S04E03 - Intellectual Property

No: 31  |  Season: 4   Episode: 3  |  Air Date: 7-May-17  |  Ratings: 0.774

Summary

An overtired Richard pushes himself to the brink of sanity while trying to move ahead with his next big idea. Eyeing a comeback, Erlich pressures an uncooperative Jian-Yang. Monica sets a trap at Raviga to improve her standing with Laurie. Dinesh goes on a date; Big Head enters the world of academia; Gavin faces an unknown future.

Director and Writers

Director: Jamie Babbit
Written by: Carrie Kemper

Quotes

Doctor: Are these my favorite nail beds I've ever seen? No, but they're fine.

Richard: I was gonna sleep last night, but, uh... I thought I had this solve for this computational trust issue I've been working on, but it turns out, I didn't have a solve. But it was too late. I had already drank the whole pot of coffee.

Richard: You know, all the guys at the house, they think I'm nuts, but I'm not nuts.

Jian-Yang: Question for you. What's better than octopus recipe? Answer for you. Eight recipes for octopus.

Jian-Yang: My grandmother gave me a family recipe before she died in a horrible way.

Erlich: (slowly) Shazam... for food.
Jian-Yang: No, Shazam's not my vision.
Erlich: Of course they know that you're not pitching Shazam. That already exists. This would be a Shazam... for food.
Jian-Yang: No.
Erlich: Sorry. Language barrier. Do you speak Mandarin? Anybody? No?
(Erlich speaks gibberish)
Jian-Yang: That's not Mandarin.
Erlich: He's a stickler for the accent.

Dinesh: I thought I'd have to, like, answer to Congress or something.
Gilfoyle: Yeah, that makes sense. You were worried sick about the wrath of a bloated and inept bureaucracy, but feel totally comfortable having crossed a spiteful and vindictive megalomaniac with unlimited funds.
Dinesh: Shut up. Gavin wouldn't come after me personally.
Gilfoyle: I think you might be the first Pakistani man to be killed by a drone inside the United States.

Dinesh: People don't have people killed in the Valley. Not even Gavin Belson. Okay? Right, Jared?
Jared: I... I once saw him throw a sloth down a flight of stairs after a presentation, and he said it was an accident, but he had this look in his eyes. I... I can't rule it out.

Erlich: If all goes well, it is the beginning of the era of Erlich Bachman and his funky Asian dude friend Jian... Jian? Jian-Yang!

Erlich: You're gonna walk away from $200,000? You know who walks away from that kind of money, Jian-Yang? Richard, a crazy person.
Richard: Crazy? No. Opposite.
Erlich: He walked away from $10 million. Now look at him... wet pants, stealing towels, babbling about technical issues that he can't solve.

Richard: Got a lot of work to do. I'll be in the pool. Not crazy.

Big Head: I actually did some image recognition stuff on Nip Alert, so maybe you could hire me to help on the demo, 'cause my dad's been, like, kinda on me lately to, like, get a job or go to school 'cause... 'cause he's upset that I lost all that money on... on PiperChat. And then also, you helped me lose that 20 million on Bachmanity.
Erlich: Big Head, um... Jian-Yang's culture... he's... Chinese... won't allow him to accept outside help.
Big Head: Oh, right, 'cause of Chinese. Okay, well, that makes sense.

Stanford Admissions Staffer: Wait. Nelson Bighetti. Were you on the cover of WIRED magazine?
Big Head: Yeah, and actually inside, too.

Monica: You do realize I'm literally the only person in this entire grocery store who's actually buying stuff for myself.

Dinesh: On the off chance that this is an actual real woman, getting murdered seems like an acceptable risk.

(Jared looks under a tarp and discovers Peter's self-driving car)
Car: Select destination.
Jared: (startled) No. No. No.
Car: Optimizing route to Arallon.
Jared: No, thank you.

Ed Chen: Well, she had some concerns about getting into business with you again, but I can pretty much talk that broad into anything.
Erlich: Ha! Cheers to that.
Jian-Yang: You're a con man, like Erlich!
Ed Chen: What does that mean?
Erlich: It... it's a little term of endearment we have around the house. Uh, a confident man. He sees me as a confident man, and he looks up to me. You know, you have to be patient with him, 'cause he's a bit of a moron.
Ed Chen: Moron?
Erlich: No, no, no. I mean, he's... Not in tech.

(Conversation as translated from Mandarin except where noted)
Ed Chen: Jian-Yang, this is really important. You need to give us a functional app.
Jian-Yang: There isn't one. We haven't even made a demo.
Ed Chen: You haven't made one? Why?
Erlich: (in English) Boys, boys, let's speak in English. It's the law.
Jian-Yang: I wanted to do octopus recipes.
Ed Chen: Octopus recipes?
Jian-Yang: All I hear is (in English) "I'm a big fat fucking asshole."

Dinesh: Oh, hey, Gilfoyle. This is Mia.
Gilfoyle: Are you gonna murder Dinesh?
Mia: No.
Gilfoyle: Bummer.

Gilfoyle: (to Mia) I always thought you were a fat, bald weirdo.
Dinesh: Well, she's not. She's a thin, hairy regular.

