It is often considered that we humans as a species, by nature, are subservient and tend to make peace with even the most troubling situations if our needs, security and sense of belonging are taken care of. This easily earned complacency has allowed people in power to control, manipulate, and subjugate us since the earliest days—and it is only the flame of curiosity—an evolutionary advantage—that has brought the truth to light, triggered revolution, and initiated change.
But then again, if history has taught us anything, it’s that people cannot always be trusted with the truth, which raises a strange dilemma between idealism and pragmatism. All these intriguing questions are what Apple TV+’s dystopian sci-fi drama, Silo, a TV series adaptation of Hugh Howey’s novel series, raises and provides no easy answers to. Chronicling the story of human existence in a post-apocalyptic, confined world where fascistic authoritarianism controls the truth and the very idea of autonomy is a fantasy—Silo examines the unreliable nature of reality, class politics and the allure of freedom in a way that feels extremely topical. The highly acclaimed first season of the series was released back in 2023, and later this week, the second season will start premiering. Before that, let’s take a brief look at everything related to the series itself.
The World of Silo
Silo is set in a dystopian world in far future, where ecological collapse due to reasons unknown has forced humanity to take shelter in a bunker-like structure known as Silo, which contains 144 vertically arranged stories or levels, and inside the confined environment, over 10,000 denizens are segregated on the basis of their vocations. The ones in power—IT, authority, and Judicial—reside carefree on the topside; the researchers, farmers, and doctors are stationed in the middle, while the mechanics—who are responsible for keeping the geothermal energy-powered generator running—which is the only source of power that keeps the Silo alive—are consigned to the bottom to live in inhospitable conditions. The Silo is a microcosm of the real world, and its structural divide on the basis of class mimics the prevalent social hierarchy. Alternatively, it can also be viewed as the first world countries—the global superpowers, mooching off of the efforts of developing nations while dictating rules and regulations to force their policies on the less-privileged. The outside world is a veritable wasteland, possibly ruined by nuclear toxicity, although the truth about the outside is one of the major motifs that isn’t revealed until at the very end of the first season. There are certain similarities Silo shares with Fallout game titles and tv series adaptation, minus the dark humor and satire of the latter.
The world of Silo is governed by the central authority of Judicial and its enforcers, who ensure the Pact—the commandment and constitution of this confined space, where a well-defined set of rules dictated by the founders of Silo are documented—is adhered to by everyone. It is unknown how long has passed since humanity retreated to Silo, as there have been several generations who have spent their lifetimes inside Silo and have no knowledge about the life before, the life above. However, what they do know is that 140 years ago, rebels who challenged the authority of the judiciary had destroyed the entire history of the past, leading to the creation of a generation whose reality began and ended in the stagnant confinement of the underground world. Even for a new world order of a dystopian era, the rules that govern the Silo are questionable, to say the least. Relics of the past are considered illegal and need to be submitted to the authorities; relationships between two people outside the sphere of family need to be ‘sanctioned’; permission needs to be taken from the authorities for having children, which is arranged by the removal of birth control. Sanctity of relations, and the idea of choice over one’s one self is a farce, which raises complex questions about the true motive of the ones in power. The only connection to the outside world is a visor located at the top of the bunker, which allows a view of the wasteland to the residents inside. The Silo’s equivalent of capital punishment is sending people up to ‘clean’ the visor, where mere minutes after outside exposure the said person inevitably dies—something which residents inside the Silo watch with keen interest, as it involves the question of their own survival. The specialized suits given to the ones sent to clean are of no use, as the outside environment gets everyone eventually.
In fact, there is no shortage of questions when it comes to existence inside the Silo: what calamity forced the world to choose to live in the Silo, who built the Silo in the first place, where on earth is it located, what is the source of the geothermal steam that powers the Silo, why are magnifiers of high power considered illegal inside the Silo, and what is the reason behind the deliberate absence of mechanized transportation across 144 levels? Are the residents truly safe, or is there a doomsday clock ticking already? Judicial doesn’t bother answering any of these questions, and the majority of the people don’t seem to care either way. They are fairly content with their designated roles and predetermined, immutable lifestyle; at least at the end of the day, they know asking too many questions is flirting with danger. The quest to earn security for livelihood has turned us into timid, docile, unimaginative creatures, which holds true for residents of the Silo as well. And if the situation goes sideways due to any reason, the authorities make sure to distract the masses with celebrations and merriment. Judicial has to control the existing narrative at any cost.
