Gettin' My Eps In: Silo S1E2, plus bonus House of the Dragon complaints
Worldbuilding can be fun, but I would like some more substance to stories, please.
I’m continuing my latest series of episodic reviews, but I also threw in some commentary about another show simply because I had some things to get off my chest.
Silo
Season 1, Episode 2: “Holston’s Pick”
Written by Graham Yost and Jessica Blaire
Directed by Morten Tyldum
Streaming on Apple TV+
A show like Silo seems like it has to be at least somewhat metaphorical. The basic concept, which groups a bunch of people who believe they’re the last remnants of humanity into a sealed-off society, with the rich and powerful living on the upper levels and the working-class people who keep everything running down at the bottom, seems like it has to be a commentary on something. Maybe it isn’t as blatant as the likes of Snowpiercer, but the elements are there to make it seem like there’s at least going to be some attempt to look at class tensions, the methods that people in power use to enforce order, and potentially the ways people find to express some individuality when living in oppressive circumstances.
However, as of this second episode, there hasn’t been a whole lot of exploration of those ideas. Instead, the story is focused more on mysteries that have been set up through the plot’s time-jumping structure. Last episode, we saw Sheriff Holston (David Oyelowo) decide to leave the silo, which everyone is sure is going to lead to certain death. Surprisingly, while I thought this was going to be a flash-forward, and the series would be focused on showing what led up to that decision, this episode picks up from that point, showing him heading outside and apparently dying. We even seem to get a confirmation of his suspicions that the outside is not the ravaged wasteland that people in the silo can see on their monitor screens, but actually features luscious greenery and birds flying in the sky. But he still seems to collapse and die just like his wife did, so some mystery remains as to what the state of the world is out there and whether anyone who leaves the silo is doomed to certain death.
Most of the rest of the episode follows Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson, trying to do an American accent and only occasionally succeeding), a worker in the silo’s lower levels who, as we learn in an extended flashback, only met the Sheriff once. She was carrying on a surreptitious relationship (dialogue between characters lets us know that people can only partner up if they are “sanctioned” to do so by the authorities) with George (Ferdinand Kingsley), the technician who got help from the Sheriff’s wife as he was trying to unlock a hard drive that had secret information about the silo’s past. The last time she saw George, he indicated that he had found something important, but the next day, his body was found, with his death deemed a suicide after he apparently jumped from the silo’s stairs. But she knows that can’t possibly be true, so she tries to report that it was a murder.
That’s what brings the Sheriff down to investigate, and after he gets Juliette to trust him, she takes him into a secret, forbidden part of the silo, a huge shaft containing the drilling equipment that must have been used to excavate the only area that any of them have ever known. This is where George had kept a secret lair of sorts, collecting whatever “relics” he could find of the silo’s unknown prehistory. And it’s also where he stashed the hard drive before he died, which Juliette manages to find based on a Pez dispenser that he left as a clue. The Sheriff wants to take the drive and destroy it, since it’s extremely forbidden to own anything that contains information about the past. Juliette convinces him to save it and try to find out more about what his wife and George had discovered, and he promises to send word to her when he finds anything. But apparently he never did that before he died, so she’s left wondering if she has any options left to find out the truth.
And that’s about it for the plot of the episode. At this point, the series seems to be focused on worldbuilding, slowly dribbling out information about how this society functions and keeping us curious about the various secrets that may eventually be revealed. The ways the silo’s authority figures function is still unknown; characters keep referencing “judicial,” which seems to be a group of secret police or a shadowy government bureau that dictates what people can and can’t do. We also get a glimpse of Common as a guy who stands out among the blue-collar workers of the lower levels, since he’s wearing a slick black leather jacket rather than dirty coveralls. It’s still uncertain whether he and a few other black-clad figures are part of those secret police or serve as a set of civilian enforcers or gangsters or something.
So, it remains to be seen whether we’ll explore the class systems that the series seems to be setting up or get a better look at the workings of the oppressive system that keeps everyone in line. One subplot of the episode sees the Sheriff’s deputy (Will Patton) consulting with the mayor (Geraldine James) about who will be the next in line for the position. Interestingly, the Sheriff left a note saying that Juliette should be his replacement, but this seems to be a non-starter, since she’s one of those lower-class figures who is way down at the bottom of the ladder. Will that be the driving element of class tension? Will we learn about other authority figures who will have a say in how this plays out? We’ll have to see, and fortunately, I’m still intrigued enough to want to find out.
