[For Silicon Valley “The Uptick” or any other recaps on Fetchland, assume the presence of possible spoilers.]
HBO Summary:
The Uptick. Richard and the guys of Pied Piper consider their company’s future; Gavin’s comeback is threatened.
The episode begins with confrontations all around. Gavin’s assistant confronts him about his use of real life endangered animals for making corporate analogies in board meetings. This practice led to the recent death of an elephant on the Hooli campus. She tells him none of this fits his “goodness at Hooli” paradigm. Thus Gavin fires her immediately rather than face his hypocrisy. His assistant turns in her Hooli gear and then calls Erlich’s tech blog to spill some dirt on Gavin. Bachman’s tech blogger then blackmails Gavin with the info to strike a deal. She ends up selling the blog to him for $2mill and thus providing Bachman with the cash he needs to be “somebody” yet again. And that he does right away. Right after, using pure bravado and pretending to be Bobby Fischer “if he could fuck,” Bachman creates a snowballing Silicon Valley rumor mill through mere enigmatic behavior. As a result, he scores Pied Piper a $6 million series B round funding offer on a $60mill valuation based entirely on the tiny little fake uptick Jared bought for the company from the click farm in India.
Then there’s confrontation number two, this time in Jared’s pseudo bedroom AKA Erlich’s garage. Turns out Richard knows about the fake users Jared bought for them. After the awkwardness of that confrontation, Richard finds out Dinesh ALSO knows the new users are fake… and Gilfoyle too. They aren’t upset, though, and present Richard with a flash drive that offers a way to hide the fake users from the vetting of the $6 mill offering VC company. Dinesh and Gilfoyle “finally respect him as a CEO” and they’re helping him because of it. So, he takes the flash drive to Jared suggesting they use it. Jared’s conscience shrieks too loudly and he says “don’t weaponize my faith in you against me,” but Richard decides to do it anyway. As Richard sits in the waiting room of the Venture Capitalist Company, Monica calls with confrontation number three and says not to do this shopping for funding without Raviga but he goes into the meeting anyway. Richard’s just about to sign the term sheet when he gets cold feet. Funny part is that his hesitancy makes them offer him $7mill on a $70mill valuation because they think it’s just negotiating tactics. This is the final straw for Richard. He then crumbles in the meeting under the weight of his conscience and honesty. Richard says he can’t commit fraud but all the infuriated Erlich can see is that his amazing deal is ruined. Bachman yells at him int he parking lot with premium grade ‘A’ righteousness.
Then Monica shows up at the incubator to see Richard. She heard about the fraud and understands he was just trying to protect Raviga from the backlash. So, she’s sorry how it’s all going downhill for him now with Pied Piper. Richard’s a lifesize sad sack next to glumtacular Jared as they sit side by side on his top bunk at Erlich’s. They’re like two bad boys sent to their room with no dinner. Meanwhile in the living room Dinesh and Gilfoyle find out that their new Pied Piper video chat app is doing very well with seven thousand organically developed users. It’s that app Dinesh cobbled together just so he could get a better look at their flirty Pied Piper employee a few episodes ago.
Laurie from Raviga sees Gavin in passing and tells him she’s forcing a sale of Pied Piper. So, just to be a dick, he offers her a million dollars for it. Meanwhile Richard visits Big Head to say goodbye because Big Head’s moving back in with his parents who want to oversee his money-handling challenges. While with Big Head he gets a call and he finds out about Gavin’s million dollar offer for PP. At the subsequent Raviga board meeting to discuss and approve this Pied Piper sale, Monica says she won’t vote yes for the sale and thus Laurie immediately fires her from the board. But then Richard votes yes, saying it’s an inevitable loss anyway. Then they find out that the ACTUAL buyer isn’t Gavin at all, though. It’s Bachmanity. When they sold their tech blog to Gavin, Bachmanity profited a million dollars and so when they heard about the Pied Piper sale, they decided to make a bid for one million and one dollars to buy it. They saved the company!
Richard tries to thank Erlich in the incubator backyard but he’s still magma mad and royally indignant… until he’s not. After partying with the team loosens Bachman’s sphincter, he can’t help but forgive his bro, Richard. They’re all in this together again, after all. In the final scene, Big Head’s decided to stay in Silicon Valley and be a part of his new investment in PP. Even Monica joins the team now because she was fired from Raviga, after all. It’s one big happy family, the band’s finally back together, and what a wonderful way to end a fabulous, hilarious season of Silicon Valley.
–Katherine Recap
