Pied Piper is LIVE! Not only that, but it’s become hugely successful. We start off the episode with a Bloomberg interview of Erlich Bachman (henceforth known as Erlich Blachman according to the White Pages and Google) and Richard Hendricks. At first glance, it seems odd that Erlich is trying to steal the spotlight, especially since we know that he sold his 10% of the company. Why would he want to draw attention to himself? The only reason I could think of was Meinertzhagen’s Haversack. I guess it worked because nobody suspects that he technically has nothing to do with the company anymore. It seems to be working because it’s been ten days and still nobody suspects a thing.
The creative genius that came up with the design of the Pied Piper jacket needs to come forward to be commended for that eye-sore of a design. I’d like to say it looks like it was designed by a grade school student, but I’m sure there are many students that could come up with something that was more pleasing to the eyes.
Gavin Belson loves to use animals as visual aids. The hooli board explains how End Frame and Nucleus have resulted in burning through three-quarters of a billion dollars. How much has he spent on all the animals for single demonstrations? His determination to destroy Pied Piper has led him to make a lot of management decisions and ultimately causing him to become the third CEO that we’ve seen fired this season.
Richard learns that a significant portion of shares of his company has been sold. Seeing how board members have the most shares, this leads to the suspicion that something is wrong in Pied Piper. Richard has been conditioned to expect something to go wrong when things are looking up (so have we). Few episodes ended on a high note, but most of them have been in this season. Pied Piper ran out of the starting gate hugely successful, a potential unicorn, so naturally he would suspect that it wouldn’t last long. He suspects sabotage and immediately believes it’s Monica.
With Erlich’s situation being more serious than the usual, a lot of the “comedic relief” comes from the jacket scenes. Gilfoyle’s attempts to embarrass Dinesh quickly backfire. The ugly jacket makes him an instant celebrity. Poor Dinesh just makes it so easy for Gilfoyle to change gears to turn the joke back on him again.
Richard learns from Monica that the shares were sold by none other than Erlich Blachman (I told you I would do it). Of course, with this knowledge and knowing Erlich, goes straight into a rage-filled tunnel vision. He jumps to the conclusion that Erlich has the worst intentions in mind, forgetting the fact that Erlich’s most prized asset is his investment in Pied Piper. It’s mentioned many times in the series.
It wouldn’t be Silicon Valley without an Apple reference whenever possible. Erlich no longer refers to himself as the “Wozniak” to Richard’s “Steve Jobs”, but Ron Wayne instead. Richard, of course, fails to consider how many times Erlich saved the company and Richard, despite his crazy behavior.
The Gavin/Jack scene seemed like nothing but filler, but maybe we’ll see if their relationship will lead to something more. After all, Gavin would not to the “Big Head” thing and do nothing now that he doesn’t have a job doing something.
Another familiar face returns to the show. The biggest douchebag we’ve ever seen, Russ Hanneman, explains how Erlich Blachman tried to half his shares to him for five million dollars. Laurie instead muscled her way using her majority stockholder’s ability to block stock transfers and force her own price of $713,000. Yes, another reason to hate the socially awkward leader of Raviga. Not only that, but she blames the move on Richard for accepting the terms last season that allowed her to do that. Hopefully, he’ll be able to afford a better lawyer with the success of Pied Piper.
I guess the guilt finally turned Richard around to offer Erlich the PR job for Pied Piper. Speaking of Erlich in this 
scene, where’s the Perplexis bong? I suddenly miss seeing that thing. I hope he didn’t sell it to pay off his debts. Erlich’s first task is to send out a press release that Pied Piper will be available on the hooli store. The war that lasted nearly three seasons is over.
So this episode ended on a high note… or… whatever note that Dinesh is trying to achieve in the karaoke bar. It’s the last thing we hear as the episode rolls to credits and I think I’m traumatized.
While I did not mention the code/rag article that demoralized Blacman, you can read it on code/rag for yourself. That’s right. Code/rag, as well as piedpiper.com and hooli.com, are actual websites that compliment the show.
Next week, with the war between hooli and Pied Piper over and only two episodes left, Pied Piper faces a new challenge: is this their platform approachable? Is it too good?
