S02E10 - Two Days of the Condor

No: 18  |  Season: 2   Episode: 10  |  Air Date: 14-Jun-15  |  Ratings: 2.11

Summary

Expecting to lose Pied Piper to Gavin Belson, Richard ponders whether they should delete all the Pied Piper software. Meanwhile, the video feed of the injured technician goes viral, forcing Gilfoyle, Dinesh, and Jared to scramble to keep their servers online. Erlich receives an offer to buy his house, and considers it, before he decides to help out the guys helping to adjust the code instead. At the arbitration hearing, the judge is about to rule in favor of Hooli, however at the last minute he shifts gears by deciding Richard's employment contract was null and void, therefore he technically wasn't an employee of Hooli when he used the computer. Unfortunately, Richard had already sent a text to the Pied Piper team telling them to delete the software, and when he tried to send another text to cancel his directive his phone is out of power. Richard rushes home to stop the guys from deleting Pied Piper. Luckily, he makes it in time, only because they wasted time drinking beer and Dinesh's "delete" software failed when it was executed. The guys are elated that Pied Piper is saved, however Richard soon finds out that Raviga has bought Russ Hanneman's share of the company, and with a majority on the board has removed Richard from CEO from his own company.

Director and Writers

Director: Alec Berg
Written by: Alec Berg

Quotes

Dinesh: This is unbelievable. There are seven thousand people watching this stream, and it's working flawlessly. Rebuffering events are below 0.5%.
Gilfoyle: Even when his sobbing shakes the camera there's no blocking at all. And the quality is great.
Dinesh: More good news. There's a storm coming. There's no way the EMS guys can get up there. This could go on all day.

Pete: I'll see you gentlemen at 3:00.
Erlich: I shan't be attending out of contempt, so this will have to serve as our goodbye. Don't let the door hit ya where God split ya.

Richard: You're selling the house just like that?
Erlich: It wasn't a rash decision. I agonized over it.
Jared: But what about your incubator?
Erlich: What about it, Jared? Pied Piper has caked its pants, Jian-Yang's chances of investment have literally gone up in smoke, and you heard what Monahan said in court yesterday. Market forces and random events have conspired against me to make the success of my incubator all but impossible. Functionally, all I've really achieved is running a flop house where guys have shat, jerked off, and paid me no rent.

Dinesh: Buzzfeed linked to us. Now we're picking up on Reddit. This guy falling off a cliff is the first good luck we've had.

Gilfoyle: Two weeks ago, we accidentally erased one-third of Intersite's entire library.
Dinesh: I think we've established our ineptitude beyond a reasonable doubt.

Jared: I've always wanted to be part of a suicide pact.
Dinesh: What? That's not what we're doing.

Dinesh: Sooner or later, Gilfoyle's servers are gonna fail, and then it's all done.
Gilfoyle: My servers can handle 10 times the traffic if they weren't busy apologizing for your shit codebase.
Dinesh: Oh, yeah? Well, my codebase could handle this traffic, fuck your mother, make a video of it, upload it, and even that video would not even buffer.

Man: I'm so dehydrated. I'm gonna have to urinate into my water bottle.
Dinesh: This guy's gonna drink his own piss? That's too good. We're gonna fail by succeeding.

Gavin: If you hadn't blackmailed me into this arbitration, I was gonna have to go in front of the Hooli Board of Directors and ask for $250 million to buy you out.
Richard: Wow. $250 million?
Gavin: Believe it or not, your algorithm is the only way to make Nucleus work. I was ready to pay whatever it took. Let me ask you this. If I offered you 10 million for Pied Piper right now, before we even go in there, would you take it?
Richard: Really? You'd do that?
Gavin: No, of course not. I'm about to get it for free. I'm just fucking with you. I'm sure you'll come up with plenty more once-in-a-lifetime ideas, Richard. Or not.

Erlich: Madam, you do not call a man a fool on the transom of his own home. A home that happens to be the world headquarters of a company keeping streaming video of a man who's about to drink his own urine online for tens of thousands of Filipinos. Does that sound like foolishness to you? So, you can tell your clients, respectfully, that they may go fuck themselves.

