the character, so what gives? The retarded Chinese man act is wearing a little thin.
Suzanne Cryer as Laurie Bream. At first impression, she comes across as a slightly less competent but just as socially awkward version of Peter Gregory. Pretty funny stuff.
Alice Wetterlund makes her debut as Carla Walton. Deadpan and a gigantic troll. Especially towards Jared, though it's hard to say it's undeserved.
Ian Alda as Marc, Endframe CEO. Smug, cocky... and sloppy, which is what leads to his downfall and ultimately getting that shit-eating grin wiped off his face. A moment I really enjoyed. The actor did a fine job.
Joshua Chang as Seth Lee, the Network Security dude from EndFrame. Anxious and emotional. And sometimes comes across as utterly ungrateful. Most likely character to die of a stroke.
Michael McMillian is Aaron "Double A" Anderson. Weird that he actually kind of looks like a younger version of Peter Gregory!
Dustin Milligan as Blaine and his hot and friendly Asian wife Gina, played by Porter Duong. Blaine comes off as a super-stressed asshole at first, but he subverts that later...
Patrick Fischler as Dr Davis Bannerchek. White-haired with black eyebrows. That straight-man demeanor to Gavin Belson's dramatics is a nice contrast. I like the way the actor looks either awkward or exasperated most of the time.
Matt McCoy appears in only two episodes as Pete Monahan the lawyer... but what a glorious two episodes it is. Utterly serious and deadpan as the recovering alcoholic with a penchant for very uncharacteristic behavior (never displayed onscreen and only alluded to) while high.
Frank Collison as Noah, the cranky old man with a ferrety secret.
Andy Daly as the unnamed doctor. God damn it! This doctor is unhelpful as hell and it is fucking funny to watch!
Bernard White is Denpok, Gavin's spiritual advisor. As per last season, full of mystical bullshit. It's a pity we don't get to see more.
Jill E. Alexander as Patrice. Nothing new here, really. Woefully underused.
Charan Prabhakar as Javeed, now looking down and out from his previously chipper appearance in the Season 1 premier.
Aly Mawji and Brian Tiechnel as the brogrammers at Hooli.They're given a little more to do this time round. and actually get to look stressed. The resentment towards Big Head is palpable. Great job!
And cameos by Drew Houston and the Winklevoss twins, right at the premier!
Also, cameos by the ever-excellent Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg interviewing Gavin Belson!
The Mood
It goes a little slow at the start, which is perfect. We want some time to properly digest the implications of Pied Piper's success from last season. There are numerous callbacks to last season's events and it even takes a few episodes before the first line of code is written. There's not so much of the frenetic crunch-time vibe going on. And then things get tense as the lawsuit kicks in and kudos to the producers and scriptwriters, they actually keep things funny even as the drama is ratcheted up.The finale of the season sees the team in tech crisis mode and it is wonderful to watch. The tension and suspense is heightened, and quite a few delightful twists are thrown in.
What I liked
Erlich's t-shirts... again!
Watching Richard stand up for himself at the first investor meeting was great, and it's really funny the way he mangles Erlich's vulgarities. Watching Richard becoming increasingly obnoxious with subsequent investor meeting was still funny, though kind of painful to watch.
"Look a person in the eye and deliver the news with warmth and compassion". All this said in a very clinical tone while studiously avoiding eye contact. The visual irony here was sheer genius.
OK, this is pretty clever. Gilfoyle attempts to sabotage Dinesh by funding his cousin's Kickstarter campaign... and look at his user name. Gilfoyle_Luci4. Luci4! Lucifer! Gilfoyle is a Satanist, remember?
How Erlich obviously wants to impress Russ Hanneman but the dude doesn't give him the time of day. Like, ever. There's something deeper going on here, like maybe Russ finds himself looking in a mirror everytime he looks at Erlich, and doesn't like what he sees.
The part where the gang are discussing the hiring of Carla Walton. Jared thinks it's great to hire her because she's a woman and the company needs female representation. Gilfoyle and Richard disagree - they just want to hire someone qualified, period. And here Dinesh summarizes by adding that it would be better if that someone was a woman, even though the "woman" part of the statement is irrelevant. This is one of the most masterful digs at Silicon Valley's pretentiousness towards diversity. Ever. That burn is classic and probably my favorite the entire season.
