This season of Silicon Valley has been full of firings, new CEOs, and corporate shuffling. Unlike previous seasons, we went into the finale not knowing what to expect. Season One had the build up to Tech Crunch and Season Two had the pending lawsuit. This season, it felt like we were left in the dark. Even the preview of the episode was extremely vague with Richard being told off by multiple characters.
Unlike Game of Thrones, Silicon Valley fans don’t tune in each episode and expect that someone is going to die. This episode, however, started with the death of the elephant, Maurice, that Gavin used for one of his demonstrations last week. Patrice finally says what I know I’ve been thinking for weeks: why is he even using live animals at all? Of course, because Gavin is a bit of a mad man in the way he runs things, she is fired for it.
Jared tries to confess to enlisting the click-farm to boost numbers, but Richard cuts him off. He knows. Seeing how this is the finale, it’s not a surprise they didn’t want the click-farm to be a secret for long.
Erlich Bachman assumes his role as PR for Pied Piper by telling his long story (cutting out what could have been clever quotes and instead including unnecessary details like what he was doing when he got offers) about how he secured a deal for six million dollars on a sixty-million-dollar valuation. That’s six million dollars for a mere ten percent of the company.
Dinesh and Gilfoyle give Richard a bit of a shakedown believing he’s the one behind the fake users. That’s “serial-killer-level” as Dinesh says. They don’t want to be told what is actually going on because they could be implicated. However, Dinesh tries to offer a script that would make the fake users behave in a more convincing way. It seems like Richard wanted to confess but was afraid to, but the person he should really tell is Erlich.
He tries to rationalize with Jared about keeping the fake users a secret and possibly using the zombie script. You could hear his pain as he explained how he’s tired of doing the right thing and then getting screwed because of it. Let’s face it. That’s been the story of Silicon Valley. The characters try so hard to succeed and just as they get close, the rug gets pulled from underneath them. Richard is slowly becoming hardened by the experience… or so he wants us to 
believe.
CJ Cantwell calls up Gavin Belson about the story she is doing about an elephant dying on a company’s courtyard. Is it just me or does CJ almost seem as manipulative as some of the CEOs on this show? Maybe eventually we’ll see her rise to fortune the way she likes to run things. Gavin buys the blog for two million dollars. Erlich is back on his feet again after the up-and-down battle he’s had with his financial situation. He claims he’s using his newfound wealth to take a vacation.
Going to the meeting to close the six-million-dollar deal, Richard has two options: he could do the dishonest thing he said he was going to do and commit fraud for the money or he could graciously leave the meeting to “think about it” and explain things to Erlich. Instead, he goes with the third option of confessing that the numbers were fake in front of the potential investors and thus screwing over Pied Piper and Erlich’s reputation. I don’t blame Erlich one bit for blowing up at Richard. Once again, Richard proves that when given the chance to choose between right and wrong, he takes the road untraveled and gets completely lost.
Meanwhile, the video chat application running off the Pied Piper algorithm starts to explode in popularity while Monica breaks the news that Raviga is selling their way out of Pied Piper. Gavin appears to be high bidder at one million dollars with Pied Piper not seeing any of it. Most likely Piped Piper will cease to exist shortly after the deal.
The board meeting 
went surprisingly quick considering Monica voted No, got fired, and replaced to have Evan vote her way because he “loves her”. Wait. Who is this guy and where did this even come from? It just seemed like some awkwardly placed comedic disaster. Regardless, Richard pulls the trigger and Piped Piper is sold to the surprise bidder of Bachmanity for $1,000,001 with a no-shop clause.
Let’s recap: Erlich Bachman started as the owner of the incubator who saw Pied Piper grow to new heights, had a modest share in the company, saved the company multiple times, sold his shares below-value to pay off his debts, got hired by Pied Piper, had one of his remaining assets sold, and then bought Pied Piper. Once again, Erlich has saved Pied Piper from Richard’s mistakes.
The world makes sense again.
The show closes as the original gang is back together again (and Monica). After three eventful seasons, Pied Piper has come full circle to where it all started. I couldn’t help noticing that the Perplexis bong is back as well. As I said, the world makes sense again.
With the very little lead-up to the finale that this season has, this episode made for a satisfying finale with surprises and good laughs.
The fate of Piped Piper is finally in their own hands. The world is theirs for the taking… they’re just still broke and their lawyer is in jail… but their app is popular. That counts for something, right? I guess we’ll find out in Season Four.
Still want more Silicon Valley? The fun doesn’t stop when the season does. Check out the different websites from the world of the TV show like hooli.com, piedpiper.com, coderag.com, endframesystems.com, and bachmanity.com. Ever wanted to know more about code/rag’s new owner, Gavin Belson? Well, here’s 10 facts you didn’t know about him.
