Silicon Valley Season 4: The 5 Best Jokes in ‘Terms of Service’

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.

“Terms of Service” ends up being a fantastically literal episode title. PiperChat is turfed by an obscure law and some shoddy paperwork before it can even truly begin, fulfilling Gilfoyle’s prophecy that Dinesh will sink the company. Thankfully, Gavin is on hand to unwittingly accept this legal hand grenade. Here are our five favorite jokes.

5. “Its hards on, not hard-ons. It’s a syntactical error.”

For some reason, there is nothing funnier to me than pedantry in grammar regarding really stupid words or terminology. Hard ons or hards on – who cares? The answer is Erlich Bachmann and deeply. Erlich is the kind of guy so obsessed with appearances that he would have very serious thoughts on how to say all sorts of stupid nonsense. 

4. “My shame will linger even after my voting rights are restored.”

Hey! The gang’s crooked lawyer is back! Pete Monahan is out of prison for the time being and working at a carwash like the world’s saddest Better Call Saul/Breaking Bad mashup. Actor Matt McCoy is such a stellar find for the show, playing the seemingly overserious but equally sad-eyed and devastated Monahan. His delivery of the aforementioned line is perfect: simultaneously deadpan and heartbreakingly sincere.

3. “Richard? You were inside us?” 

Speaking of sincere, Jared is so sincere and feels his feelings so strongly that he has a habit of not truly realizing what he’s saying. Like Tobias Funke, he could greatly benefit from a tape recorder to record all his thoughts into so he can discover all the unfortunate double entendres he utters daily. Of course he would still be helpless to stop them. Later on he follows up this line with the equally stellar “Richard entered us without consent.” 

2. Gavin acquires PiperChat

The series of events that lead to Gavin’s unfortunate acquisition of PiperChat are among the funniest morality plays this show has ever done. To recap: PiperChat has violated the Child Online Protection Act hundreds of times, leading to what could a multi-billion dollar fine. Gavin in turn suddenly becomes obsessed with acquiring PiperChat so he can access their datalogs and find out who rival Jack Barker has been talking with because he’s upset that he got dropped off first on a flight. On Silicon Valley, a shocking amount of plot points arise from pure stupidity. And this one is among the stupidest and funniest of all.

1. Dinesh’s hair

The funniest thing about Dinesh’s hair isn’t just that it exists, but rather how quickly it comes to exist. Dinesh has been CEO of PiperChat for what – a week? And in that time he’s completely overhauled his look to be a child’s understanding of what cool professional adults are supposed to look like. It’s marvelous.