More freeform animated comedies will rarely do anything special at all to signal the end of the season, but they’re also the only safe place to occasionally go for something completely theatrical: we just recently passed the 19th anniversary of “Who Shot Mr. Burns Part I,” which Bob’s Burgers paid something of an homage to a couple weeks ago in a two-parter finale that actually had lives on the line. In both cases the tension was only temporary, but even suggesting that the status quo can be affected by more than just relationship statuses is walking into territory comedies usually shy away from. Though the specter of Belson’s $10 million offer from the pilot has been haunting Richard all season, Silicon Valley has always had to push the stakes to the background, so as not to crowd out the dicking around and tomfoolery that’s made the show funny.
Beneath the unforgiving spotlights of TechCrunch Disrupt’s main stage, all that changes. While I said last week that I’d be disappointed if the show didn’t carry over story threads from that episode, it’s ultimately a wise decision to cut ties to all other considerations, and make the finale all about the potential collapse of Pied Piper. With the threat of litigation over Erlich’s assault vaulting Pied Piper into the Startup Battlefield finals (and a much nicer hotel room), Richard’s gang gets to be trending up for all of two minutes, before Gavin Belson’s Nucleus presentation takes the wind out of their sails, and gashes open the hull for good measure.
The presentation is maybe the sharpest bit of extended satire the show has done yet, capturing the inviting, “kumbaya” tone of an Apple-esque keynote speech that hides bile-inducing phrases like “family of products,” and legal threats to the competition under new age music and aesthetically pleasing graphics. It’s a corporate blitzkrieg disguised as an invitation, with a celebrity endorsement being the cherry on top for the consumer. But for the Pied Piper guys, it’s the giant “2.89” Weissman score appearing midway through the presentation that’s the real shock and “aw f*ck” moment. The fate of their company rested on the strength and originality of Richard’s idea, and Hooli has managed to not only replicate it perfectly, but absorb it into the greater entity that is Hooli.
Under the low green lighting of the empty auditorium, the guys all realize that the rocketship they hitched their fortunes to is simply outgunned by Hooli, and they break off individually (Dinesh/Gilfoyle attached at the hip as always) to give each character one last moment to themselves. Erlich, who when not talking out of his ass often provides the voice of reason, offers the guys a glimmer of insane hope: “we need to do what any animal in nature does when it’s cornered: act erratically, and blindly lash out at everything around us.”
Erlich himself continues to peacock, spreading rumors about Gavin that even he knows won’t stick. Dinesh and Gilfoyle try to make like rats and abandon ship, but are quickly reminded that Pied Piper isn’t the only once-promising startup that can sink in a heartbeat. Finally, poor, sleep-deprived Jared desperately tries to pivot, looking to reverse-engineer the entire company by focus-testing new ideas for what Pied Piper should be. All the scenes make for very funny one-last-hurrahs with these characters, who as Gilfoyle puts it, are just waiting for execution at the final presentation. This interlude in their darkest hour reveals the truest personalities of these characters, but it’s only Richard who acts appreciably different. He’s actually more comfortable and happy in the certainty of failure than in the chaos that comes with chasing success, and the possibility of drinks with Monica is maybe the best outcome that ever could have resulted from this whole crazy venture.