T.J. Miller ends his run on “Silicon Valley” with this weekend’s Season 4 finale, and co-star Thomas Middleditch says that the exit could have been “handled differently.”
Just after the HBO comedy was picked up for a fifth season in May — and with production already wrapped on Season 4 — Miller announced that he will not return to the show. HBO said in a statement that producers and Miller, who portrays self-centered entrepreneur Erlich Bachman, had “mutually agreed” to part ways.
Middleditch, who plays Pied Piper founder Richard Hendricks, called Miller’s exit “expected.” He added that the show might have given Erlich a different curtain call if producers had definitively known before writing the episode that it would be the character’s last.
“Lots of things could have been done differently if things were handled differently on the part of the people involved,” Middleditch told TheWrap. “It could have been a lot more ceremonious.”
The actor continued: “There’s been articles, ‘too big for the show,’ but that’s one way of putting it, that’s for sure.”
Zach Woods, who plays the docile Jared on “Silicon Valley,” previously told TheWrap that Miller’s exit “wasn’t a great surprise.” Woods added, “I love T.J., and I love Erlich — I think that character is super funny. I’m excited to see what he’ll do coming up.”
In an interview with TheWrap, Miller said that Erlich exits the show with a cliffhanger, and that reading the finale script made him realize the timing was right to walk away.
“It was an a-ha moment — they had given me this out,” said Miller, who pointed out that he remains on good terms with the network and the show’s team. “So that was my a-ha moment with, ‘I could do something unexpected, something dynamic.’”
Co-showrunner Alec Berg told TheWrap that the finale was written in the way it was because producers “kind of had a sense that this might be the end of the road for him.”
“Silicon Valley” airs its Season 4 finale on Sunday on HBO.