Dinesh: So... do you like movies?
Mia: Depends on the movie.
Dinesh: I'm the exact same way. It being a movie doesn't mean I'm gonna like it.
Waiter: Would you care for some wine or a cocktail tonight?
Mia: Uh, just water, please.
Dinesh: Just water, please. (pause) I love water. I do. Oceans, rivers... lakes. (pause) When does a pond become a lake? I wonder if it's depth.(pause) Where are those waters? Felt like we ordered waters a while ago. And... (phone buzzes) What? Fucking prick.
Mia: What?
Dinesh: Oh, nothing. It was just a text from Gilfoyle.
Mia: Gilfoyle isn't a prick.
Dinesh: Yeah, I'm sorry.
Mia: He's a motherfucking prick.
Dinesh: What?
Mia: That guy sucks. Everyone hates him on the message boards. You know, putting a face to the name made so much sense.
Dinesh: Right, 'cause his face sucks, too.
Mia: Totally!
Dinesh: Yeah.
Mia: I have to find this one post of his. It was insane.
Dinesh: You know, he has no friends. He pretends like he's all dry and witty, but he's just a monotone piece of shit.
Mia: And being a Satanist just means you're ugly, and you're leaning into it.

Richard: I mean, who here has a smartphone, right? You, you, me, Jian-Yang, Dinesh, Monica...
Erlich: Richard, you don't have to name everyone you know.

Dinesh: I did sex on her.

Monica: Erlich, do you know how badly Ed Chen just fucked me with Laurie?
Erlich: Let me tell you something, a threesome is always awkward especially the first one. Laurie begin a little bit older...

Music

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

"Blue Flowers" by Dr. Octagon (End credits music.)

Notes and Trivia

When Jared mentions seeing Gavin Belson throwing a sloth down a flight of stairs, the writers may be making a veiled reference to the event where Digg co-founder Kevin Rose came to the aid of his dog by throwing a raccoon down a flight of stairs.

Not only was Peter Gregory's self-driving car (S01E06) in his storage room, his really narrow car (S01E01) was also there. Richard even found a container of sesame seeds, which was a plot point in (S01E03)

The Chinese titled book Gilfoyle was reading was "Mathematical fundamentals of fuzzy information processing" by Ren Ping and Yu Dong. (Google Books)

Note that Big Head's "Double Big Gulp" now features a "Slurpee" top.

Although Chris Diamantopoulos (Russ Hanneman) is credited for this episode he did not appear.

Goofs

In the scene where Jack Barker and Gavin Belson are walking across the "Hooli" campus you can see a "University Student Union" sign on the building in the background. Later in the episode, when Hoover walks Gavin to his car the "University Student Union" sign is not present.

In the scene where Richard and Monica were chatting in the supermarket, the external shot of the supermarket showed no cars parked outside, however the supermarket was quite busy inside.

Locations

The establishing shot for the restaurant where Erlich and Jian Yang met up with Ed Chen was shot at the Forbidden Island Tiki Lounge, 1304 Lincoln Ave, Alameda, CA. (Google) The interior scene was shot at Damon's Steak House (Google) at 317 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale, CA.

The exterior shot of the supermarket where Monica and Richard chatted was taken at Trag's Market, 303 Baldwin Ave, San Mateo, CA. (Google) The interior scene was shot elsewhere.

The outdoor shots at "Hooli" were taken at the Cal State Los Angeles campus, 5154 State University Drive, Los Angeles CA, in front of the Student Union Building.

The scene where Big Head goes to class at Stanford was filmed at the California Institute of Technology in Noyes 153 (Sturdivant Lecture Hall). (Photos)

The establishing shot of the restaurant exterior for the scene where Dinesh and Mia are on a date was taken at Local Union 271, 271 University Ave, Palo Alto, CA. (Google) The interior scene was shot elsewhere.

Cast

StarringThomas MiddleditchRichard Hendricks
StarringT.J. MillerErlich Bachman
StarringJosh BrenerNelson 'Big Head' Bighetti
StarringMartin StarrBertram Gilfoyle
StarringKumail NanjianiDinesh Chugtai
StarringAmanda CrewMonica Hall
StarringZach WoodsJared Dunn
StarringMatt RossGavin Belson
StarringSuzanne CryerLaurie Bream
StarringJimmy O. YangJian Yang
StarringStephen TobolowskyJack Barker
StarringChris DiamantopoulosRuss Hanneman
Guest StarringSunkrish BalaGarrett
Guest StarringAndrew DalyDoctor
Guest StarringVanessa MaranoStudent
Guest StarringPhoebe NeidhardtMia
Guest StarringChris WilliamsHoover
Co-StarringEmily AdamsAdmissions Staffer
Co-StarringJames BabsonInstacart Guy
Co-StarringTim ChiouEd Chen
Co-StarringJohn ColellaTom (Coleman Blair VC)
Co-StarringChaz KaoStudent
Co-StarringAnna KhajaRachel
Co-StarringJon KlaftWaiter
Co-StarringPing WuHenry