• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Silicon Valley - Season 2 of the hilarious Mike Judge comedy series - HBO Sundays

Status
Not open for further replies.
C

Cornballer

Member
A few more gifs from Ep 8:


msTD3tC.gif


rwp4E9V.gif


l9Pw8QX.gif
 
B

big ander

Member
This episode was too sadistic for me. I dunno, this season's been very back and forth, and many episodes I just don't laugh. It's not that being dark is unfunny, but the rigorous nausea and infliction of pain isn't accompanied by jokes in the first place. For instance the Schrodinger's cat b story. The show seemed to think that alone was a funny joke and I didn't find it amusing at all. dinesh and gilfoyle saying over and over that things could be bad or good, not getting laughs from me. (jared quoting Hitler did, however.) And to end that with a man brutally dying out of nowhere does not vibe with me. Don't think the show was primed for humor that black--Peter Gregory's death was offscreen and ridiculous, this was a very real looking and gruesome accident played for a funny end gag. Meanwhile in the a story the company is continuing to implode in slow motion, and it's fascinating in a way yet not at all pleasant to watch. Outside of bighead and the introduction of the not-an-attorney there wasn't anything I found all that funny. Other contemporary discomfort/taboo humor shows like Big Time in Hollywood FL or Nathan for You or even the current elder statesman of tasteless awful comedy It's Always Sunny make me laugh a ton while making me squirm. In this show you're just trapped in a vice and made to watch idiots be idiots--Ehrlich giving away the computer thing could not have been more contrived, and nothing else in the arbitration made me laugh (Ehrlich doing the "i'm the girlfriend" thing is such a basic first-draft joke, come on). Silicon Valley for a good 5 or 6 episodes of this season has given me a stomach knot without ever finding laughs. It's an accomplished show for being so grim and unflinching. Not positive I want to feel so awful week in and week out though. who knows, maybe I'm too sensitive lol.
 
E

eznark

Banned
big ander said:
This episode was too sadistic for me. I dunno, this season's been very back and forth, and many episodes I just don't laugh. It's not that being dark is unfunny, but the rigorous nausea and infliction of pain isn't accompanied by jokes in the first place. For instance the Schrodinger's cat b story. The show seemed to think that alone was a funny joke and I didn't find it amusing at all. dinesh and gilfoyle saying over and over that things could be bad or good, not getting laughs from me. (jared quoting Hitler did, however.) And to end that with a man brutally dying out of nowhere does not vibe with me. Don't think the show was primed for humor that black--Peter Gregory's death was offscreen and ridiculous, this was a very real looking and gruesome accident played for a funny end gag. Meanwhile in the a story the company is continuing to implode in slow motion, and it's fascinating in a way yet not at all pleasant to watch. Outside of bighead and the introduction of the not-an-attorney there wasn't anything I found all that funny. Other contemporary discomfort/taboo humor shows like Big Time in Hollywood FL or Nathan for You or even the current elder statesman of tasteless awful comedy It's Always Sunny make me laugh a ton while making me squirm. In this show you're just trapped in a vice and made to watch idiots be idiots--Ehrlich giving away the computer thing could not have been more contrived, and nothing else in the arbitration made me laugh (Ehrlich doing the "i'm the girlfriend" thing is such a basic first-draft joke, come on). Silicon Valley for a good 5 or 6 episodes of this season has given me a stomach knot without ever finding laughs. It's an accomplished show for being so grim and unflinching. Not positive I want to feel so awful week in and week out though. who knows, maybe I'm too sensitive lol.
Click to expand...

huh, none of that stuff, outside of the accident at the end, read as super dark to me.
 
B

Bread

Banned
I agree that the schroedinger's cat stuff wasn't that funny, but I thought it concluded in a pretty funny way.

You're being too sensitive imo.
 
W

wanderingprostheyltite

Member
big ander said:
snip
Click to expand...

