Hey kiddos! It’s been a while but I’m back, annnnnd introducing a new Fandom City category: Playing Catch Up. I’ll set the foundation: a week ago I ended up in a youtube hole, watching the Civil War cast’s interviews. I ended up seeing one from The Late Show With James Corden, on the couch was Sharon Stone, Sebastian Stan, and Zach Woods. Sebastian Stan flirted with Sharon Stone, and bonded with Zach Woods over teen photographs and I was struck with a realization: Zach Woods is freakin’ adorable.

Now is that a fair foundation to start watching something? Don’t ever tell me because it’s generally how I operate. I watched an interview with him on Jimmy Kimmel’s show and he discussed his show Silicon Valley. He said he played his character with the self-sacrifice of a parent (in particular a mother) and I was sold. I decided I was going to watch this show and embrace his timid little mom face…that sounded creepy, I swear, Zach Woods if you see this, I’m not creepy.

Silicon Valley follows tech geek Richard Hendricks (Thomas Middleditch) and friends as they try to make it big with apps in…Silicon Valley. He lives in the “Incubator” of one Erlich Bachman (TJ Miller) a guy who made it big with his app Aviato, and makes it his business to serve as a mentor to the new generation of tech start ups. Also in the house are Nelson “Big Head” Bighetti (Josh Brener), Dinesh Chugtai (Kumail Nanjiani), Bertram Gilfoyle (Martin Starr), and Jian Yang (Jimmy O. Yang). The show starts with Richard trying to perfect his app Pied Piper, a music app designed to help with copyright infringement through compression of files. Other than working at the incubator he has a job at the big company in the Valley, Hooli, headed by Gavin Belson (Matt Ross).

Richard doesn’t want to be one of those people that just spends their life behind a desk, revising code for people who are bigger and better, so he tries to get his name out there, even crashing a TED talk to try and get the attention of Peter Gregory (Christopher Evan Welch) and his assistant Monica (Amanda Crew). This is when we realize, despite whatever he wanted Pied Piper to be, the compression rate is the best known of (according to the Weissman scale) so everyone wants a piece. The conflict begins when Gavin Belson and Peter Gregory try to strike a deal with Richard, does he want ten million dollars or to have control over his own company?

Now I’m gonna be honest here, I don’t know a gosh diddly darn about apps, coding, or even computers. Considering the show is about all this I was sure I would be completely lost, to the point that I wouldn’t enjoy. Let me tell y’all: I was absolutely wrong. I still don’t know jack about electronics, but this show is hilarious.From the obvious gag humor to ridiculousness being said with a straight face, I have laughed quite loudly at it all. My favorite character Jared (nee Donald, played by Zach Woods) is hired in the first episode, but his introduction to the Incubator sticks out to me. He was creeping in a window and apologized saying he had a ghost-like appearance, “my uncle says I look like someone starved a virgin to death.” Like c’mon. He’s great.

Apart from the laughter, you’ll actually get invested in these characters. Maybe it’s their timid nerdy frames, but even when Erlich is being supreme douche lord, I still find myself rooting for Team Piper. It’s a very quick watch, I hadn’t realized I’d basically watched the first two seasons in two days, and the episodes are only a half hour long. I didn’t notice that fact until the season two finale, because despite being short, it feels long; not in a detrimental manner mind you, it just gets its story across and tidily cleans up loose ends in a way that’s wholly satisfying. If you like to laugh and wanna feel a little bit better about being awkward, this may be the show for you. I’m excited to start the third season as soon as possible, but I don’t know what I’ll do when I catch up to the finale. Truly, it’s a pretty great show. I might just re-watch again.

I watched on HBOGo but it comes on in real time on HBO Sundays at 10 pm.

**OH DUDE WAIT, I forgot to mention the theme animation which is amazing, it takes real companies and…you know what it’s fine I’ll just link, like it’s ok guys.

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNp1ullIXP4

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