In the penultimate episode of this season we are given glimpses into what might be waiting for Erlich Bachman, how petty Richard can be, and things get literally explosive.

Before we get to the explosive stuff, we need to talk about how we got there. In the opening we see the guys of Pied Piper hatching their plan on how to infiltrate Hooli-Con sever so they can install the Pied Piper app into the Hooli app that is required to use the conventions free Wi-Fi. Users would unknowingly be running the Pied Piper app on their phones. Of course, not everyone is excited about this and Jared rightfully points out that installing their program without anyone knowing is malware. In order for this plan to work however, the Hooli app would need to stay on the users phones and Dinesh says that “They’ll delete Hooli app after the convention.” Which Richard replies “Nobody deletes their old apps.” Which I don’t know about you, but I have apps on my phone that I may have used a handful of times and haven’t used in at least 6 months, so he kind of has a point. Gilfoyle is all in, but points out they will need to talk to someone who knows how to hack. Everyone then looks at Dinesh, who if you recall was dating a hacker who he turned into the authorities and is now in prison. We cut to them talking at the prison and she gives him the information they need, telling them to “You’d just launch a man-in-the-middle attack with pineapples. Google it.” She then tells Dinesh that she thinks that she can get on the internet at prison library and swears she is going to track down the person who ratter her out and “destroy that motherfucker!” On the way out he stops by the guard to offer an anonymous tip.

Photo Source: Silicon Valley, HBO

While discussing their finalized plan, Erlich enters and he is not as optimistic as everyone else. Convinced that they are both cursed and are not destined for greatness Erlich has decided to take Gavin Belson up on his offer to join him in Tibet (the postcard was addressed to Richard Hendricks and company, Erlich took that to mean he was “company”). Erlich, who is broke, then tries to get the guys to donate money to him to go, but Jian-Yang steps up and pays for the whole thing himself. As the guys prepare to go to the convention Erlich comes out and offers everyone a chance to say a moment or two in which he has profoundly affected their lives. Jian-Yang quickly ushers him out.

Photo Source: Silicon Valley, HBO

Jared, still feeling uneasy about this whole thing, talks to Richard about how he doesn’t want to participate in this. Instead of respecting his wishes, Richard eventually convinces him to come by saying that Jared play game he played when he was a kid where he would just pretend everything around him was normal, “Uncle Jerry’s Game,” Jared calls it. If I haven’t said this before, Jared is one of the most fascinating characters on the show and Zach Woods fucking kills it every week. He has my favorite moment from the week a bit later on.

When they get to the convention the head of security, Hoover, spots them. He goes and tells Action Jack Barker they are there and Jack tells him he doesn’t care, after Hoover mentions Gavin’s name Jack tells him that if he leaves the security room again he will fire him.

Photo Source: Silicon Valley, Indie Wire

As they get to their booth they run into Richard’s ex-girlfriend, Winnie (the girl who used spaces instead of tabs) and she informs him that she is dating the guy, Joel, whose booth is across from Pied Pipers. Joel has a game called “Peace Fare” is a game that allows you to give money to homeless people or grow virtual crops to feed a virtual community, taking a fun jab at people on social media platforms who use the right hashtags instead of actually doing anything to support that cause. As Dinesh and Gilfoyle are going around the convention floor planting their pineapples, Richard’s petty jealousy get the best of him and he goes over to Joel’s laptop and changes his background. Because of this the Tactical Review Team comes to check for rogue Wi-Fi spots, exactly what our guys did NOT want to happen. They find every single pineapple the guys have placed down, including the one that Richard puts into Dinesh’s backpack. All of the guys are taken to the security office.

Earlier while trying to gather the pineapples Gilfoyle runs into Keenan Feldspar (played by the boy robot in AI) and he tells Gilfoyle that Richard was going to pull out of the deal they had made before Hooli made him an offer. Needless to say everyone was mad at Richard. While waiting for the security to come talk to them they ask Richard what he had changed the background to. He changed the background to say “Poop Fare” which is where Jared finally freaks out on him. Luckily for them, Hoover comes in and saves the day. Because of their close working relationship with Gavin and Richard saying that they could bring down Jack in an interview he lets them go in hopes that whatever they are doing will look bad on Jack. Spoiler: it does.

After getting more than enough people to use their tech they go to watch the keynote address where Jack introduces Keenan. They get everyone to turn on the Virtual Reality component and everyone is given VR glasses. He tells everyone to go ahead and power up and that is when everything goes to shit. Phones start to actually explode and we are left wondering whether it was something with Pied Piper or if it was the Hooli App.

Photo Source: Silicon Valley, HBO

The end of this episode we find Erlich has made it to Tibet and has found Gavin. Gavin seems less than pleased that he is there. I assume that Erlich will be back next week, but if he isn’t what do you think about his departure? Leave a comment below.

Photo Source: Silicon Valley, IMDb