Raging Erlich Is Among The Best Erlichs

I may not love doing it, but I can admit when I'm wrong, and I was wrong about Silicon Valley. I'm still not crazy about Richard (Thomas Middleditch), the weak center of a pretty delightful ensemble -- particularly, as my esteemed colleague Jeff Drake has opined, the great Zach Woods as Jared. The proof of how well the show has coalesced was proven to me as I watched the latest episode and great moment succeeded great moment and I wondered which I might use this space to write about. And then the greatest moment removed all doubt.

But before we get to that, a quick overview of some of the episode's other gold. For starters -- and maybe this was only of interest to me and people like me -- Gilfoyle's girlfriend has come for a visit, and not only is she a live human woman, but her name is Tara, and she pronounces it like I do/the correct way ("TAH-ra," not "Terra"). Is it fun hearing my name in lines like "Tara just whispered something to you and then looked at me in a weird way" and "Tara wants to have sex with you?" Yes. Yes it is. Particularly since this Tara's the hottest thing any of these nerds has ever seen. I mean, obviously.

Then there's the scene where Gilfoyle (thanks to Tara's undeniable sexual magnetism) gets Erlich and Dinesh out to a Satanic mass, which ends with the officiant addressing the congregants thus: "Well, thanks for comin', everyone! Brother Jason was kind enough to furnish this week's food. It's Chick-Fil-A: I know, they're on the Christian Right, but darn if that chicken isn't good!" Satanists are as warm and folksy as Lutherans? Who knew?

Then, of course, there's Jared's run-in with Peter Gregory's self-driving car. Only this poor, v-neck-pullovered fool could do something as innocuous as accept a ride home and end up in a shipping container en route to an artificial island.

But then -- oh, then. So the episode's A-plot revolves around Pied Piper's hiring a contractor to deal with cloud programming that Richard thinks he should be able to do himself, but hasn't learned yet; worst of all, The Carver is just a kid. And when Jared, sent for The Carver's Adderall, mysteriously doesn't return with it, Richard has to go try to buy some off some young toughs in the neighbourhood -- who, of course, can tell he has no idea what he's doing and pull a switcheroo, selling him something else entirely. When The Carver points out the problem, Richard returns for a refund, and gets a slap square in the face for his troubles. But then, when it becomes clear that The Carver has fucked stuff up that he wasn't even supposed to be working on and there are mere hours left to fix the problem -- which will require the biggest Adderall anyone's ever seen -- Erlich stomps out to the gang of urchins, and...

I don't even care that he's avenging Richard's shaming earlier; I don't care about Richard's shame, in general. I just think it's funny when kids get hurt.

It's particularly funny when the kid, like this little puke, really deserves it. Of course. But honestly, I'm not that picky.