“Servers Have Souls Too” (S04E10)

After the incident with the exploding Hooli phones at Hooli-Con, Jack Barker intends to replace all 9 million affected devices, instead of just releasing a firmware update, an exceedingly expensive plan that goes against the wishes of the Hooli board. This puts Pied Piper in risk of breaching contract with FGI, as the cell phone network where the data is stored will effectively be eliminated. Richard decides to use ‘Anton’, Pied Piper’s server, to store the data, even if this will exceed its capacity and probably destroy it. Barker heads to China and tries to force the Hooli plant workers to increase production. As a result, he is taken hostage until they get better wages and work environment. Gavin Belson, who is in Tibet, learns about this through Erlich and sees an opportunity. Before heading to China to rescue Jack, he ditches Erlich and hands a Tibetan local enough cash for Erlich to stay at his place for the next 5 years. He then rescues Barker and leaves him in Jackson Hole before being reinstated as Hooli’s CEO by the Hooli board. Meanwhile, after the broadband service at the incubator is cut due to lack of payment, Richard plans to connect Anton to Stanford Tech’s server cluster, using Big Head’s position there to do so. When they arrive, they discover that the back of the truck wasn’t closed and Anton’s parts have been scattered all over the road. At the same time, Melcher frantically tries to contact Richard. When they head to FGI to face him, the team are surprised to find that, before shutting down, Anton backed itself up to Jian-Yang’s smart refrigerator, as Gilfoyle used some of the Pied Piper code when he was trying to hack it, which in turn connected itself to a network of other refrigerators like it, distributing the data and proving the decentralized internet is a working concept. Melcher attacks Richard, as he finally found out that Richard had sex with his fiancée after she accidentally told him about it. Pied Piper is again sought by investors all over the Valley. Gavin Belson offers a very generous acquisition deal to Richard, who turns it down and decides to be funded by Bream & Hall. Gavin threatens to devour Pied Piper, but Richard answers back, promising to render the entire physical server rental business, and Hooli itself, obsolete.