Silicon Valley keeps serving up satire that both insiders and average viewers can appreciate — including the introduction of a cocky, young genius archetype — but the largely inconsistent "Third Party Insourcing" is littered with moments that deserve the three-finger salute.

Episode 6 centers on the Pied Piper team's hiring of an outside consultant to move the company's infrastructure to the cloud — something Richard just doesn't understand how to do. The consultant is a teenage wunderkind named Kevin (delightfully portrayed by Austin Abrams) — known by his online alias "The Carver" — a black-hat hacker who once supposedly took down Bank of America's system.

"I did think you'd be younger — what are you, 25?" he snidely asks Richard. It's an archetype we see come up again and again, most recently in the form of 23-year-old Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel, who was branded "arrogant" and "entitled" after failing to apologize for a security breach and exaggerating an encounter with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (who himself invented the social network at 19, and is one of the world's youngest billionaires).

Richard's tense interactions with Kevin provide some of the episode's best moments, especially when the younger upstart shoots looks of derision and unblinking judgment at the less-young upstart. It's also ultimately satisfying to see Kevin crash and burn so hard, after Richard — cowed into groupthink by his teammates — allows the teenager to access Pied Piper's DDL. (As it turns out, Kevin was actually working as a consultant for Bank of America when he accidentally crashed its system.)

The subplots in "Third Party Insourcing," however, are much weaker. Dinesh's sexual dilemma-turned-extended prank, in particular, veers into subpar-sitcom territory, albeit with an antiestablishmentarian twist. It seems writer Dan O'Keefe was attempting to inject non-work-oriented conflict (not to mention more female characters) into Silicon Valley, but Gilfoyle's girlfriend Tara is nothing more than an attractive prop throughout the episode. It'd be nice to see more women with personality on the show.

Granted, this particular subplot did produce a few notably funny lines ("You know what my nickname was when I was a kid? Pakistani Denzel") and scenes (Erlich stripping down to his tight swim trunks in front of Tara). Plus, it enabled Silicon Valley to stray from its typically conservative tone — at least, compared to other shows on its network — and go more HBO (naked bodies at the Satanic baptism, anyone?).

Jared (Zach Woods) observes an autonomous car in episode 6 of <em>Silicon Valley.</em> Video: YouTube, HBO

Jared's' thread feels even more random: Trapping him in a driverless car is a nice touch, though, as the tech frequently makes the news and has touched off controversy before. The last scene, in which Jared emerges from a shipping container and asks for help only to encounter more autonomous robots, is also a gem that speaks to the fear of an automated future.

I miss Peter Gregory's quirky presence, so it was nice to see Silicon Valley include his signature guttural noise in a phone call with Monica. Christopher Evan Welch, who played Peter, died last year of lung cancer at 48; his final appearance on the show was in episode 5, "Signaling Risk." I'm curious as to how Silicon Valley will deal with Welch's absence, moving forward, but one thing is certain: It will be difficult to replace him.

Silicon Valley airs every Sunday at 10 p.m. ET on HBO.

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