Jared: It says, "Aim at the base of the fire." That's the servers.
Gilfoyle: If you hit those servers, you kill our livestream, Jared.
Jared: I don't know what to do. Should we do verbal SWOT analysis?

Richard: You gotta be fucking kidding me! We won. We won, right? I mean, Pied Piper is ours?
Pete: Richard, not long ago, emergency workers pulled me out of the flaming wreckage of my Mercury Grand Marquis.
Richard: All right.
Pete: Today, you pulled me out of the flaming wreckage of my life, and those flames burn far hotter.
Richard: Sure.
Pete: For that, I thank you.
Richard: Yeah, you're welcome.
Pete: I used to take a tampon, soak it in grain alcohol, and stick it up into my rectum. That got me high, Richard, but not half as high as the drug you just gave me. You know what that drug's called?
Richard: No.
Pete: A second chance.
Richard: Right on.

Erlich: Shouldn't we drink one last toast to Pied Piper before we burn it to the fucking ground?
Gilfoyle: All right. As long as God isn't involved and there's beer.

Dinesh: Wait, is this a wheat beer? I can't drink this without a lemon.

Dinesh: Okay, there's no way I could have squirted this lemon in your eye on purpose from this distance. I'm not a fucking lemon sniper.
Gilfoyle: You'd be more of a lemon suicide bomber.

Russ: Question. What's got two thumbs and three commas? (points his thumbs at himself) This guy.

Music

"Stretch Your Face" by Tobacco (Opening title music)

"Changing of the Guards" by Pusha T feat. Diddy (End-credits music.)

Notes and Trivia

The episode's title is a reference to the film "Three Days of the Condor", a 1975 political thriller.

The interior of the "Hacker Hostel" is shot in studio. The exterior is shot on the site of the real house. In the scene where the real estate agent is at the door speaking to Erlich, every shot looking out the door was shot at the actual house. Every shot looking into the house was shot in studio. It took two days to shoot the entire sequence.

Gilfoyle named the servers "Anton" after Anton LaVey, a well-known satanist.

The street scene where Richard loses his keys, and then later begs a stranger to use his cell phone was shot on South San Fernando Blvd, just east of E. Olive Avenue, in Burbank, CA. In fact, the sign for the Burbank Bar and Grill can be seen in the background, however the word "Burbank" was removed digitally.

In the 67th Primetime Emmy Awards (2015) Silicon Valley was nominated for "Outstanding Comedy Series".

In the 67th Primetime Emmy Awards (2015), Alec Berg was nominated for "Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series" for the episode "Two Days of the Condor".

In the 73rd Golden Globe Awards (2016), SIlicon Valley was nomimated for "Best Television Series

Goofs

When Richard texted Jared from court his phone battery level is high. However, a short time later when he tries to use his phone his battery is drained.

Locations

None

Cast

StarringThomas MiddleditchRichard Hendricks
StarringT.J. MillerErlich Bachman
StarringJosh BrenerNelson 'Big Head' Bighetti
StarringMartin StarrBertram Gilfoyle
StarringKumail NanjianiDinesh Chugtai
StarringAmanda CrewMonica Hall
StarringZach WoodsDonald 'Jared' Dunn
StarringMatt RossGavin Belson
StarringSuzanne CryerLaurie Bream
StarringJimmy O. YangJian Yang (credit only)
Guest StarringFrank CollisonNoah
Guest StarringPatrick DanielTech Guy
Guest StarringChris DiamantopoulosRuss Hanneman
Guest StarringMatt McCoyPete Monahan
Guest StarringAlyson ReedReal Estate Agent
Guest StarringKaren StrassmanHooli Lead Counsel
Guest StarringBernard WhiteDenpok (Spiritual Advisor)
Co-StarringJoseph AugerBus Driver (as Joe Auger)
Co-StarringDiane ChernanskyHeidi Evans
Co-StarringTaylor CoffmanMarketing Executive
Co-StarringDustyn GulledgeEvan
Co-StarringJules HartleyHooli Assistant Counsel
Co-StarringAnna KhajaRachel
Co-StarringBart McCarthyJudge Underwood
Co-StarringStephanie Rose Feldman
Co-StarringBrigitte ValdezBarista
Co-StarringPing WuHenry