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Nelson "Big Head" Bighetti is one of the supporting protagonists of the HBO sitcom Silicon Valley. While he was a normal character in the first season, with wry and sarcastic comments about life in Silicon Valley, he was immediately flanderized and turned into the childishly innocent moron he remains for the rest of the show.
He was portrayed by Josh Brener.
Bad Qualities
- Flanderization once season 2 premiered - he gets dumber and more clueless each episode. He's this show's equivalent to Kevin from The Office.
- He is a manchild who depends too much on his friends and doesn't do anything.
- His stupidity went from being enjoyable in the first two seasons to being outright annoying and even unlikable at some points, constantly being manipulated and exploited by others without any resistance.
- He's practically the show's "decoy protagonist" - in the first two episodes of the show, he is set up as the right-hand-man to Richard but gets demoted to a side character in favor of Dinesh and Gilfoyle about halfway through the first season.
- His meteoric rise to the top, from just a quality assurance guy to a business executive to a Stanford professor, feels very forced on the writers' ends. Especially when he becomes president of Stanford University in the series finale.
Good Qualities
- He's genuinely pleasant to everyone he meets. And he's a good friend to Richard and the other Pied Piper guys.
- Some of his dialogue is passably good.
- His stupidity and luck are used for comedic purposes and written well enough, particularly in seasons 4 and 5, when he's not as dumb as he is in other seasons.
- He is a fan favorite character because of his kindness, even with the flanderization and his stupidity.
- Josh Brener is aware of how bad this character was, and the role was, admittedly, a good use of Brener's talent and acting range.