'Silicon Valley' Season 6 finale sees folkloric ending as PiedPiper literally lures San Francisco's rats into event hall
The end of an era. HBO’s comedy series ‘Silicon Valley’ came to an end. And what an ending it was. At 45-minutes long, ‘Exit Event’, the seventh episode of the show’s sixth season was, perhaps, as fitting an end to the hilarious show as it could have been.
The episode began in a documentary format, with each of PiedPiper’s main people being interviewed by a filmmaker, ten years after the launch of PiperNet. Richard Hendricks (Thomas Middleditch), Dinesh Chugtai (Kumail Nanjiani), Bertram Gilfoyle (Martin Starr), Monica Hall (Amanda Crew) and Jared Dunn (Zach Woods), all spoke about the “unfortunate event” that took place.
Even others like Laurie Bream (Suzane Cryer), who was now in prison, and Gavin Belson (Matt Ross), now a celebrated author, spoke about PiedPiper. But what was the “unfortunate event”?
As we saw in episode 6 of the show, PiperNet was finally successful. At RussFest, Richard’s, Gilfoyle’s and Dinesh’s combined efforts helped optimize the network. So, what changed? At the celebrations for their impending success, Richard noticed a glitch in a text that he had sent to Monica.
True to character, he obsessed over it the entire night and realized that somehow, their AI-based compression could bypass encryptions and could do it rather easily. In true-Gilfoyle fashion, the menacing program architect explained how their compression optimized the AI and the AI did the same for the compression, making it an unstoppable force.
He laid out a doomsday trajectory for them where even nuclear codes could be vulnerable to PiperNet’s powers. After taking a hard look at the matter, Richard decided PiperNet would have to fail. And it would have to fail spectacularly enough for the world to never try and replicate their technology.
Dinesh opted out of this move, but for a noble cause. In fact, Jered described it as the “most courageous act of cowardice I have ever seen.” Dinesh told the group, “No offense to me, but I am greedy and unreliable, bordering on piece of sh*t. If there is a chance to stop you guys from stopping you guys, I will do it. I will sabotage your sabotage. So if this company needs to fail, like epically fail, you need to do it without me. Revoke my permissions, delete my PiperMail account. I will use Gmail like a f**king basic b***h. Don’t let me anywhere near that launch. I may beg, I will lie to you, I cannot bribe you because I do not have any money. But do not let me anywhere near that launch.”
Gilfoyle came up with a plan to make all networks in the vicinity of PiperNet go haywire the moment they launched. Of course, nothing, not even public failure comes easy for the group.
Gabe, the programmer Dinesh hates, realized something was off about the code and he changed it back to the original correct code -- the same one that would effectively destroy the world. It was Dinesh, who at the last moment, saved the day.
But Gilfoyle’s changed code, even if it had an overwhelming effect, was not something anyone expected. Instead of creating noise that would disrupt internet and GPS signals, the noise attracted rats -- bringing a fairytale twist to this modern tale.
Thousands of rats swarmed into the event hall from across the town. All media outlets reported on this incident. PiperNet “failed” in front of the public.
After the events, all of them went down different paths. Richard ended up at Stanford as a professor of ethics in technology. Gilfoyle and Dinesh co-founded a web security firm in San Francisco, Monica said she joined a Washington D.C. think tank (although it is altogether possible she joined the NSA), and Jared went to work at a nursing home for the elderly.
The episode almost ended with them visiting their old house where they started PiedPiper, trying to relive their carefree days. It would have been a fitting bittersweet end to the comedy series that has gained critical acclaim over the years.
But, again true to ‘Silicon Valley’ nature, it ended with a faux pas. Richard, talking to the interviewers, said he had the only surviving copy of PiperNet on a thumb drive. And he had misplaced that thumb drive.