Another week, another fantastic episode of Silo, Apple TV+'s science fiction show based on the bestselling book trilogy by Hugh Howey. We're seven episodes into Silo's second season, and at this point it's clear: this show is incapable of being bad. But even by its own rock-solid standards, "The Dive" is a banger of an episode from start to finish.
We're back to splitting the focus between Silos 17 and 18. In the former, Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson) is forced to go on a perilous underwater mission to keep the derelict Silo from flooding. In the latter, the populace edges closer to outright rebellion as order slips through Mayor Bernard Holland's (Tim Robbins) fingers.
There will be SPOILERS for "The Dive" beyond this point.
Silo Episode 207 review: "The Dive"
This week's episode starts with a bang. The reveals come in fast as Bernard takes his new shadow Lukas Kyle (Avi Nash) into the vault room in Silo 18, which finally lets us get a good look at the interior. There's not only a bunch of advanced technology in there, but a library which contains records of all of human history, with physical artifacts like Van Gogh paintings and portraits of George Washington as well as a digitized database which is accessible on an iPad-like tablet. I spent most of this scene with my jaw hanging open — the fact that the head of IT has this kind of record is a massive reveal that goes all the way back to the series premiere, where it was presumed that all knowledge of the previous world was lost.
Now we know the truth: the heads of IT and their shadows have this knowledge hoarded. That gives Lukas Kyle an opportunity to use the knowledge at his fingertrips to try and decode the mysterious letters of Salvador Quinn, the man who was in charge of IT during the last rebellion. By the end of the episode, Lukas has seemingly cracked the code, and Bernard has given him the cypher he needs to lay Quinn's secrets bare: an ancient copy of The Wizard of Oz, which Quinn's writings are coded to correspond to.
The one thing that Silo 18's vault is missing is information about how the Silos came about in the first place. But now we know that they're around 352 years old, which is far younger than I expected. There's no doubt that there are more secrets to come in the final few episodes of the season, and if Silo delivers on them like it did this week, I'll be really pleased.
While Lukas is unraveling the mysteries of Quinn's writings, Knox (Shane McRae), Shirley (Remmie Milner), and the rest of the people down in Mechanical are making statements. The cold open for "The Dive" ends with them launching a rocket up to the top of Silo 18, where it rains messages down on the unsuspecting people. The message? "IT lies." To prove their point, Knox and Shirley shut the power off while everyone is enraptured by the rocket display, which leaves the entire Silo in the dark...except for IT, which we learned a few episodes back has its own external power line. Bernard runs to shut down his office's power as people start questioning why IT still has lights.
These sorts of razor-sharp twists and turns happen throughout "The Dive," and they had me on the edge of my seat. We're near the end of the season and things are hitting a breaking point. In response to Knox and Shirley's move, Bernard sends word down to Mechanical that he wants them assassinated. However, in true Bernard fashion, he doesn't actually plan an assassination — he's just hoping that his message will turn people against each other enough and the Mechanicals will lose what small semblance of cohesion they have.
This causes a few more reveals, namely that the chef working in the kitchen was the one who poisoned the food last week in "Barricades." Now we find out it's because her mother is upstairs on a medical floor and that IT threatened to withhold her medicine if she didn't help them stir unrest downstairs. Rather than tear her apart, the people of Mechanical show her mercy thanks to Knox. His speech about how she's one of them, and they'll give her hell about her choices for a while just to remind her that they'll never truly turn their back on her, was a really moving moment. I loved the contrast between what we see happening on the lower floors, where people have each other's backs, versus the upper floors, where the scheming of Bernard, Robert Sims (Common) and his wife Camille (Alexandria Riley) have turned them all against each other.
Speaking of Sims, this is a big episode for him. Throughout Silo season 2, Common's performance as the former head of Judicial has been one of the few weak points in the series, but here I finally started to enjoy him a bit more. Sims is trying to manipulate his way back into Bernard's good graces, but in "The Dive" it seems like he has at last given up on that goal. Instead he manages to corner Bernard into coming to the office for a search warrant, and then refuses to sign it and opens up about his frustrations with being sidelined. Sims delivers some hard truths to Bernard, who is indeed running low on allies thanks to his willingness to discard the people most loyal to him.
Common isn't quite on the same level as a lot of the other performers, who are delivering showstopper scene after showstopper scene. But here, it feels just right, as Bernard confronts Sims with his own mediocrity by telling him to his face that he had once intended to make him his shadow, but at some point realized it wasn't the right call. Sims is good at solving problems, but has no "curiosity," a trait Bernard insists is key to being the apprentice for the highest office in the Silo. And as we see during Lukas' scenes, there's truth to this.
To twist the knife, Bernard hits Sims with the information that Camille was the person who helped Knox and Shirley escape capture after the death of Judge Meadows, something she had concealed from her husband. I truly felt for Sims in one of the final scenes of the episode where he insists to Camille that while they play other factions against each other, they were supposed to never manipulate one another. She agrees to his request for no more secrets, but do we actually believe her? I know I'm skeptical.
