“Third Party Insourcing” is my favorite episode of Silicon Valley‘s freshman season (so far at least). It has an incredibly high laugh-to-minute ratio, and packs in an admirable amount of plot for a half hour comedy. Credit is due to writer Dan O’Keefe, a veteran of shows like The League, The Drew Carey Show, and fucking Seinfeld.
With TechCrunch just a week away, Pied Piper looks to outside help to solve its problem with cloud computing. I’m not going to pretend to know exactly what the cloud is, but as Erlich rightly describes it in a failed pep talk to Richard, it could be the future of computing. And while Richard may not be great with the cloud, the Carver, a high-school aged hacker, certainly does. Austin Abrams, of The Kings of Summer, plays Kevin, alias the Carver, with the right balance of smugness and ultimately vulnerability. He stakes his reputation on having crashed Bank of America’s network, but after accidentally doing the same to Pied Piper, is forced to admit that his actions at BofA were accidental as well. Richard freaks out, which is the correct response, and ends up siccing Erlich on some kids who sold him bunk Adderall (which the Carver needs to work). In my favorite scene of the night, Erlich walks right up to the pint-size drug dealer, slaps him in the face, and says “You just brought piss to a shit fight!” Which is the greatest thing I’ve ever heard.
Elsewhere, Gilfoyle’s girlfriend Tara (Milana Vayntrub) is visiting, and the guys have no idea how to react – especially when Gilfoyle tells Dinesh that he gets turned on by other men pleasing his girlfriend. Erlich naturally tries to supplant Dinesh, only to have the whole thing be revealed as a prank that Gilfoyle doesn’t even remember playing cause he was high. I love jokes like this; it takes a certain amount of confidence and chemistry between cast members to pull off a joke that lasts for a half hour and then intentionally fizzles out. The lack of payoff is the payoff.
It’s not important to me to recap, beat by beat, the plot of any particular episode. What I loved about “Third Party Insourcing” isn’t necessarily the plot; it’s the sure-footedness that Silicon Valley is now displaying, after a somewhat underwhelming pilot (but to be fair, it really only underwhelms in the face of episodes like this). This was the funniest half hour of Silicon Valley to date.
A Few Thoughts
– I really liked Jared’s subplot tonight: getting stuck in a self-driving car that takes him to Arallon, the island that Peter Gregory is building. That’s where Jared ends up at the end of this episode, and I’m really excited to see more of the island
– Loved the shot of Erlich throwing the kid’s bike over the bushes. TJ Miller killed that scene
– That Satanic baptism was very, very Mike Judge
– I know, I don’t like the banner pic either, but for some reason it is fucking impossible to find promo pictures or stills online of “Third Party Insourcing”
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