After 18 months, it’s now mere hours until Apple TV’s critically acclaimed sleeper hit Silo returns with a vengeance on July 3. With the trailer teasing Juliette Nichols’ (Rebecca Ferguson) amnesia as well as a past timeline that depicts how exactly the world ended, Season 3 is venturing into even bolder territory for one of streaming’s most thoughtful and painstakingly assembled genre series. Given the major events, reveals, and Season 3 set-ups Graham Yost delivered during Silo‘s sophomore season, a refresher is more than warranted.
Juliette’s Time Inside Another Silo Uncovers Giant Secrets in ‘Silo’ Season 2
Minutes after Season 1’s cliffhanger finale, Juliette approaches the closest silo. Thousands of corpses surround its exterior, but she manages to enter just as her environmental suit’s limited oxygen runs out. Exploring, she finds the structure abandoned aside from Solo (Steve Zahn), an outgoing but nervous man driven by an overwhelming need to keep the vault door to the IT department locked at all costs. He wants a friend; Juliette wants to return home as soon as possible, worried about the potentially rebellious ramifications of her failed cleaning. She undergoes multiple dangerous challenges to retrieve the parts necessary to assemble a new, functional environmental suit.
During her time with Solo, Juliette learns humanity created 50 different silos before their dystopian days. Solo’s is designated as Silo 17, and Juliette’s is Silo 18. Silo 17 rebelled when Solo was a child, an event partially shown in Episode 1’s opening scene. His father, Russell Conroy (Nick Haverson), the IT leader, locked his son inside the password-sealed Vault to protect him. When Russell refused to surrender the code, a raider executed him. Witnessing his father’s murder traumatized Solo into agoraphobia and a desperate commitment to honor Russell’s instructions — which weren’t to protect the Vault’s resources, but to protect his son. Solo, born as Jimmy, also adopted another resident’s name to avoid the constant painful reminders.
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As it turns out, the pair aren’t as alone as Juliette presumes. Three young adults — Audrey (Georgina Sadler), Rick (Orlando Norman), Hope (Sara Hazemi) — and two young children have been hiding from Juliette’s view and consider her intrusion a threat. They’ve been seeking revenge against Jimmy for a long time; he killed their parents when they tried to break into the Vault. It was a frightened act of self-defense for him, a need for the food-starved parents, and a tragedy for the children. Juliette talks sense into everyone by sharing her experiences with loss. Eventually, Jimmy opens the Vault doors for everyone. Combined with handing Juliette a sturdy environmental suit, it’s his clearest sign of growth and trust. Juliette promises to try her best to come back to her newfound friend.
Before Juliette departs, Jimmy frantically recalls his childhood memories about the Safeguard protocol — a pipe designed to flood any silo with poisonous gas, should all other anti-rebellion measures fail. His parents had capped the pipe and prevented Silo 17’s premeditated slaughter. Armed with vital knowledge, Juliette races back to Silo 17. Mechanical sees her arrival on the screens and rejoices, although they’re puzzled by her note warning them to stay inside. Mayor Bernard Holland (Tim Robbins), her would-be executioner, stops her just past the main doors. Their tense stand-off reaches a surprising truce, only for the incinerator room to activate while they’re both trapped inside.
Silo 17 Declares an Uprising in ‘Silo’ Season 2
Concurrent with Juliette’s quests, her public refusal to clean and potential survival have indeed sparked Silo 18 into a slow-burning but organized uprising. Shirley Campbell (Remmie Milner), Juliette’s closest friend, Knox (Shane McRae), the head of Mechanical, and Juliette’s long-time mentor, Martha Walker (Harriet Walter), lead Mechanical in strategically plotting their offensive and defensive strikes. Shirley and Knox grow convinced their silo is no stranger to frequent revolutions or receiving the blame, manufactured or otherwise. (Their combative tension eventually morphs into an excellent kiss, too.)
