A shady data-mining company is on the brink of collapse. So its CEO, Duncan Park (Billy Magnussen), attempts to “Viagra the price” of a possible acquisition by manipulating the market in his favor. When his plan backfires spectacularly, his beleaguered therapist, JoAnne Felder (Sarah Goldberg), pays the price. The Audacity, now streaming on Netflix, is an eight-episode dark satire about Silicon Valley comeuppance. Created by Jonathan Glatzer, the series also stars Rob Corddry (Medical Police), Simon Helberg (The Big Bang Theory), Zach Galifianakis (This Is a Gardening Show), Lucy Punch (Jingle Bell Heist), Meaghan Rath (Being Human), and Paul Adelstein (True Story).
If you ask tech mogul Duncan (Magnussen), public humiliation is far worse than physical pain. That’s what he tells his therapist, JoAnne (Goldberg), in between discussing his complicated childhood and his impending divorce from his wife, Lili (Punch). JoAnne is used to working with big personalities and even bigger pocketbooks, but her doctor-patient confidentiality is put to the test when Duncan admits to market tampering. He reveals that he leaked the news that his company, Hypergnosis, was on the verge of being acquired by tech giant Cupertino. The stock soared — but Cupertino pulled out of the deal. Duncan is now desperately searching for a way to bolster his company’s assets and could face serious legal consequences for his meddling if anyone finds out.
He calls up Anushka Bhattachera-Phister (Rath), who works as the chief ethics officer for Cupertino, sits on the Hypergnosis board, and has had an on-and-off affair with Duncan. Anushka has her own issues — including the “AI companion” her tech-obsessed husband, Martin Phister (Helberg), is developing — but she points Duncan toward a possible “military” contact who could bolster Hypergnosis’s accounts. Duncan meets with Deputy Under Secretary Tom Ruffage (Corddry) from Veterans Affairs, whose passionate efforts to help his underfunded agency with new-age tech aren’t nearly “sexy” enough for Duncan’s liking. So Duncan turns inward: He harnesses his company’s powerful (and legally and morally iffy) “God’s eye” technology to dig up dirt on JoAnne.
Duncan had previously asked JoAnne to set him up with her other wealthy clients as possible investors. They include maladjusted tech billionaire Carl Bardolph (Galifianakis), who spends his sessions complaining about the “pitchforks and ingratitude” he deals with from the public. JoAnne initially turned Duncan down, but when he approaches her with the possibly incriminating information he uncovered about her, she begins to change her tune. As both parties wield their influence and neuroses against the other, they forget that their futures aren’t the only ones at stake as they fall into mutually assured destruction.