Additional TV-Related Thoughts
I haven’t been covering House of the Dragon, but after watching the finale of the second season, I thought it would be worth levying some complaints about how the show has been a bit of a disappointment, even if it has flashes of excellence. It’s a show that’s put together really well, but it can occasionally seem like a bit of a slog, as if we’re constantly waiting for big events to happen, but we have to muddle through lots and lots of setup before we get to those events.
My thoughts about the show were solidified when watching a TikTok video from author
(John Dies at the End and numerous other enjoyable books, including the forthcoming I’m Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom):Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
As he discusses, House of the Dragon suffers in comparison to Game of Thrones (at least when it was at its best) because it lacks the compelling character interactions that make good TV shows work. It does have its moments here and there, but we don’t really get a lot of scenes in which two characters we like interact with each other in an enjoyable manner. The new series seems to be taking a more novelistic approach, but it’s not really succeeding at what can make TV shows especially compelling and enjoyable.
There have definitely been some good moments in this season, but they haven’t necessarily been based on character interactions that have developed naturally. One of the best scenes in the last few episodes saw Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) get totally owned by the young Oscar Tully (Archie Barnes), but that sort of came out of nowhere after Oscar had been in one previous scene in the season. There was no history between the characters, and while it was good to see Daemon get taken down a peg, it was just another humiliation after the character had spent the entire season moping around a haunted castle.
I think the other issue with the show is that it seems like it’s constantly setting up things that should be really exciting but taking forever to get to those moments. I’ve read the story that the show is based on, so there are some events that I keep expecting to happen, but it seems like they’re always just over the horizon. And sure enough, the finale spent a great deal of time building up things that are possibly going to happen with the promise that we’ll hopefully get there next season.
While we’re waiting, we don’t really get the pleasure of interesting character interactions that pull us along through the moments where the various plots slowly develop. Some scenes of interest in the finale included a moment between Criston Cole (Fabian Frankel) and Gwayne Hightower (Freddie Fox) in which the former seems to have lost all hope, feeling like he’s just cannon fodder in a war where dragons will crush and burn everything in their path. While Cole had been a major player early in the season, he faded into the background in later episodes. Even though he’s been paired with Gwayne, the two don’t have much in the way of chemistry, and rather than being dramatic, this scene just seemed like an acknowledgment that there isn’t much of interest going on with the characters.
We also get an extended series of scenes in which Tyland Lannister (Jefferson Hall) heads to a foreign country to make a deal and get access to some naval forces. But once again, this is a character who barely had any presence throughout the rest of the season, so it’s hard to care about whether he’s going to win mud wrestling matches in order to gain favor with some barbarian lady so he can return to Westeros and kick off some battles. Why are we spending so much time during a big finale episode watching a minor player humiliate himself?
The other big two-person interaction was between Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D’Arcy) and Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke), with the latter having had a change of heart and hoping that she can end the war peacefully by letting the former take over King’s Landing. This wasn’t bad, but it seemed like a repeat of a confrontation between the two characters that took place earlier in the season. Sure enough, it ended up being yet more setup, leaving us to wonder if Alicent is really going to allow Rhaenyra to complete a peaceful conquest and execute Alicent’s son as a false claimant to the throne. As with so much else, maybe we’ll find out next season!
Finally, I want to complain about the prequelitis that has popped up in the series. I usually dislike prequels, since I’m not interested in the setup that puts characters or events in place before the point where the actual story starts. House of the Dragon should be able to stand on its own as a series of events that took place in the long history of Westeros rather than trying to set up events that we know are coming in Game of Thrones. But no, in the finale, one character has a vision of coming events, giving us glimpses of White Walkers and Daenerys Targaryen with her baby dragons. It’s completely unnecessary, and it seems like the show is acknowledging that it’s less interesting than the other story that we know and love.
I don’t hate this show, and when it’s good, it can be really exciting and compelling. There have been plenty of nice moments throughout the season, including one pretty awesome battle scene, as well as some good character interactions here and there. I’m just tired of the way the series is delaying in getting to the good stuff without giving us much of interest while we’re waiting. I’ll still keep watching, but given the way things have worked out so far, I expect that the next season will occasionally deliver moments of excitement while spending too much time with uninteresting characters on the way.