This post contains spoilers for Silicon Valley Season 4, Episode 8, “The Keenan Vortex.”

Who knew that an “adorable little wombat” could be so much trouble? On Sunday’s episode of Silicon Valley, Richard Hendricks finds himself in yet another tough spot: Pied Piper needs more money, but there are no V.C.s willing to back it. That is, until Keenan Feldspar—who “was born with a golden horseshoe up his ass,” according to Erlich Bachman—swoops in to save the day. Though Richard is initially both skeptical and jealous of Keenan, they eventually shake on an acquisition deal—only for Keenan to pull out at the last second, leaving everyone high and dry.

This is actually good news for Richard, who has just found out from the ever-helpful sage Monica that Keenan’s tech is actually garbage—but devastating for Erlich, who quit his job to be Keenan’s C.O.O., only for Keenan to dump him. Erlich ends the episode catatonic in the palapa he burned down around himself.

On the surface, it would seem that Keenan is a Hawaiian shirt-clad villain. But as actor Haley Joel Osment sees it, that’s not quite the right word.

Video: Silicon Valley’s TJ Miller Does His Best Impression of Thomas Middleditch

“I definitely wouldn’t see him as a villain, and he definitely doesn’t think of himself as that,” Osment says, though Keenan is one of those “people who are self-centered and don’t realize the consequences of their actions.” He possesses a “kind of positive quality [that] allows people to become comfortable with him when maybe they should be a little more careful.”

Keenan’s a complicated member of the Silicon Valley world. He’s not quite as openly villainous as the erstwhile Hooli C.E.O. Gavin Belson; you won’t hear him saying, “I don’t want to live in a world where someone else makes the world a better place than we do.” But he’s not exactly a great guy, either. Osment thinks Keenan thinks only in the short-term: what can he do to make himself and those around him feel good? That makes him dangerous when given too much money and power.

“That vibe is a pretty interesting thing to play with,” Osment says, especially since it’s a contrast against Silicon Valley’s protagonists—who “have a little bit more anxiety, and are sort of under the gun all the time. There’s this sort of unfair dynamic between them, who have worked really hard without striking it rich yet, and Keenan, who hasn’t worked as hard and is fabulously wealthy right off the bat.”

Keenan’s magnetic, positive personality is essential to the “Keenan Vortex,” for which the episode is titled. Osment, who sees himself as a generally positive person, said he’s wary of people like this himself. Still, Osment is a joy to watch in character—ebullient in Rainbow flip-flops, a detail Osment noted is very true to native Californians. The lucky entrepreneur exudes a perpetually zen vibe, no matter what comes his way. It’s almost as though his body rejects negative feelings.

That devil-may-care ‘tude is also evident in his grooming habits—especially his bushy, unkempt beard. For those wondering, that is no hairpiece: Osment grew out the beard for a sci-fi Amazon pilot called Oasis, in which he plays “a weed farmer in the future.”

“When they described Keenan in the script as wearing flip flops and the Hawaiian shirts, disheveled all the time, I was like, ‘Great, I’m not going to have to shave over the holidays!’“ Osment says.

The hilarious world of Silicon Valley wasn’t entirely new for Osment, who has also made a name for himself in the comedy world since his days as a child actor. He’s been a fan of Silicon Valley since its debut in 2014, and was casually acquainted with star Thomas Middleditch before he came on board as a guest star. “I’d done his show at U.C.B., and seen him at Largo, seen __Kumail [Nanjiani]’s show at Largo. I just feel lucky to be involved in this community of people who have become so influential in comedy,” Osment says. “It’s a show where you don’t want it to be over as quickly as it is, because all of them are so talented and really excellent improvisers as well. It’s constantly funny on camera and off camera.”

Beyond Silicon Valley, Osment has roles in Hulu’s Future Man—in which he will play “a really nasty character”—as well as Oasis, should it be picked up. When asked how it feels to find a comic groove years after his child stardom, Osment says, “I feel really lucky. I went to school in New York for five years, and was doing theater and stuff like that, so to get to come back and have these opportunities is pretty fun. Because my main goal has always been—even when I was younger—was to try and do as big a variety as I could of roles.”

As for whether his character might be back next year? Fear not: “It’s not Game of Thrones,” Osment says. “You don’t have to worry about too many executions at the end of each season.”