'Silicon Valley' Has Developed a Few Bugs in Season 2

HBO’s tech-world comedy Silicon Valley debuted last year with a smart, raucous freshman season — one that earned surprise Emmy and Golden Globe nods for best comedy series. But three episodes in, we have this nagging feeling that the new season is still buffering. Silicon Valley 2.0, it seems, is a bit buggy.

It’s been a different vibe for sure, with ragtag startup Pied Piper no longer the scrappy underdogs as venture capitalists line up to offer them big bucks. But as Richard and his team of tech nerds agonize over whose money to take, it seems like creator Mike Judge and his writing team are suffering the same anxiety about where to take the story next.

But think of us as an IT guy: Here, we take a close look at the source code to identify five key errors plaguing Silicon Valley this season… and figure out what they can do to get it up and running again.

1. The show misses Peter Gregory. So do we.

One of Season 1’s highlights was Christopher Evan Welch’s delightful performance as oddball executive Peter Gregory, a fascinating blend of bluntness, sudden flashes of genius, and deadpan humor. Gregory championed Pied Piper early on and had fun tweaking pompous rival Gavin Belson, but sadly, we didn’t have much time to get to know him; Welch passed away from lung cancer midway through filming Season 1.

It’s not exactly fair to penalize the show for such an unforeseen tragedy, but the loss of Welch did leave a gaping void in the cast — one that hasn’t been adequately filled so far this season. Gregory was written off in fittingly bizarre fashion (he died fleeing a rogue hippo while on safari), but his equally awkward replacement, Laurie Bream (Suzanne Cryer), feels like an attempt to transfer Gregory’s quirky mannerisms into a new character. And it doesn’t quite work; in fact, it just makes us miss Gregory (and Welch) more.

2. The “woman problem” persists.

Critics accused Silicon Valley of being too dude-heavy in Season 1, with women only visible around the margins or viewed as sex objects. We don’t particularly agree with that assessment, but it seems the producers took it to heart and are trying to make female characters more a part of the Pied Piper shenanigans this season. Unfortunately, it’s fallen flat so far.

Related: Ken Tucker Reviews the New Season of ‘Silicon Valley’

As mentioned above, Laurie Bream is a poor replacement for Peter Gregory; we’d rather see a wholly original female boss character than a faded photocopy. The show’s only other female character is Season 1 holdover Monica (Amanda Crew), who acts as a go-between between Pied Piper and Bream — but remarkably, through 11 episodes, she’s exhibited almost no discernible personality traits at all. Mostly, she just shows up in a scene to provide some plot exposition, then steps aside to let the guys tell more dick jokes.

Don’t get us wrong: We love dick jokes, and Silicon Valley excels at them. (Last season’s “mean jerk time” algorithm was a thing of beauty.) And we realize the real-life Silicon Valley is a notorious boys’ club. But that’s no excuse for failing to develop Monica beyond “pretty and nice.” And can we get some girl coders up in here? Or even some romantic prospects for the guys? (No, not Richard and Monica. Some realistic ones.)

3. The plot is lost in corporate-speak gobbledygook.

You didn’t need to understand HTML to root for Richard and company last season as they battled to prove Pied Piper’s compression algorithm was a game-changer. And they did, triumphing at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in the Season 1 finale. So what did that triumph lead to? Lots and lots of meetings, apparently.

We’ve heard so much about valuation and buyouts and percentages of equity already this season, we feel like we’re watching a Shark Tank repeat. And while it makes sense that Season 2 would see the Pied Piper crew grappling with success, it’s not exactly the show we signed up for. This is Silicon Valley; we want to see these guys writing code! We understand this is probably the mundane reality of getting a startup off the ground… but that doesn’t make it any more entertaining to watch.

4. Needs more Gilfoyle and Dinesh.

While Season 2 has been dominated by Richard’s business ventures, our favorite bickering engineers Gilfoyle and Dinesh have had to take a back seat. And that’s a shame, because Martin Starr and Kumail Nanjiani are great separately, but together, they’re comedy gold in the vein of Chandler and Joey, or Troy and Abed, or Statler and Waldorf. Their never-ending pissing match of pranks and insults provided a lot of laughs in Season 1, but so far this season, they’ve mostly been reduced to bystanders.

And while we’re at it, more Erlich and Jared, too, please. Silicon Valley works best when all five Pied Piper principals are bouncing wiseass one-liners off each other. (Every line from Zach Woods as Jared, in particular, should be immortalized on a T-shirt. “I’m putting on hats!”) With Richard flying solo so much, we’re missing the lewd, crude camaraderie that made Season 1 so great.

5. Pied Piper’s new savior is an unmitigated douche.

Yes, we recognize that Russ Hannerman (Chris Diamantopoulos), who became a billionaire overnight by putting “radio on the Internet,” is supposed to be an obnoxious tool. But it’s beyond that; it feels like he’s walked in off the set of a different show entirely. (Entourage, perhaps?)

Hannerman swooped in last week to save Pied Piper’s bacon with a $5 million offer, but that meant the guys (and we) have to tolerate his juvenile playboy antics. Everyone on the show hates him, and with good reason: He’s an arrogant sleaze. Even if he acts as a much-needed irritant to Gavin Belson, he’s acting as an irritant to us at the same time. Erlich already fulfills this show’s douche quota quite nicely, thanks.

Let’s hope Richard finds a way to tame Russ quickly and get back to working on Pied Piper with the rest of the gang — because this season could use a hard reboot, and fast.

Silicon Valley airs Sundays at 10 p.m. on HBO.