6x03 Hooli Smokes!

This is the best episode of Silicon Valley in a few seasons. Richard's arc in this series frequently lacks context and judgment. I don't necessarily need to see him punished or learning from his actions, but I do wish that it was handled with more grace. His path towards megalomania is so steeped in a lack of self-awareness and arrogance that it seems to genuinely make me wonder how a guy like that wouldn't understand that he is no better than Belson. A few times Jared stepped in to attempt to center him, but it never works.

I don't think there's anything wrong with this execution so much as I don't feel like it resonates with me because I haven't really found a character to center myself around. In the sixth season, everyone feels to be their most caricaturized version of themselves. That's a frequent problem in comedy television, I know, but it's made worse by the fact that the first few seasons of this series did a really solid job at keeping the zany-ness of these characters limited to very specific moments, perhaps best characterized by Gilfoyle. In the early seasons, he was still the anarchy and code-loving satanist, but that humor became so good because it was rooted and really seemed to be the only guy really centering Richard. Now, that's all he is. He's not centered in anything other than messing with Dinesh.

This episode feels like it finally has the right balance between comedy and plot that the first couple seasons nailed so well. There's a drive to everything that we see that feels like it has a better understanding of doing bad things for relative good.