The third season of HBO’s Silicon Valley picks up right where the second season left off. Richard (Thomas Middleditch) has been fired as the CEO of his own company and has been offered the role of CTO instead. Investor Laurie (Suzanne Cryer) sees that Pied Piper has become too valuable of a company for Richard to be running himself, and she wants to bring in experienced CEO Jack Barker (Stephen Tobolowsky). Richard feels betrayed by Monica (Amanda Crew), who didn’t vote against the move at the board meeting. So Richard decides to leave Pied Piper in protest, but soon learns that Dinesh (Kumail Nanjiani) and Gilfoyle (Martin Starr) don’t plan on following him out the door. Richard also quickly discovers that his alternative business options aren’t all that better, so he decides to stick it out and give Jack a chance. However, the two quickly clash on Pied Piper’s priorities—while Richard wants to concentrate on a customer-facing platform, Jack wants the company to head in an enterprise appliance direction. Jack is more focused on selling a product than developing it, and hires a massive sales team rather than engineers to actually help build it. At the rate the company is burning money, they need to produce a product soon in order to secure their next installment of funding, so the engineers come up with an alternative plan to not only satisfy both their desires and the bare minimum of Jack’s requirements…but the engineers in them just can’t leave well enough alone.

Meanwhile, things aren’t going great over at competitor Hooli either. Gavin Belson (Matt Ross) makes some drastic moves to cover up his own incompetency and the failure of his Nucleus division. This leaves Big Head (Josh Brener) with sizable severance package, which he uses to start his own incubator—mainly just as a way to get friends to hand out with him. However, Erlich (T.J. Miller) sees this as a challenge against his own business, that is, until he finds a way to turn the situation to his own advantage. And Jared (Zach Woods) finds himself looking for a place to stay when a squatter refuses to vacate his apartment.
 

I thoroughly enjoyed re-watching this season via this Blu-ray, so much so that I binged all 10 episodes in a single sitting. Each episode ends with some kind of big twist or reveal that makes you want to immediately start another episode to see what happens next. Each season this series finds creative new directions to take the overall story while still providing lots of humor and some hilarious character dynamics. All of the fun relationships from the first two seasons continue. Dinesh & Gilfoyle are constantly trading barbs at one another, claiming not to be friends, while in actuality they are each other’s best/only friend. Erlich once again has all kinds of money-making schemes going on, and while it seems like he’s often out for himself most of the time, we get to see a more human side of him this season that shows that he does actually care about his friends. Jared is just as odd and unusual as ever, but we also get to see him grow a bit this season, breaking some rules to help out his friends. And Richard is just a neurotic as ever—there’s a hilarious storyline involving his obsession with using tabs versus spaces in code.

This season also introduces some fun new characters. I found myself both frustrated at new CEO Jack’s stubbornness, but was also kind of on his side as Richard can be a bit of a brat when he doesn’t get his way. Tech blogger C.J. Cantwell (Annie Sertich) is the epitome of the gossip rag reporter—she’s always looking for some expose, but can easily be bought if the price is right. Plus, there are many other fun side characters that help fill out this entertaining world, such as Jack’s sales team, who feel the need to introduce themselves every time they speak to Richard, or the foreign contractors working for Pied Piper, one of whom Dinesh has a crush on.

This show is so witty and well-written. While some of these characters may seem off-the-wall, as someone who’s worked in the tech industry for a long time, they really ring true. I have seen people like this in real life (though they are far more entertaining in this series)—Laurie, the emotionless but seemingly brilliant investor; Gavin Belson, the clueless boss with his elaborate presentations, who’s constantly trying to blame others for his own shortcomings; Big Head, the guy who does nothing but somehow keeps getting promoted and lucks into things; and all those other bizarre, eccentric engineers and sales people.
 

HBO’s Blu-ray presentation provides vibrant colors and a clean, detailed, sharp picture that looks pretty flawless. The audio track provides clear dialogue and makes good use of the surround channels to provide ambiance, especially in crowded scenes like bars or workplaces. While this isn’t an action packed series, the stereo channels are also used nicely to help make the show a bit more immersive and add some dimension to what’s happening on screen. Unfortunately, the release is a bit skimpy on bonus material—there are just three deleted scenes included on the discs. While two of these are a bit extensive, the third is just 29 seconds. I wish there had been more supplemental material included, such as interviews with the cast/crew, a commentary or two, or even just last summer’s San Diego Comic-Con panel.

The two discs are packed in a standard multi-disc Blu-ray keep case with a cardboard slipcover. There is also an insert containing instructions on how to redeem both UltraViolet and Digital HD copies of the episodes.

What’s Included:

Episodes: (4:47:07)

Blu-ray:
• All 10 Episodes of the Third Season:
  “Founder Friendly”, “Two in the Box”, “Meinertzhagen’s Haversack”, “Maleant Data Systems Solutions”, “The Empty Chair”, “Bachmanity Insanity”, “To Build a Better Beta”, “Bachman’s Earning’s Over-Ride”, “Daily Active Users”, “The Uptick”
• 1080p / Widescreen 1.78:1
• Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1, French DTS Digital Surround 5.1, Latin Spanish DTS Digital Surround 2.0
• Subtitles: English SDH, French, Latin Spanish, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish

Digital Copy (Redemption Deadline 12/31/2022):

• UltraViolet Digital HD Copy (Vudu or Flixster Video)
• Digital HD Copy (iTunes or Google Play)

Extras:

• Deleted Scenes (5:46)
  Three deleted scenes are available on the discs containing the respective episodes. There is also a Play All option on disc 1 for the two scenes contained there.
  • Episode 1 (2:26)
    Bachman inappropriately explains cuckold porn while trying to get Richard to stay.

  • Episode 4 (2:51)
    Jared sees his own condo on Airbnb and confronts his squatter about it.

  • Episode 6 (:29)
    Gilfoyle talks to Jared about his garage living situation.

Final Thoughts:

In its third season, HBO’s Silicon Valley is just as entertaining as ever. The series has created a rich, delightful and interesting world filled with fun, unique characters. The third season is easily bingeable and rewatchable. The episodes are not only filled with laughs and great character dynamics, but they also rapidly advances an interesting overall story arc, and always end with some big twist or reveal that makes you eager to see what happens next. The Blu-ray provides excellent audio and video presentation. While the series itself is Highly Recommended, the lack bonus material was a bit disappointing.