This moment, right there, where Richard and Erlich turn the tables on their cranky neighbor Noah and browbeat him into letting Jared stay in his house. Considering that Richard and Erlich spend a healthy amount of time this episode sniping at each other, this is really an awesome bonding moment, portrayed brilliantly by the two actors. Middleditch and Miller play off each other perfectly. Come to think of it, Miller plays off just about anyone else perfectly.
This is one of the nice things about the show. They actually take time out to do real educational stuff amid the comedy. Here, we have Jared explain what a SWOT analysis is.
And the kicker is, Dinesh and Gilfoyle spurn Jared at first, then they do their own SWOT Analysis later on! Albeit for not very professional reasons...
Richard that gigantic nerd (and this applies to Dinesh and Gilfoyle too) goes to confront the guys who tricked him into teaching them his algorithm... and halfway through, he can't help himself, takes up the whiteboard marker and almost starts giving them more pointers. I saw it coming a mile off, but still fucking hilarious.
OK, this quote by Gilfoyle is, to me, the standout of the season.
"My feeling is if you're the CEO of a company and you're dumb enough to leave your login info on a Post-it note on your desk, while the people that you fucking ripped off are physically in your office, it's not a hack. It's barely social engineering. It's more like natural selection."
The creative porn genres at Intersite's porn conference had me in stitches. Who the hell thinks this shit up?!
The scene that Monica, Erlich and Jian Yang delivered about the sentiments against smoking in Silicon Valley. Yet another shot fired at that pretentiously progressive culture. Brilliant!
The courtroom scene, all of it, was riveting. Comedy, drama, the works. Eventually Gavin Belson loses because of his own pettiness.
Gilfoyle calls his server "Anton". Which is pretty neat when you recall that Gilfoyle is a LaVeyan Satanist. Anton LaVey, anyone?
The whole sequence where Richard texts the team to delete everything when he thinks he's going to lose the case, then changing his mind when he wins the case. He predictably runs out of battery juice when he tries to tell the team to stay their hands... but the really nice part, and really sweet, is the way the team keeps procrastinating the act of deleting all of their hard work to the very last moment even without further news from Richard.
And that whole scene where the team (sans Richard) has to fight to stay online while their servers stagger under the load of 300,000 viewers. Fire, smoke, tension, victory... this is great! That scene is pretty iconic!
What I didn't
Hearing Monica relate the story of how Peter Gregory died is fun, but predictable. Felt like a drag.The entire "Bro" thing was banal and not all that funny. Zack Woods is brilliant here, just not brilliant enough. Still, I guess it fed into important plot points (and not-so-important ones).
The "outed by WiFi" gag was mercifully short, lasting only one episode. All it really did was show me that Dinesh is a pathetic faker and Erlich is a stud. No big deal, and not that interesting. And super awkward.
Russ Hanneman was fun to watch... for most of it. Near the tail end of the season, the act started getting just a little repetitive. It's almost like the producers wanted to put him in every episode, even for a few minutes, just to get their moneys' worth.
The scene where Russ accidentally deletes Intersite's data is dramatic, sure... but somehow seems a bit unbelievable. What, no backup? Come on. Though, watching Gilfoyle sweat is a nice change.
Erlich doing some emergency coding, complete with coding gloves and all. What the fuck? Is that even a thing?
The ending. I get that they wanted a cliffhanger... but really? This was pretty lame compared to everything we watched the whole season.
Conclusion
More of the same. If you watched the first season for over-the-top hijinks, vulgarities and the story of the underdog beating the odds coupled with very real scenarios in the tech industry, Season 2 will not disappoint you. In fact, I'd even venture to say Season 2 has the slight edge over Season 1 now that we actually know what to expect, and I, for one, wasn't disappointed in the least. Season 2 has its flaws, sure. But the good far outweighs the bad.
My Rating
9.5 / 10
By the Transitive Property, this season is awesome!
T___T
T___T
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