Silicon Valley Season 4 Episode 3: The 5 Best Jokes in “Intellectual Property”

Silicon Valley is a saga about one man’s journey into the heart of darkness of the world’s weirdest and most insular industry where everything is “disruptable” and nothing makes sense.

But also: jokes. 

After each episode of Silicon Valley this season, we’re cataloguing our five favorite jokes. What constitutes a “joke” is often subjective. So don’t concern yourself too much with the proper definition of “jokes.” These are the five moments that made us laugh the hardest, ranked in order.

PiperChat is dead. After Dinesh’s new incarnation of PiperChat went down in flames spectacularly last week, the gang must pick up the pieces in “Intellectual Property.” For Dinesh that means enduring Gilfoyle’s taunts and living in fear that Gavin Belson will have him assassinated. For Erlich it means somehow figuring out how to actually develop a “Shazam for food.”

Most importantly, however, Richard gets started on what will presumably be his life’s work: building a new internet – a better one this time, connected freely through everyone’s mobile devices. To do so will mean making friends with Gavin, the man who already has a patent for that very concept.

5. “I think you might be the first Pakastani man killed by a drone within the United States.”

Dinesh is having quite the season of Silicon Valley. In the span of one episode he’s gone from being on top of the world to being at the bottom of it to potentially being the target of a revenge murder. Sure, Gavin isn’t likely to kill Dinesh, especially after the events of the end of the episode. But as Jared does unhelpfully point out: “I once saw him throw a sloth down the stairs after a presentation.” What an ominous statement and a hilarious callback to Gavin’s animal-heavy Hooli presentations.

4. The Grocery Store

“Maybe I just drop this one, move on and become some pathetic, fucking task rabbit, you know?” This is an unfortunate line that Richard utters while he and Monica are shopping at a Whole Foods-esque grocery store. It’s unfortunate because Richard and Monica are surrounded the aforementioned “task rabbits” – dozens of dead-eyed assistants wearing lanyards and picking up food for their respective boss or ridesharing customers. Silicon Valley often does its best satirizing the “real” Silicon Valley with big, ridiculous, showy scenes. This, however, is one of the better subtle ones they’ve ever done. It’s barely a sight gag but rather a standard walk and talk that happens to be set in hell, itself.

3. Bighead the professor/guest lecturer

Bighead is almost like a reverse Job. He just kind of aimlessly wanders around life without a care in the world and somehow in the process gains countless riches, accolades and honors. His newest venture is guest lecturer position at Stanford. He initially applies to be a student, which does not go well. “Pretty solid C’s in all of your C.S. classes but really a lot more incompletes than anything,” the admissions officer says about his transcript. “Yeah a lot of those classes were at 11 a.m. so…” Of course, then the admissions person remembers seeing Bighead on the cover of Wired and suddenly he’s accepted into the University. Though he doesn’t realize it’s as a guest lecturer until he sits down for what he assumes is his first day as a student.

2. “Woo. Woo!” “Woooo! Wooooo! WOOOO! WOOOOOOOOO! WAAAGHOOOOHHHHOOO!”

What do you do when you discover that your dead mentor was secretly working on the same project you want to dedicate your life to and you discover all his helpful notes? You “woo” of course. For Richard this means an excited exclamation of celebration and achievement. For Jared this means a demented, inhuman shriek that quickly tumbles out of control and releases all the pain he’s built up in his soul. Take her away Jar’.

1. “They say that after Alan Turing got chemically castrated he was a lot less annoying.”

Andy Daly finally got his leading man due on his wonderful Comedy Central series Review. Still, Silicon Valley is a wonderful reminder that Daly is a as a comedic assassin (not unlike his assassin character Krombopulous Michael in Rick and Morty). His job is to just walk onscreen briefly, comedically murder everyone onscreen then walk off. His character on Silicon Valley, known only as “Doctor” is one of his best. This time around instead of disturbing Richard with stories of tech exec suicides, he just exasperatedly sighs through most of Richard’s legitimate sleep and stress issues. It’s important for the show to establish that Richard is stressed. It’s also important to the show to keep us laughing and thanks to the Doctor the opening scene is the funniest in “Intellectual Property.”