Silicon Valley Season 4 Episode 7: The 5 Best Jokes in “The Patent Troll”

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.

Things are going well for Pied Piper at the beginning of “The Patent Troll.” They’ve entered the top 500 in the Hooli app store. But just like always on Silicon Valley: good news doesn’t last long. Enter the eponymous patent troll: Stuart Burke.

Ol’ Stu is done shaking down the music industry for dubious patent infringements and he’s on to tech. He jocularly informs Richard he owes him $20,000. So Richard goes on a long adventure to not pay and still ends up with a $2,000 deficit. Classic Richard…who is physically shrinking by the way.

Meanwhile, Erlich has to go to great lengths to get out of playing basketball and Gilfoyle does everything he can to hack a smart fridge.

5. “Did you represent all these people?” “No. I sued them. See, there’s me with Stevie Wonder. He never saw it coming.”

This is a great joke for a couple of reasons. For one it’s so charmingly corny. Steve Wonder didn’t see a lawsuit coming because he’s blind! Teeheehee. Also the source from which this joke comes is the wonderfully buoyant patent troll Stuart Burke. Patent trolls are terrible, loathsome creatures but Stu has so much fun just being a complete sleaze.

4. “We might not be a global epidemic yet but we’ve moved from bat saliva to humans and we just killed our first few villagers.”

Erlich is the most infamously verbal character on Silicon Valley. That doesn’t mean we should ignore Jared’s hilariously weird contributions. How would a normal person describe cracking the top 500 in an app store? I don’t know but it’s certainly wouldn’t be comparing their product to a deadly plague.

3. “What, did you graze your penis against a toilet seat? I would tell you not to have sex until then but let’s face it: lightning aint gonna strike twice.”

I can’t get enough of Andy Daly’s abusive, unnamed doctor who just seems to inexplicably hate Richard. This time around he’s got a lot of bad news for Little Richie. For one, he doesn’t believe that this dweeb could possibly need an STD test. Then he joyfully delivers the news that Richard isn’t gaining weight because of his unhealthy lifestyle, he’s just straight up shrinking. Richard is losing mineral bone density. This sets up perhaps the second best running joke in the episode – Richard’s clear shame for being suddenly short. Later on when Jared asks Richard “what are you up to?” He responds in a moment of triumph: About 6’2.”

2. “Try to get a selfie with Steph Curry.” “I will if she’s there.”

Look, I know this joke is making fun of Erlich’s general ignorance. He mistakes the name of Golden State Warriors MVP Stephen Curry to be the name of some famous woman. As a Cavs fan, however, I can’t let a joke that is even tangentially making fun of Steph Curry fall lower than 2 on this list. I just can’t.

1. Limp biscuit.

This is the best running joke of the episode, ahead of Richard’s height. In the exciting return of Richard’s lawyer Ron LaFlamme (Ben Feldman), said lawyer tells Richie that the patent troll’s strategy of suing small companies and moving his way up to big companies is similar to the old, terrifying frat ritual known as limp biscuit (not the band of course). This sets up  a series of events in which Richard routinely tries to use the metaphor for his own and just grosses innocent people out. It culminates Richard’s hilariously graphic celebratory call: “So let me cum into a bucket and let you all drink it!” C’mon, Richard.