But the hatching of a Danny Ocean scheme is beautiful while it lasts, because it gives Erlich a mission and pays off the group dynamic the show has continued to refine. “Meinertzhagen’s Haversack” has him trying to kick his way out - first by going over his C.E.O.’s head and appealing to Laurie Bream, then by devising the skunkworks - but “Silicon Valley” wouldn’t be “Silicon Valley” without having him literally fall flat on his face. The Conjoined Triangles of Success come together to make a box, Jack says, happily noting the serendipity and that box is the coffin in which Richard has been buried alive.

“There’s really no difference between day and night down here,” notes their tour guide, “so it makes things easy.”

At Jack’s insistence, he and his engineers visit the underground data storage vault where Pied Piper’s pitiful appliance will be tucked away like the holy relic at the end of “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Instead of changing the world with a visionary compression platform for consumers everywhere, they tour the open slots where their 21st century VCR will go and the sad desk where they will provide 24/7 on-site maintenance. In the cold open, Richard sees the slot where his dreams will go. To use a metaphor appropriate to this episode: Life itself is the gold chain around Richard’s neck, and the show’s co-creator Mike Judge is his Gilfoyle. For the show to devise and dismantle this magnificent scheme is a sign of its absolute commitment to making Richard miserable. It was not only easy but also thrilling to imagine an entire season of Richard, Jared, Gilfoyle, Dinesh and even the woefully superfluous Erlich pulling end-arounds at the office to bring their skunkworks to life. The writers of “Silicon Valley” have a special talent for engineering elaborate systems for the sake of a good running joke - the sexual mathematics that led to the Eureka moment for middle-out the SWOT board as a way to determine whether or not to let an unctuous stuntman fall to his doom - but “Meinertzhagen’s Haversack” is a high-water mark. What an exciting, inspired idea!Īnd then, out goes the rug. And with that, the overarching plot for Season 3 of “Silicon Valley” seems to lock into place, something akin to the fifth season of “The Wire,” which had a journalist from The Baltimore Sun making up a serial killer to boost his profile. Here’s one for the popular Twitter hashtag #ExplainAFilmPlotBadly: “It’s a 2001 casino heist film starring Julia Roberts and 11 men.” That’s Jared on “Ocean’s Eleven,” the inspiration for a devious ruse that would allow Richard and his original Pied Piper team to work on their consumer platform while fooling Jack into believing that they’re making his awful data storage box. Season 3, Episode 3: ‘Meinertzhagen’s Haversack’

Silicon valley season 3 ending