What I’m Watching: Silicon Valley (Penultimate Episode)

Silicon Valley: Season 6, Episode 6 “RussFest” (B+)

Watching this episode, I didn’t fully realize that it was the second-to-last, but its glorious ending with a giant hologram Russ visible from the plane was pretty formidable, indicating incredible possibilities that will surely be disrupted by many more obstacles and setbacks we’ll only be able to imagine after this show signs off for good on Sunday. Richard didn’t stand much of a chance once he was told by Michael that he had lost out to YaoNet, and I like how Monica hearing that an “Eric Bachman” with a Chinese accent was running a Pied Piper Girl Coding Camp designed to place fake reviews on Amazon turned into her having to try to suck up to Jian-Yang to get him to help them out. Leave it to Big Head to not even realize that he had memorized the number on the paper that Jian-Yang spitefully ate so that he could come and save the day. When Laurie confirmed that their technology couldn’t do what it was supposed to and guessed that PiperNet couldn’t do either, it seemed like it was all going to be over, but fortunately that wasn’t the case at all. Dinesh and Richard making their own modifications to Son of Anton worked brilliantly, and now our friends are set up for extraordinary success, with just one extended episode left to throw lots of wrenches in their great plans. I think we’re headed towards a positive ending, but I wouldn’t want a conclusion that doesn’t feature some setbacks and one character we didn’t see at all in this episode, Gavin Belson.