Are we watching the same show? This seems very tame to me when it comes to dark comedy. I'll admit the constant roadblocks are getting a bit tiring, would be nice to have more side stories like first season to lighten it up a bit like the whole Gilfoyle girlfriend subplot, but other than that I think the second season has been solid. Erlich slipping up was just stupid though. Maybe they need to hire separate writers for jokes and ones for the main beats/arcs of the show, cause whoever has been plotting the slip ups this season hasn't been doing a great job at it.

And yes I'm aware that person might be Judge lol
 
B

Burt

Member
This show is fantastic. I mean, the first season was good, but this seasons is great.

I might like Veep better, but I definitely love this show,





If you didn't know an Ehrlich in college, you missed out on college.
 
C

Calvero

Banned
big ander said:
This episode was too sadistic for me. I dunno, this season's been very back and forth, and many episodes I just don't laugh. It's not that being dark is unfunny, but the rigorous nausea and infliction of pain isn't accompanied by jokes in the first place. For instance the Schrodinger's cat b story. The show seemed to think that alone was a funny joke and I didn't find it amusing at all. dinesh and gilfoyle saying over and over that things could be bad or good, not getting laughs from me. (jared quoting Hitler did, however.) And to end that with a man brutally dying out of nowhere does not vibe with me. Don't think the show was primed for humor that black--Peter Gregory's death was offscreen and ridiculous, this was a very real looking and gruesome accident played for a funny end gag. Meanwhile in the a story the company is continuing to implode in slow motion, and it's fascinating in a way yet not at all pleasant to watch. Outside of bighead and the introduction of the not-an-attorney there wasn't anything I found all that funny. Other contemporary discomfort/taboo humor shows like Big Time in Hollywood FL or Nathan for You or even the current elder statesman of tasteless awful comedy It's Always Sunny make me laugh a ton while making me squirm. In this show you're just trapped in a vice and made to watch idiots be idiots--Ehrlich giving away the computer thing could not have been more contrived, and nothing else in the arbitration made me laugh (Ehrlich doing the "i'm the girlfriend" thing is such a basic first-draft joke, come on). Silicon Valley for a good 5 or 6 episodes of this season has given me a stomach knot without ever finding laughs. It's an accomplished show for being so grim and unflinching. Not positive I want to feel so awful week in and week out though. who knows, maybe I'm too sensitive lol.
Click to expand...

Sorry that this episode evoked such a horrible response. May I ask how you discovered it? They work over 100 hours a week to get episodes to succeed so that they don't have to be a slaves anymore. This review is not good for their business, so unless your desire is to ruin their dreams, it would mean a great deal if you could remove this review from this website and forget about it. But if it's your desire to hurt them financially and ruin their business, then it's understandable why you would post such a harmful review.
 
N

Nozem

Member
Calvero said:
Sorry that this episode evoked such a horrible response. May I ask how you discovered it? They work over 100 hours a week to get episodes to succeed so that I don't have to be a slaves anymore. This review is not good for their business, so unless your desire is to ruin their dreams, it would mean a great deal if you could remove this review from this website and forget about it. But if it's your desire to hurt them financially and ruin their business, then it's understandable why you would post such a harmful review.
Click to expand...
Is this a reference I am missing or are you actually an idiot?
 