As for the Mayor, Bernard operates with a sort of composed panic. He races to crush descent according to the instructions laid out in the Pact, an ancient document that doubles as a religious text. Their primary edict: make Mechanical the scapegoat for all rebellious activity. Bernard’s psychological and brute force tactics include launching a false flag attack, trying to force compliance through starvation, and building a barricade between Up Top and the Down Deep. His cruelest moves, however, are poisoning Judge Mary Meadows (Tanya Moodie) despite their former closeness and his own reluctance, framing Knox and Shirley for Meadows’ murder, and using Martha’s captured ex-wife Carla McLain (Clare Perkins) to force Martha into being his spy. But Mechanical competently keeps up with his overconfidence and foils several of his plans. Once Paul Billings (Chinaza Uche), conflicted by the corruption he’s witnessed and moved by the old picture of the Blue Ridge Mountains, switches sides, Bernard seethes with rage.
Bernard also rescinds his promise to Robert Sims (Common) due to Robert’s public push to impeach Meadows. Bernard enlists IT analyst Lukas Kyle (Avi Nash) as his shadow instead. He instructs his new protégé to fix the damaged hard drive Juliette stole during Season 1, then decode its contents — a 140-year-old message penned by then-head of the IT department, Salvador Quinn. Bernard paints the silo’s routine civilian rebellions as destabilizing to humanity’s survival and reveals Judicial’s history of systematically suppressing said uprisings by lacing the water with memory-erasing drugs. Meanwhile, Robert and his wife Camille (Alexandria Riley) choose to prioritize their family’s survival by appealing to both sides of the conflict.
Mechanical’s Triumph Over Bernard Unleashes a Greater Threat in ‘Silo’ Season 2
As Mechanical launches their climactic strike, Martha plays Bernard for a fool. Due to the nature of the Down Deep’s job — i.e., working directly near the silo’s loud generator — Mechanical developed an unspoken language. She’d used their established signals to communicate her situation, and everyone played to the cameras like Bernard wanted to hear. With Bernard distracted, Deputy Hank (Billy Postlethwaite) and Juliette’s father, Dr. Pete Nichols (Iain Glen), plant a bomb on the stairs; the detonation would trap Judicial Security’s raiders below. Sneaking past the barricade cost them key equipment, and that accident cost them a life. Pete passes along his watch and a message of love for Juliette to Hank before sacrificing himself.
Lukas tracks down Quinn’s preserved copy of the Pact through one of his descendants, Terrance Penbrook (Stuart Milligan), and uses it to break the message’s encryption. He ventures to the silo’s lowest level and discovers the Algorithm AI program, as well as the revelation that made the younger Meadows resign from her position as Bernard’s shadow — the Safeguard. He passes along the knowledge to Bernard. His worldview shaken, Bernard essentially surrenders and decides to see the outside before he dies, hence his presence inside the exit-entry tunnel. Robert, Camille, and their son Anthony (Oscar Coleman) approach the Algorithm. They all want to save their Silo, but the Algorithm only agrees to speak with Camille.
As for the season’s final scene, Silo flashes back centuries earlier to an unspecified year that’s slightly different from our own, but familiar enough to pass as an average evening in Washington, D.C. A journalist named Helen (Jessica Henwick) meets Daniel (Ashley Zukerman), a Georgia congressman, in a bar. She presses him for the truth about a horrific bombing on American soil, allegedly carried out by Iranian forces. Daniel deflects her questions. As he leaves, he hands Helen a last-minute gift he’d snatched from a nearby store: the same duck-head Pez dispenser Juliette received in Season 1, and which made its way into the hands of Anthony Sims as a forbidden relic-turned-toy.
Silo Season 3 premieres July 3 on Apple TV.
Silo
- Release Date
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May 5, 2023
- Network
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Apple TV
- Showrunner
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Graham Yost
- Directors
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Morten Tyldum, David Semel, Michael Dinner, Aric Avelino
