'Silicon Valley' Review: The Most Awkward Moment In 'The Blood Boy'

(Each week, we're going to kick off discussion about Silicon Valley season 4 by answering one simple question: what was the most awkward moment?)

If you're looking for cringe humor, there's no better place than in a wedding. While Silicon Valley is not anywhere near the current champ of cringe-inducing weddings (that honor still belongs to Peep Show) this episode has one for the ages.

The Most Awkward Moment

It's a really quick scene, too. Since they began dating two episodes ago, Dinesh has tried to end his new relationship with the black hat hacker Mia. That's partially due to Gilfoyle's non-stop verbal harassment and mentally planted seeds of destruction, but it's also due to the fact that she's a bit insane.

Dinesh is terrified of her after realizing all the illegal things she's done, including the infamous Bowman Avenue dam hack that she blamed on the Iranian National Guard. Now, he's afraid of being seen with her, and there's one very big event that will feature lots of pictures of them together coming up – her sister's wedding.

Dinesh tries to avoid it by finally admitting that he only got Gavin fired by his own cowardice and ineptitude, but Mia takes this as a sign of trust. She had already hacked his phone and knew exactly what he was. But while Dinesh is a coward, he's also wily.

After someone offers up an FBI tip for what she's done ("I hacked the elevators in the Freedom Tower." Mia admitted in private) federal agents arrive at the wedding and ruin the whole thing. As FBI agents drag Mia out of the church. Dinesh trying to act surprised by what's going on and tries to grab the arm of an agent. He takes an elbow to the face and his bloodied nose is way more convincing than his wooden acting. He's in the clear! No one will suspect him! Right?

Silicon Valley Garage

“You’ve got a garage inside your garage. Impressive.”

So deadpans Gilfoyle about the birthplace of Hooli, Peter Gregory's Mom's garage, which is currently residing inside Gavin's warehouse-sized garage alongside all kinds of random stuff. Space modules, flying cars, what looks like James Cameron's sub, and a ridiculously oversized unicycle all litter the place. Gavin may be out of a job, but he'll be ok. Especially since he's literally sucking out the lifeblood of a young man.

Silicon Valley Transfusion Associate

“He looked at your blood bag!”

Richard's plan for the new internet has a big issue. For peer-to-peer internet to work, they need tons of users, otherwise the quality won't be worth a damn. So Richard pitches Gavin on his idea of a stealth rollout to aid this issue. This would allow for the creation of a new Pied Piper app that functions as a space-saving device, that would put aside space for their new project later on. The pitch is going well, until the reason for the odd title of this episode appears.

A young blonde guy rolls in with a two-seater chair, hooks Gavin up to an IV drip, and starts to pump his blood into the Hooli foun\der. he casually introduces him as Gavin's "transfusion assistant" Bryce. It's a definite reference to Peter Thiel, who believes that young people's blood can held retard the aging process. Gavin believes the same, and keeps this young healthy man around to suck down his blood.

(Bryce also casually says "Oh, hey Donald!" to Jared, who replies "Uh, it's Jared now." The hilarious part about that is that the only reason people call him Jared is because of Gavin, since he called him that the first day on the job at Hooli and it stuck.)

The meeting goes bad when Bryce mentions that he doesn't like the idea of a stealth launch since Gavin's name is synonymous with a massive public launch, rather than the sneaky phone assault the Pied Piper guys have in store. Gavin demonstrates that he takes both advice and blood from the adonis and agrees, telling them to work on a public announcement. He bounces off, rejuvenated.

Richard immediately confronts Bryce, who tries to point out why he thought they should go that way, despite having nothing to do with the company. Jared, who is sitting in his seat slowly percolating,  takes this time to rise for his seat in anger and curse out Bryce, who recoils in fear and runs from the room. That boy is going to hurt someone by the time this show is done.

Silicon Valley Bro-down

“You either bro down or you go down.”

Laurie is in danger of being ousted from the Raviga after finding herself in a coup disguised as a baby shower. Erlich is strangely wise enough to see the party for what it really is and warns Monica, who decides for some reason to listen to his advice for what to do in order to keep her job. She tries to stave off any incoming doom by bro-ing down with Ed Chen at work, which, of course, doesn't work.

What does work is when Monica goes to Laurie to tell her about said coup. Laurie may be a robot but she also knows what's up. Impressed by Monica's loyalty, she invites her to help start up her own agency (and hopefully a deeper, better subplot).

Things we learn about Laurie in this short conversation: This is her fourth kid. She considers Monica her best friend in the world. She is not a ninja.

silicon valey richard

“At this rate I’ll be dead by the age of 120!”

Richard realizes that Bryce isn't living the clean and healthy lifestyle that he appears to be after realizing that his his health food bags are actually from a marijuana dispensary. He shows up to his apartment and finds a red-eyed Bryce with cabinets full of crappy snacks.

Richard heads to Gavin to confront him about this and once again finds his place destroyed. Bryce is writing a tell-all book about Gavin and will...well, he's going to do exactly that. Gavin is crushed and doesn't have it in him to help with the new internet anymore.

Richard tries to force his hand by leaking to the press that they're both working on a new project together, but it's too late. Gavin has chosen to leave to go find himself. He only does so after leaving Richard the patent. Full ownership is now Richard's.

silicon valley blood boy

"If you're gonna quit, you gotta save first! Use your head, punk!”

Wait. Are we now in another new reset? This entire season was supposed to be a reset of the Pied Piper team's situation and now we've reset the reset? We're back to square one, again, with the same team in the same roles, with what appears to be the same problems.

If they don't end up with Monica at her new firm  I'll eat my pied piping hat, but I'll also be sad that the story hasn't progressed any farther. I don't think anyone's going to complain about how funny the show is – it still has the most laugh-out-loud moments of any comedy on the air right now – but a little forward movement is sorely needed. We'll see what happens next week, with the much-needed return of the manic Chris Diamantopoulos.