Dice//

Dice//

Banned
big ander said:
This episode was too sadistic for me. I dunno, this season's been very back and forth, and many episodes I just don't laugh. It's not that being dark is unfunny, but the rigorous nausea and infliction of pain isn't accompanied by jokes in the first place. For instance the Schrodinger's cat b story. The show seemed to think that alone was a funny joke and I didn't find it amusing at all. dinesh and gilfoyle saying over and over that things could be bad or good, not getting laughs from me. (jared quoting Hitler did, however.) And to end that with a man brutally dying out of nowhere does not vibe with me. Don't think the show was primed for humor that black--Peter Gregory's death was offscreen and ridiculous, this was a very real looking and gruesome accident played for a funny end gag. Meanwhile in the a story the company is continuing to implode in slow motion, and it's fascinating in a way yet not at all pleasant to watch. Outside of bighead and the introduction of the not-an-attorney there wasn't anything I found all that funny. Other contemporary discomfort/taboo humor shows like Big Time in Hollywood FL or Nathan for You or even the current elder statesman of tasteless awful comedy It's Always Sunny make me laugh a ton while making me squirm. In this show you're just trapped in a vice and made to watch idiots be idiots--Ehrlich giving away the computer thing could not have been more contrived, and nothing else in the arbitration made me laugh (Ehrlich doing the "i'm the girlfriend" thing is such a basic first-draft joke, come on). Silicon Valley for a good 5 or 6 episodes of this season has given me a stomach knot without ever finding laughs. It's an accomplished show for being so grim and unflinching. Not positive I want to feel so awful week in and week out though. who knows, maybe I'm too sensitive lol.
Click to expand...

I actually kind of agree.
I don't feel the "dark" elements as you do but I definitely feel like the "fun" has been sucked out a bit.

Season 1 was a great "getting off our feet" arc, this season everyone just seem nauseous, stressed, and borderlining a breakdown with every episode ending with "oh no, shit hit the fan ---- again! :D ". I get that in real life these scenarios would be frustrating, but the overall arc of getting Pied Piper running just hasn't been 'fun' compared to getting the name (and Erlich Bachmen getting high on shrooms to get a name), trying to win Techcrunch, or whatever else.

I definitely prefer Veep's ability to balance the stress with the laughs, Silicon Valley doesn't feel quite there yet.
 
R

Rhaknar

The Steam equivalent of the drunk friend who keeps offering to pay your tab all night.
Super lttp but I started watching season 1 and I love it. Is the satanist the gut from freaks and geeks?
 
I

Infernostew

Member
Dereck said:
So this season has been polarizing as shit so far, huh?
Click to expand...

Nope. There have been maybe 1 or 2 not great episodes. People are just whining because they haven't gotten a win yet this season. But once they start winning people will complain that it's getting boring and want them to lose. Can't please everyone.
 
H

higgsboson1997

Member
This season has really disappointed me so far. Not only is the formula completely being repeated over and over, but I find myself having to suspend disbelief more and more due to truly contrived moments.

Firstly, it is the entire incident with the delete button. It was meant to be funny, sure, but it was completely unbelievable. Deleting files from a server, especially permanently, is never that easy.

Also, Elrich just blurting out the exact piece of information that could be used against PP, and having the lawyers realise its implications within the next 2 seconds, was ridiculous.

Lastly, I don't buy that a guy who is into computers will need to give his laptop to an IT person at all just because an app crashed, or that he won't have a spare computer to work on his project with till then. He himself said that he backs up his filed five times a day, so all he needed was to restore his computer, which neither he nor his co-workers, who are apparently some of the smartest computer nerds around can do. He instead needs to resort to the Apple shop for someone much worse than them to fix a simple problem such as this? Richard is meant to be someone who can produce the extraordinary compression, yet everything we have been shown depicts him as incompetent, which is a bit jarring to me.

I have to say though, that the opening credits are amazing. There is so much going on in them :)
 
H

higgsboson1997

Member
Infernostew said:
Nope. There have been maybe 1 or 2 not great episodes. People are just whining because they haven't gotten a win yet this season. But once they start winning people will complain that it's getting boring and want them to lose. Can't please everyone.
Click to expand...

While not for me, I imagine this is the case for many. It was the same with many for Game of Thrones this year. Many started hating on it after episode 6, one episode that they didn't like, but now it's back to being a usual great season with the last 3 great episodes that we have had.
 
S

Slacker

Member
higgsboson1997 said:
I have to say though, that the opening credits are amazing. There is so much going on in them :)
Click to expand...

They are awesome. We can see a Napster balloon pop up then quickly deflate, followed by a new balloon for Uber. I've always wondered if that's a shot at Uber, a company that seems like it has an untenable business model to me.
 
