'Silicon Valley' Season 2: Ep 8 Recap: ls Thomas Middleditch's Richard "White Hat/Black Hat?"

From the comedic mind of Mike Judge (Beavis and Butt-head), Season 2 of Silicon Valley continues on HBO. In Episode 8, will Erlich Bachman (T.J. Miller), Richard Hendriks (Thomas Middleditch), and the rest of the tech gang become hackers in 'White Hat/Black Hat?'

Showing up with his tequila bottle, Russ Hanneman (Chris Diamantopoulos) isn't upset over the contest setup between Endgame and Pied Piper. As they compete against each other, whoever's algorithm is the fastest will land the lucrative business deal. Russ though won't be dishing out any more money, which means Richard won't be able to pay his employees until after the contest is over.  

Reeling from the UFC live stream disaster, Gavin Belson (Matt Ross) needs someone to take the blame for Nucleus' disaster. Nelson turns to Dr. Davis Bannercheck (Patrick Fischler) and asks for him to return. Unfortunately, Dr. Davis Bannercheck takes an in-depth look at where the Nucleus team is at with their project, which is even a bigger disaster than he imagined. 

Meanwhile, Dinesh (Kumail Nanjiani) and Gilfoyle (Martin Starr) don't really care they got Endframe's security tech, Seth (Joshua Chang), fired. Richard feels bad that Seth lost his job, but makes things worse when he tries to console him. Seth can't believe he lost his job because Gilfoyle found the password on a post-it note. 

Seth promises to hack into Gilfoyle's firewall and threatens to ruin Pied Piper. Gilfoyle thinks that is impossible because Seth isn't smart enough and he hasn't have in it. Richard though thinks Seth will hack through their firewall and ruin the contract they desperately need.

Monica (Amanda Crew) meets with Erlich and Jian Yang (Jimmy O. Yang), who have an idea for an innovative app. Originally the app was supposed to tell users where the nearest playgrounds are, but Monica's boss likes it more if it tells where the nearest smoker is. Jian gets Monica in trouble when he starts lighting up Monica's cigarettes. 

With Seth's threat looming in his head, Richard is extremely nervous about the upload. Hanneman arrives once more when his tequila bottle, Richard just lets loose and yells at him.  Russ realizes that Richard is like everyone else; he's not his friend, he just wants his money. 

All of sudden, Piped Piper's feed starts to go haywire, deleting files and memory. Everything starts blaming Seth, but it turns out Hanneman had placed his tequila bottle on the delete key. Making things worse, Hanneman does it again, deleting even more of Pied Piper's work. Everyone is mad at Hanneman  as he leaves the room.

Back at Hooli, Belson has discovered Dr. Davis Bannercheck has quit and left the building. With Bannercheck gone, all the responsibility falls back on Belson. Filled with rage, Belson starts hitting a wall with a hammer, while photographers are taking pictures of him. 

Monica joins Erlich and Richard as they meet at the business owner of the adult company. Their screw-up led to thousands of adult videos. This means Pied Piper have lost the battle against Endframe, with their lucrative deal rejected.

Readers, what did you think of White Hat/Black Hat?