[For Silicon Valley “Meinertzhagen’s Haversack” or any other recaps on Fetchland, assume the presence of possible spoilers.]
HBO Summary:
Meinertzhagen’s Haversack. Richard searches for a way around Jack; Gilfoyle opens himself up to recruiters.
“Meinertzhagen’s Haversack” takes a page from the playbook of military deception to tell the story of five software engineers in battle with the very company they created. In fact, this whole episode revolves around the theme of taking a page from another’s playbook. The first line of the show is a guy who tells Richard, Dinesh, and Gilfoyle, “This is your future,” while pointing into a space for a small box to fit. Needless to say, they’re not inspired by this vision of their future and are looking for a new play in the Pied Piper game. If Jack Barker goes through with the sales team’s “box” vision the three of them will end up living in this basement warehouse so they can provide the 24/7 service the sales team promised.
So, Richard approaches Jack about turning Pied Piper into an appliance. But Jack’s unreachable and says he needs the box. What the engineers want doesn’t matter, a moot point with him. Gilfoyle, in response, changes his LinkedIn status to “looking for work” and immediately starts getting wooed by every engineering recruiter in town. The more Gilfoyle refuses to take meetings, the more goodies they send. It’s straight out of the “playing hard to get” playbook AKA The Rules. In Gilfoyle’s case, unlike the majority of women who actually bought that book, this play works and he uses it throughout the episode; even getting pizza for the house with the mere promise of a meeting.
Meanwhile Richard’s going off book when he decides to talk to Laurie (head of Raviga – their investor company) behind Jack’s back. Jared points out that this is a “serious breach of protocol” but Richard does it anyway. He’s always been a rule-follower before, so Richard’s gone rogue and uses a whole new playbook here. Considering this play involves a breach of ethics and two beautiful women, maybe he’s using Barney Stinson’s. As a result of Richard’s attempt at rebellion, Laurie calls Jack to root for the platform and nix the box idea. But Jack’s working out of the sandbox playbook and says either they do it his way or he’s taking all his toys and going home. Laurie just fired Richard, so she can’t oust Jack now without looking like she fires a CEO every time her phone needs charging. So, when Barker threatens to leave Pied Piper, Laurie has to concede and they’re back to “the box”.
Gilfoyle finally ends up taking a meeting but it’s an unwelcome revelation. The company EndFrame, who stole half of the Pied Piper Algorithm in a previous episode, now has the other half as well; thanks to the Nucleus team who cracked that code in the last episode and then joined EndFrame. It’s a dark day for Pied Piper. They underestimated their competition, a classic mistake for those not mindful of their Art of War in the workplace playbook.
Then the Pied Piper core team has a meeting and Erlich inspires them with a revolutionary speech saying they should just build the platform anyway. What can Jack do? Richard gets inspired by this idea. He realizes that if they could get away with doing it surreptitiously, Barker would have to act like it was his idea all along when they ended up delivering the platform rather than the box. So, they plan to create a secret company inside the company – a Skunk Works. They’ll pretend to build the box and the whole time secretly build the platform, all the while hiding it from the sales team. This is where we’re hit with a barrage of playbook references, Oceans Eleven, Shawshank Redemption, and The Great Escape, are all mentioned as they try to configure a playbook for their own version of Skunk Works.
After they work it all out and have a playbook ready, Jared tells them about “Meinertzhagen’s Haversack,” a principle of military deception. Essentially, you keep acting “the part” to maintain the appearance of the status quo and thus protect your secret deeds from detection. But when they go into the office the next morning all prepped and ready to pull of their secret mission, it all falls apart. Richard trips, falls, and sends the Skunk Works secret documents right into the hand of a sales team guy. That guy brings their Skunk Works playbook to Jack right away and thus, they’re busted before they even began. This creates a conundrum for Jack. He can’t really fire them because without them he has no Pied Piper Algorithm. Jack can demand that they make the box but can’t watch them every minute to make sure they’re not really making the platform. That would require George Orwell’s “1984,” probably the most unpopular workplace playbook of all time.
–Katherine Recap