A Pursuit of Truth
As the series begins, the narrative focus centers on Sheriff Holston Becker, a grieving widower who willingly wants to go outside the Silo—much to the shock and dismay of his close acquaintances—Deputy Sam Marnes and Mayor Ruth Jahns. As a cardinal rule of the Silo, a demand to go outside the Silo is fulfilled with utmost priority, and Becker’s is no exception as well. Through a series of events and flashbacks, the reason for Holston’s decision is unearthed in dramatic fashion.
Two years earlier, Holston’s wife Allison, an IT employee of the Silo, reached a mental breaking point when the couple’s third and final Judicially granted duration to conceive a child failed. Allison was approached by a fertility counselor, Gloria Hildebrandt, who had put the idea of Judicial autocracy in her mind, mentioning the horrid truth that they deliberately do not allow selected people to continue their lineage, as Gloria herself wasn’t allowed to either. Later on, Allison helped a techie, George Wilkins, recover deleted files from a particular hard drive, where she witnessed a recording of a ‘cleaning’ that reveals the outside world to be a lush, beautiful landscape, in total contrast to the visor vision of a wasteland seen through the Silo. Allison shares her suspicion with Holston, who appeared conflicted between shouldering his responsibility as a Judicially chosen authoritative figure and trusting his wife’s claims. Allison became convinced about Judicial’s conspiracy after she was able to remove her birth control from her body and nearly exposed the ones in power. Allison shared her wish to go outside to prove to her husband that her assumptions were right, much to Holston’s dismay. During ‘cleaning’, she showed signs to convey to him that the world outside was indeed a different place —before succumbing to her death.
Two years later, George mysteriously loses his life, and his secret lover, Juliette Nichols, a mechanic from down deep, raises her suspicion that he was murdered, thereby going against the Judicial’s verdict about George taking his own life. Sheriff Holston decides to get involved in the investigation due to Allison’s past connection with George, and trusting him, Juliette brings him to a restricted area further underground where George had set his base near the abandoned Silo digging machine to show him the relics of the old age George used to collect. Juliette is quite certain that George was going to discover something important regarding the cover-ups of Judicial, and gives his hard drive to Holston, who still remains conflicted between his ideology and responsibilities. Juliette blames him for Allison’s demise, as his refusal to believe her drove her to take the drastic step, and an aggrieved Holston promises to send a sign if he comes across something significant. At present, after going outside, Holston sees a beautiful world—but soon collapses to his death—and considering this to be the sign, Juliette becomes hopeless and furious.
Murder Mystery
After Holston passes, it is revealed that he wanted Juliette to assume the role of the sheriff, much to the disbelief of everyone. Instead of accepting JJudicial’s choice of the sheriff, Mayor Jahns decides to assess Juliette as a person by going down deep with Deputy Marnes. It is revealed through several flashback sequences that Juliette had lost her brother Jacob and their mother Hanna at a young age. Her father, Dr. Pete Nichols, dedicated himself to his work to cope with the grief without taking notice of his grieving daughter, which created estrangement between the duo. Viewers also learn that Hanna used to be a skilled inventor who had created a strong magnification apparatus—of which Judicial became aware—and later on destroyed her creation after tossing their place. Hanna was convinced that Pete’s fear of Judicial control prompted him to expose her in the first place, and after learning this, Juliette was further alienated from her father when Hanna ended up taking her own life in grief. After Hanna’s death, Juliette willingly took refuge in the deep down to fulfill her wish to become a mechanic, and realizing that it was Juliette’s way of coping with her personal loss, Pete agreed with his daughter’s decision. In the Deep Down, Juliette had found a maternal figure/mentor in Martha Walker,.a veteran mechanic whose crippling social anxiety hadn’t allowed her to leave her workshop in several decades.