S

Santiako

Member
Slacker said:
They are awesome. We can see a Napster balloon pop up then quickly deflate, followed by a new balloon for Uber. I've always wondered if that's a shot at Uber, a company that seems like it has an untenable business model to me.
Click to expand...

I like the rapidily growing buildings for Whatsapp and Oculus and then facebook just eats them.
 
B

big ander

Member
Dark was the wrong word but it's absolutely about schadenfreude and discomfort without any relief and without taking the discomfort so far that it becomes truly surreal. That latter path is what shows like Big Time or Increasingly Poor Decisions do, where what's happening--
accidentally assisting suicides or murdering someone with a truck bomb
is so ludicrously stuffed with cruel coincidences and awful choices it becomes funny or at least remarkable. With a lot of Silicon Valley this season I don't find the failure all that funny, it's just banal legal proceedings.
 
J

Junior Mint

Member
To be honest, I'm almost at the point of giving up on the show. Just hasn't been very funny and the stories seem to just keep going nowhere.
 
S

Shaneus

Member
Messofanego said:
Speaking of his gaming hobby, can anyone point out what game this is in the background? Looks pretty obscure...

mxpjjwt.jpg
Click to expand...
Looks like something RTS-ey. But I'm pretty sure that maybe the RTS genre wasn't even around back then! Maybe an early Age of Empires or Total Annihilation or something?

Cool that he's a legit nerd though. Love that it also looks like he's channeling Dade from that Hackers movie:
Uh3P2Nv.jpg
 
C

Chalupa Batman

Member
hohoXD123 said:
Pretty good episode, I too expected some silly storyline of Monica/Carla pretending to be Richard's GF. I'm guessing we won't have CES until next season then, glad it worked out that way, can dedicate more episodes to it. Also, that lawyer was so good, the characters on this show are amazing.
Click to expand...

I think Monica is going to get written out of the show next season. Her role/air time has been severely reduced this season, which make no sense because with Peter
dying
, she should have gotten the bulk of the screen-time as the face of Raviga. Instead, she has mostly disappeared since the first few episodes, and those she shared too much time with Laurie.

And the whole Richard/Monica subplot was completely canned, which makes all episodes different versions of "How can Pied Piper dig themselves a deeper hole?" There are no other subplots and the show has become one-dimensional, making Monica expendable.
 
R

Rhaknar

The Steam equivalent of the drunk friend who keeps offering to pay your tab all night.
Absolutely loved season 1. Shame season 2 seems to be so divisive :/
 
P

-Pyromaniac-

Member
I don't think it's divisive at all. Critically the reviews seem to be great for the majority of them. Most fans seem to like it from the various tv show sites I visit.

Just a few peoplewant them to get some Ws I guess.
 
A

Afrodium

Banned
I had no idea this season was so divisive. I'm loving it and think it's one of the most funny and clever shows on TV right now.
 
V

Veritigo_X

Member
Anyone here watch that Oculus Rift press event? I swear they had to have worked with the Silicon Valley writers on that one. I don't think I can watch tech press events without laughing anymore.
 
T

TheAbsolution

Member
C

Cornballer

Member
Season finale tonight:
Two Days of the Condor

The guys wait for a verdict on Pied Piper's fate; an unexpected drama draws a spike in traffic to the livestream; Erlich considers his future; Richard struggles to save the future of Pied Piper.
Click to expand...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Barry | Season 3 | On HBO Max
3
1K
Mossybrew replied
HBO Will Stream 500 Hours of Free Programming, Including Full Seasons of ‘Veep,’ ‘The Sopranos,’ ‘Silicon Valley’
16
2K
GymWolf replied
T.J. Miller Exiting HBO's 'Silicon Valley'
2 3 4 5
231
28K
DeaconKnowledge replied
Silicon Valley - S4 OT - The Venture Continues - Sundays on HBO
19 20 21 22 23
1K
180K
Psychoward replied
Mike Judge Presents: Tales from the Tour Bus - New animated comedy - Fri on Cinemax
19
5K
Aureon replied
Top Bottom