HBO’s Silicon Valley has developed a bit of a reputation for dick jokes, likely because its first season concluded with one of the most elaborate dick jokes ever put to camera. But this past week’s episode, “Two In The Box,” contained an even more visually impressive (perhaps “assaultive” is the better word) stunt. As our protagonist Richard confronts new CEO Jack Barker at a stud farm, he stumbles into a scene that lends the term “animal husbandry” brutal new illustration, with two horses violently going at it. Richard, unsurprisingly, is thrown off by the whole thing, even as Jack insists on seeing his semen-based investment come to fruition.
For many viewers, a logical question was, “How the hell did they film that?” Luckily, Vulture had the same thought, and in a short interview with showrunner Mike Judge, the whole story of how the crew pulled off the trick is explained. It sounds like the hardest aspect (pun both intended and instantly regretted, much like the decision to watch horses fuck in the first place) was the speed with which horses screw, meaning Judge had to use split screen in order to make the zoophilic amore last long enough. Also, the original farm they chose turned out to be a front for an illegal pot operation (“One of our camera guys would have been arrested if he’d gotten there, like, 15 minutes earlier,” Judge says), leading to some last-minute adjustments. The whole thing sounds like what more entertainment should strive to be: An enormous amount of work for a fleeting and crude—but very funny—dick joke.