Mayor Jahns offers the role of sheriff to Juliette, much to the displeasure of two particular individuals: Bernard Hollan, chief of IT, and Robert Sims, chief of Judicial security. Juliette refuses Jahns’ proposal, but after realizing that her role as a sheriff can allow her to investigate George’s case, she changes her decision. However, Juliette asks for Jahns’ permission to turn off the faulty generator for the first time in the history of the Silo in order to repair it to prevent a larger catastrophe in the future, and by putting her life at risk, she manages to fix the generator along with her mechanic comrades.
Before Juliette even gets to step into Holston’s shoes, Jahns is killed by poisoning, and Judicial decides to cover up the news for the time being. Marnes is distraught, as he and Jahns were secretly in love with each other, and Juliette offers to help him in investigating Jahns’ death if he assists her in finding the truth about George’s passing. Marnes takes her to a certain Patrick Kennedy, a former relic smuggler who had a terse relationship with Marnes, which is evident as their meeting devolves into a fistfight in no time. Later that night, Marnes is murdered by Sim’s shadow (assistant) Doug Trumbull, who had supposedly killed Mayor Jahns as well. Knowing Patrick will be framed for the crimes after finding evidence planted in his home, Juliette brings him to safety and has a run-in with Doug, who had arrived at Patrick’s residence to kill him. Sims decides to get rid of the loose ends by killing Doug, and Judicial buries the investigation by blaming Doug for the deaths.
Judicial Conspiracy
After Marnes’ death, Paul Billings is assigned as a new deputy, whose by-the-book-approach and close connection with Judicial results in a distrustful relationship with Juliette. However, Billings’ personal sense of morality and responsibility stops him from blindly adhering to the diktats of Judicial, and he finds himself in a strange conundrum as a result. Juliette plants one of George’s relics as evidence in Trumbull’s residence, which reopens the closed case, and her investigation leads her to meet Regina Jackson, who turns out to be George’s old flame who helped him to acquire relics using her family connections. Juliette goes through a loss of faith as she is faced with a possibility that George was using her like he did to Regina and decides to quit her investigation—but a conversation with Martha strengthens her resolve once again. Juliette goes to Regina, and this time she calls her out for turning in George to Judicial, and Regina eventually confesses to doing so out of fear of Judicial enforcers targeting her family. Juliette, who has seen the oppressive control of Judicial up close, sympathizes with Regina, who gives her George’s most prized possession—a picture book containing images of the bygone era, of natural wonders, flora, and fauna—which overwhelms Juliette with a sense of wonder and reinstates her belief in George’s willingness to find the truth.
In the meantime, Juliette has met with an IT employee, Lukas Kyle, whose curiosity about the world outside allows her to form a connection with him. Juliette has a falling out with Billings, as triggered by his accusation that she threw him under the bus; she calls him out for hiding his affliction. Billings is suffering from a neuro-vascular disease known as the Syndrome, which Judicial sees as a deformity, and he is extremely insecure about that. Juliette learns that Judge Meadows, the chief of Judicial, is also controlled by and afraid of some higher authority, and contrary to her initial belief, isn’t the one calling the shots. At this point, it is revealed that a surveillance team led by Sims is watching over all the denizens of Silo through mirrors installed in their residence, and the technology used by them is much more advanced compared to the existing technology in the rest of the Silo. Sims learns about Juliette’s recent misadventures and becomes desperate to capture her.
Juliette Is the Last Flamekeeper
After learning that George had received the picture book from his mother, who in turn received it from George’s aunt, Gloria Hildebrandt, Juliette decides to check up on her and learns that ever since Gloria’s connection with Allison was discovered, the elderly lady was forcibly kept drugged inside Judicial’s care in a hospital. Upon meeting Gloria, Juliette is able to decrypt one of the clues Holston had left for her and realizes that residents of the Silo are being tracked by a surveillance system that’s set up behind mirrors. Hiding from the mirror in Gloria’s facility, Juliette finds George’s hard drive inside the air vent—which was hidden at the place by Holston—and later, with the help of her father, Pete, Juliette manages to bring Gloria out, and reaching a blind spot where surveillance is not installed, she manages to reverse the effects of the drugs that had kept Gloria in a disoriented state of mind. Gloria reveals the true reason as to why Judicial didn’t allow some people to conceive—as they, much like Gloria herself and George’s mother, belonged to the lineage of the rebel group known as Flamekeepers. It was the authoritarian figures of the Silo who destroyed the relics and knowledge of the past in fear of losing control over the masses, knowledge the Flamekeepers wanted to preserve at any cost. The authorities of the Silo wanted to root out the rebellious zeal and curious perspective from the people’s genetics in its entirety in their effort to make the entire populace subservient to their commands. Gloria further reveals that Juliette’s mother, Hanna, was a supporter of their cause as well and implies Juliette’s birth was an anomaly—in that sense, she is the chosen one and the last of Flamekeepers, and she needs to carry out the mission of bringing the truth to light.