Juliette goes for a swim, and thankfully does not get the bends
While the drama is unfolding in Silo 18, Juliette has to go on an extremely dangerous underwater mission in Silo 17, which is where "The Dive" draws its title from. In order to keep Silo 17 from flooding, Solo (Steve Zahn) forces Juliette to dive over 300 feet down so that she can restore power to a water pump which will drain all the water in the upper levels.
If this sounds like a slightly insane plan, that's because it is. Scuba equipment does not exist anymore in the world of Silo, which means Juliette and Solo have to MacGyver her entire diving rig, including a long breathing tube, a robe pulley system to lower her down, weights in her boots to allow her to move more easily, and even goggles that Solo retrofits out of a welding mask. I'm glad that Juliette expressed her frustration with the plan and tried to convince Solo to let her go, voicing a lot of the objections I had to this whole thing last week, such as Solo's reluctance to let her leave and come back to help him later — turns out he's too paranoid for that, and makes some pretty good points about all the ways she could die first if the powers that be in her own Silo won't let her go back inside. After what we've seen of Bernard this season, it's hard to argue with Solo's logic, even if it is still awful that he's entrapping Juliette into this ridiculously dangerous dive.
I am also glad that Silo doesn't underplay the peril of it. If you're one of those science nerds who heard Juliette and Solo talk about going down more than 300 feet and immediately thought about common Scuba dangers like the bends, you were probably relieved to see that Silo paid attention to those sorts of details. This is one of those great instances where the show leaned into the science of it all to make it even more intense and compelling, rather than ignoring it in favor of TV drama.
As for the dive itself, it's breathtaking. Silo has very solid sets, but rarely have they wowed me as much as in the underwater scenes in "The Dive." I really hope Apple releases some kind of making-of feature for this sequence, because the amount of underwater rooms and shots they got of Juliette are incredible. These scenes did not look like they were done in a simple water tank with CGI backgrounds, but rather like Silo actually flooded rooms to make it all look more real. In a season of television filled with standout moments, Juliette's dive is going to be one I remember for a long time.
Of course, things do eventually go wrong for her, with her rope and air supply both getting cut off. The initial impulse here is to blame Solo, which is a testament to how well Silo has built up his unreliability (aided by a career-best performance by Steve Zahn). But after Juliette's harrowing swim back up to the top of the Silo, she finds blood staining the ground around her diving rig and what looks like an arrow stuck in the ground. Whatever happened to Solo, it's clear that they weren't alone. With only three more episodes in Silo's second season, we won't have to wait long to find out what other dangers are lurking in the shadows of Silo 17.
Silo Bullet Points
- This was another great episode for Sheriff Billings (Chinaza Uche) and Deputy Hank (Billy Postlethwaite), who do some good old-fashioned detective work to find out who poisoned the food in Silo 18. I especially liked their interrogation scene with the Listener who revealed that they pick up messages from the Scavenge room.
- At this point, it seems pretty likely that Juliette won't make it back to Silo 18 until the very end of the season. While I'm a little sad we won't see her with the rest of the cast more, Ferguson and Zahn are doing such amazing work together that it's hard to be too broken up about it.
- This was a great episode for Lukas as well. My favorite scene for him was when he gave Bernard his theory about Quinn's code at the end, Bernard tried to tell him he was wrong, and then Lukas pushed back and showed that he wasn't. Sims may be bitter about Lukas becoming the IT shadow, but it's scenes like this that make it clear Bernard made a really good choice. I'd love to see more scenes of these two speaking as near-equals.
- No Iain Glen as Doctor Pete Nichols in this episode, alas. Silo's got to save its Iain Glen guest star appearances for when they count.
- Another very intriguing development in this episode was when Martha Walker (Harriet Walter) reconnected the camera in her workshop to get a message up to the people in IT, who have her ex-wife Carla McLain (Clare Perkins) in solitary confinement. I like that Martha figured out a way to get word up even though radios and computers are down throughout the Silo. I also enjoyed the bit of backstory that she and Carla were once married.
- The music was exceptional in this episode, going seamlessly from Westworld-style dramatic themes in the Silo to more ethereal music as Juliette sunk to the depths of Silo 17.
- I also liked how Bernard gave a speech to the members of the sheriff's department about how Billings was being held hostage and forced to say that he was opening an investigation into Judge Meadows' death last episode, which they all heard over the radio before it was cut off. It seemed pretty obvious that most of them did not believe him.
- In general, Tim Robbins had a very strong episode as Bernard. It seems clear that things are spiraling out of his control, and masterfully Robbins plays that frustration boiling over.
Verdict
Silo has had a consistently great second season, but even against what's come before, "The Dive" is an exceptional episode. From the jaw-dropping reveals to the intense verbal sparring to Juliette's harrowing dive into the depths of Silo 17, I was on the edge of my seat. Silo has teed itself up well for the final three episodes of the season, and I'm more confident than ever that it'll stick the landing. Now if only next week can get here, so we can see how Lukas decodes Quinn's writings and Juliette discovers what happened to Solo!
Episode grade: A+
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