Gettin' My Eps In: Silo S2E2-3
Revolutions are messy, but there has to be a better solution than oppression.
Silo
Season 2, Episode 2-3: “Order” and “Solo”
Written by Fred Golan and Cassie Pappas
Directed by Michael Dinner and Aric Avelino
Streaming on Apple TV+
When discussing the first season of Silo, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out whether the show had anything to say about real-world issues, but as we get into the second season, I’m unsure about whether it’s especially relevant. On the one hand, it seems like we should be on the side of the common people who are bristling against oppressive control by authority figures, but on the other, it seems like the results of breaking chains and gaining freedom will be mass death. I suppose that could be seen as a symbol of some of the concerns our world is currently facing, such as climate change, but by scaling conflicts down to such a limited setting, the story doesn’t really line up with issues that currently affect people at the national or global level.
After a premiere that focused solely on the adventures of Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson) after she left the silo and defied the odds by not dying immediately, the second episode, “Order,” shifts back to the silo and the unrest that is brewing in the aftermath of these events. Not only did Juliette not “clean” (everyone else who left the silo wiped off the lens on the exterior camera so that people on the inside could still see the devastated landscape outdoors), but unlike everyone else, she didn’t collapse and die within a few minutes of her exit. This has people freaking out, wondering if it may be possible to survive outside now, whether they’ve been lied to, and whether they can also leave.
Some of the plot follows acting mayor Bernard (Tim Robbins), who is seeming a little bit less villainous than he did at the end of the first season, trying to figure out how to preserve order and keep the populace of the silo from revolting. He spends a lot of time trying to get Judge Meadows (Tanya Moodie) on his side, although why exactly he needs her help is unclear. He ends up giving a speech to the entire silo in which he reveals that Juliette survived due to some new heat tape that technicians had invented (which is bending the truth; the improved heat tape actually came from people in Mechanical), and this is a sign that maybe someday more people will be able to explore outside the silo. Meadows eventually consents to stand next to him and show her support, which is apparently a big deal.
The speech only offers a temporary reprieve, especially since the people down in Mechanical know what really happened. Juliette’s friend Shirley (Remmie Milner, a British actress who seems to do better with an American accent than many other members of this show’s cast) is fomenting dissent, telling the people they’re being lied to and meeting secretly with others to plan…some sort of resistance? What they actually want is unclear, but that’s the nature of some of these types of rebellions, with people who have legitimate grievances and feel that something needs to be done but don’t really have any actual goals other than fighting back against their oppressors.
Other plot threads involve Knox (Shane McRae), one of the authority figures in Mechanical, trying to talk sense into Shirley and prevent her from doing anything stupid that could lead to reprisals, as well as Billings (Chinaza Uche), the new Sheriff after Juliette “abdicated,” investigating the situation in which she was forced to leave the silo and coming to the conclusion that despite claims by Bernard and Sims (Common), she didn’t actually state that she wanted to go out. I’m sure these plots will continue to develop, but for now, they mostly seem to be setting things up for future episodes.
In the third episode, “Solo,” we also get to spend some time with Juliette as she interacts with someone who has been hiding out in another abandoned silo she discovered. That guy, who calls himself Solo (Steve Zahn, an entertaining character actor who has been working since the 90s; his most prominent recent appearance was probably in the HBO show The Righteous Gemstones), has barricaded himself in a vault where he is protecting sensitive equipment, a task that doesn’t seem especially necessary, given that everyone else is dead. Through conversations with Juliette (for most of the episode, we only see his eyes when he slides open a small viewing panel), he reveals that the downfall of this silo involved events that were remarkably similar to what happened to her. When somebody left the silo and survived, people decided that it was safe for everyone to leave, and after a major revolt, they all exited and promptly died. The parallels are driven home by the sight of graffiti reading “Ron Tucker Lives,” just as we’re starting to see the slogan “Juliette Lives” pick up steam in her former home.
Because of this, Juliette’s new goal is to make her way back to the original silo to prevent the same thing from happening to her people. That’s sure to be one of the driving plots of the season, maybe even with a race against time as she tries to get back to them in time to stop the worst from happening. It’s an interesting inversion of the first season, where the plot seemed to be inevitably leading to Juliette leaving the silo, but now she has to do whatever she can to get back in.
But the real meat of the ongoing plot looks like it’s going to be the continuing rebellion that may snowball into a violent revolution. It’s a conflict that doesn’t seem like it could possibly have any winners. Bernard and Sims seem certain that the only thing they can do is crack down on dissent and try to stamp out any elements that may question their authority, which will only serve to spur on further acts of rebellion and violence. The rebels, for their part, have understandable reasons for reacting to this oppression, but can they really hope to accomplish anything other than causing violence and chaos? They’re unlikely to overthrow the silo’s government, and even if they do, what’s next? Open the doors and head outside to die?
Is there any solution that will allow people to survive and live in harmony with each other? It sure doesn’t seem like it. Maybe the show will see Juliette and other players manage to calm things down and reach an accord that will allow people to live in a more free society without feeling like they are constantly being monitored and controlled. But that seems unlikely, and it’s also not very dramatically satisfying. So really, it seems like we’re heading to an eventual resolution that will be anything but happy. If the ultimate point of the show is that extinction is inevitable, it will sure be depressing. While that may seem relevant in terms of the despair that many people are currently experiencing, I’d like to think that our situation is a bit more hopeful than that. I guess the events of the next several years will let us see whether Silo is prescient or not.