No fraud. No good.
Warning: Full spoilers for the episode follow.
For a normal-length finale, "The Uptick" certainly packed in a lot of content, what with Pied Piper's fate being left up in the air until the very end. This episode also got the ball rolling with a riotous cold open, as the elephant Gavin brought in dropped dead in the middle of Hooli's courtyard. After a whole season of Gavin bringing animals in to make his points (sorry, "draw zoological comparisons"), it was amusing to see it culminate in a disaster of that size, literally.
Of course, the main focus here was on Pied Piper's false DAUs. Not surprisingly, Richard, Dinesh and Gilfoyle figured out what was going on immediately, and each offered their own take on the situation. Dinesh and Gilfoyle's "ruse," for example, brought about some fun interplay between them and Richard -- although we didn't get to see the duo's "Zombie" script in action.
But there wasn't much time to linger on the guys' damage control as Erlich was already leveraging new backers -- all while pleasuring himself, naturally. More interesting, though, was the friction this caused between Erlich and Richard, specifically at the Blair/Coleman meeting. It seemed appropriate that, in this final episode, the tables would be turned, with Richard now "caking Erlich's pants," and not the other way around.
However, that was just the first of three notable things going on with Erlich this week. The second was the Patrice/elephant thing, which forced Gavin to purchase Erlich's blog for $2 million; and the third was Pied Piper's final board meeting, which directly tied into said purchase -- but not before a clever misdirect involving Jack, Gavin and Laurie.
Indeed, the board meeting scene may have been the highlight of this episode -- and not just for the Bachmanity save. For one, it was nice seeing Monica stand by Richard again in the final verdict (and being promptly replaced by the new guy), but Evan's out-of-nowhere declaration of his love for Monica was just icing on the cake -- and ultimately pointless, given the Erlich twist. I definitely cracked up at Evan's line, "So... should we give this thing a shot?" followed by the new guy shaking his head in pity.
That said, I think the biggest laugh of the finale was Erlich's "real talk" with Richard about how long it would take for him to earn his trust back, and the hard cut to both of them wasted throwing Cheetos into each other's mouths. (I'm also relieved they decided not to stretch that storyline out into next season. Well played.)
Then there was the biggest shakeup of all -- Pied Piper shifting its focus to Dinesh's side project, which was a great button tp that subplot as well. As for what to call this new version of the company, I kinda like the idea of them ditching the "Pied Piper" moniker and going with "Big Head" for the video chat app. Seems fitting, no?
The Verdict
Overall, "The Uptick" was yet another great episode in Season 3. While a few of the story beats dragged -- like Richard fretting over his decision to commit fraud -- the finale ended strong and offered several neat twists along the way. From Gavin's elephant to Erlich's dumb luck, this episode was flush with entertaining moments, and the potential for Season 5 is already brimming. Personally, I'm excited to see where Pied Piper goes from here.
Editors' Choice
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