Juliette realizes the suicide of her mother was not Pete’s fault, and at long last, she manages to reconcile with her father. However, she also knows that Pete was responsible for other Flamekeepers not being able to conceive children, but he was bound by the fear of Judicial. As Sims begins his efforts to hunt down Juliette, she briefly meets Lukas to ask for assistance in decrypting the hard drive —but he refuses to do so—and eventually comes onto the radar of Judicial. Sims ends up catching up to Juliette, and Juliette is shocked to learn that it was Bernard who was calling the shots from behind the shadow. All the deaths and cover-ups were his attempt to discourage any possibility of the truth being exposed, and curb any possibility of rebellion. Being the IT chief, it is no wonder that Bernard turned out to be the mastermind; after all, information grants power, and with surveillance and enforcers, Bernard had all the information he could possibly need on the denizens of Silo.
What Did Juliette Find Outside Silo?
In her desperate attempt to bypass the authorization protection of the hard drive, Juliette ends up accessing Sims’ computer by visiting his household and holding his family hostage. Along with a pre-recorded video of George, which affirms her love for him, she finds the ‘cleaning’ footage of a certain Jane Carmody, which reveals the outside world to be a beautiful landscape, and is the biggest evidence against the authoritative control and manipulation. Juliette tries to broadcast the video with the help of one of Patrick’s hackers, but Bernard manages to shut her down. In the meantime, Billings learns about the truth by visiting Juliette’s sheriff apartment, but burns the picture book, which implies his sanctimonious persona was merely a pretense, and he is quite comfortable with supporting a wretched system as long as he is on the safe side. Later on, Sims and Billings have a conversation about the latter’s shifting alliance, and Sims raises an issue with Billings hiding his Syndrome affliction. We don’t know what arrangements took place between them, as viewers see Billings reuniting with his family – mentioning that Judicial has decided to overlook his affliction, while Sins returns to his station. In his video, George also mentions a door in the restricted area, which could be an exit point from Silo—which Juliette tried to access in the second episode but failed, due to the area being submerged in water. Bernard manages to take a hold of Kyle and forces him to reveal the serial number 18 etched on Juliette’s hard drive.
Juliette is caught by Bernard’s men, and Bernard offers her to show her George’s final fate in exchange for her willing cooperation. Juliette is sentenced to clean outside, but before that, she is taken to the surveillance room, where she sees George meeting his end after refusing to be captured by Doug—knowing the Judicial would torture him to reveal the hard drive’s location. Bernard destroys the hard drive in Juliette’s possession. To save Juliette, Martha steps outside her workstation for the first time in decades, and meeting her old flame in the supplies section, she arranges a good-quality heat tape to be used in Juliette’s specialized suit. As a result of this, Juliette survives after spending longer than usual outside and goes further than anyone has ever managed to. The denizens inside Silo, Juliette’s friends and close ones, watch intently as Juliette goes further and the vision of a beautiful world in her visor fades after a certain point, revealing the truth of the outside world to her. Bernard is flabbergasted to realize that Juliette has finally learned the truth, but there is nothing he can do about it anymore.
The vision of a beautiful world was merely a deception transmitted on the helmet visor created by the Silo authority, while in reality, the Silo is indeed located in a barren toxic wasteland, and it is revealed that there are multiple Silos located around the area – perhaps as many as 17, given the fact that the hard drive found by George had the number 18 etched on it. As Juliette goes further, the helmet transmission distorts, and she is able to see the world for what it truly is at the end. The question now emerges as to where she will end up in the second season? Will she return to the Silo she came from, or will she try to get access to one of the numerous ones in front of her – that remains to be revealed still.
