The penultimate episode of Silo season 2 is out, and the time for major revelations is upon us. "The Safeguard" finally sheds light on the bigger picture of what's going on in Silo 17, where Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson) discovers she and Solo (Steve Zahn) weren't quite as alone as they thought. And in Silo 18, Lukas Kyle (Avi Nash) cracks Salvador Quinn's code, leading him to a shocking discovery.
We've got a lot to talk about, so let's get to it. As always, there will be SPOILERS beyond this point.
Silo Episode 209 review: "The Safeguard"
"The Safeguard" opens with a fairly mind-blowing sequence: 10 straight minutes of the teenage newcomers in Silo 17 showing how they were there the entire season. Silo deftly weaves their appearances into a few scenes, such as when Juliette's rope broke in the season premiere. This is the kind of thing I would normally roll my eyes at, because shows like Lost have done it over the course of multiple seasons, which comes off more like retconning characters in where they weren't originally planned to be. But since Silo is showing the initial events as well as these reveals all in one season, I think it worked really well.
These teenagers and the two children they're looking after are the only remaining descendants from the original Silo 17 inhabitants, and they cut Juliette a deal: if she can open the vault at the heart of the Silo and get them food, they'll let her speak to Solo (who, of course, is not dead). Juliette agrees, and then she and one teenager, nicknamed "Eater" (Sara Hazemi), have to go hunting for the vault combination.
This plotline culminates in a major reveal: Solo wasn't the IT shadow, but was the head of IT's son. The rebellion in Silo 17 happened decades ago, which is why Solo's account of it has been so spotty. He was only 12 years old when he watched his father get murdered before his eyes. This is why Solo has such an anxious tick about leaving the Vault. His dad's dying wish was for him to stay safe in there, and through a life of trauma and isolation, it became deeply ingrained.
I thought Silo handled this reveal extremely well, and the scene where Juliette coaxes Solo (or Jimmy Conroy, as we find out he's really named) into revealing his past is a highlight of the season. I've seen it multiple times now and I teared up on every watch. Zahn and Ferguson's acting is masterful. Solo's identity has been one of the main slow-burn reveals of the season and I'm glad that the series stuck the landing.
It also gave us a heartwarming moment for this group at the end of the episode, where Jimmy finally welcomes Juliette and the starving teenagers into the vault. Jimmy's vault is another great example of how Silo is doing amazing things with set dressing; this is the same set we saw for the vault in Silo 18, but since Jimmy grew up in his vault over the course of decades, he's decorated it so it looks wildly different. Toss in some lingering shots on characters like Juliette and Eater as they examine various elements of the vault, and you've got an excellent capstone to the episode.
Of course, I'd be remiss not to also mention Juliette and Jimmy's final scene, where he shows her how he kept her suit safe so that she could leave after helping him with the water pump. In return, Juliette reveals that she discovered another environment suit in the IT head's abandoned apartment, but stops short of saying that she stayed to help Solo when she could have left him to die instead. He still pieces it together though, and the silent moment where he places his hand on her shoulder as they both process how genuine their awkward friendship-by-necessity has become is another emotional home run.
Schemes afoot in Silo 18
There was also a lot of movement in Silo 18 in this episode. While Mayor Holland (Tim Robbins) largely sits "The Safeguard" out since he's watching Martha Walker (Harriet Walter) on surveillance, the focus shifts to a few other characters. Knox (Shane McRae) seemingly figures out that Walker is the mole for IT...except when he goes to talk to her, he says he believes it's Teddy's mom. What gives? Was he talking in code, or was he just off base? The conversation felt pretty loaded to me.
Meanwhile, Sheriff Billings (Chinaza Uche) is forced to try and make some unlikely allies on the upper floors: Robert and Camille Sims (Common and Alexandria Riley). The fact that Billings' picture of the outside world from before the apocalypse is moving through various circles and making waves is cool; it feels like a throwback to season 1 to have that information about the outside start to change people's minds about what's being withheld by IT. Of course, we know from Juliette's journey that the world isn't actually green and healthy, it's a wasteland. So consider me nervous to see how that all plays out, and very curious to see what the Simses do next.
Lukas Kyle goes spelunking
However, the main event of this episode in Silo 18 is Lukas Kyle's (Avi Nash) journey to the very lowest depths of the down deep. After decoding more of Salvador Quinn's writings, Lukas discovers instructions to head to the very bottom of the Silo and find a tunnel, the better to understand something known as "the Safeguard." Lukas tries to loop Bernard in on all this, but since Bernard is too obsessed with watching Martha Walker to be bothered, he ends up having to go past the barricade to the lower levels on his own.
There's a wonderful crossover where Lukas tells the hostile Mechanicals that he knew Juliette Nichols, and they decide to let Shirley (Remmie Milner) decide what to do with him rather than just shoving him back through the barricade. Shirley and Lukas are two characters who have never crossed paths on Silo, but who each cared deeply about Juliette. They have a lot of great dialogue in this episode, where Lukas reveals that Juliette may still be alive to Shirley (one of the few people who'd actually believe it), and in return she takes him down to the depths so he can search for the tunnels.
The final scene of the episode sees Lukas make a wild gamble: to climb down from the lowest scaffolding of the Silo, and drop into the water below. Shirley is convinced this water is so deep he'll drown, but Lukas thinks there's a good chance it's just a ruse, and that secret water pumps in the depths are keeping it shallow. As it turns out, he's right. The set where Lukas wades through the water, surrounded by massive machinery, is stunning.
The episode ends with Lukas discovering a door in a tunnel at the bottom of the Silo, which suddenly lights up as a mechanical-sounding voice speaks to him. It reveals that only three people have made it to that door in all the history of the Silo: Salvador Quinn, Judge Mary Meadows, and George Wilkins, Juliette's former boyfriend whose death sparked many of the events of season 1. The voice tells Lukas that it did not reveal its secrets to George...but since Lukas is there on behalf of IT and knows what the Safeguard is, it will speak to him. Presumably, at least. We viewers don't get to find out what the Safeguard is or what the voice says to Lukas; that'll be for the finale next week.
Silo bullet points
- When Lukas says that the Founders made 50 Silos, Mayor Holland corrects him and says it was "technically 51." What's the deal with that last Silo? Is it a control Silo run by the people pulling the strings on the whole project?
- I haven't always loved Common's performance as Sims, but he won me over in this episode with his deadpan delivery of lines to Sheriff Billings. It was a great way to break the emotional tension from the preceding scene where Solo's big secret was revealed.
- I also loved Billings' dialogue in response to Sims' accusation that he crossed to the other side of the line in the rebellion: "I didn't go anywhere. The line moved."
- The young woman who helps Juliette in this episode asks if she can leave with her. Now that we know there are two environment suits, I wonder if that will happen in the finale.
- That woman, who is nicknamed "Eater," also says her mother only gave her a first name. Presumably Eater was not that name; I wonder what it is?
- Speaking of names, the other teenage girl in Silo 17, Audrey (Georgina Sadler), is a colossal jerk, so I bet the "Eater" nickname came from her. Yes, we find out that Solo killed her parents after they shot him in his sleep and tried to steal his food, but she's also flying off the cuff so much that it's hard to feel any sympathy for her. Hopefully something changes now that she's been allowed into the vault.
- I also really like the thematic resonance of Bernard being so fixated on putting down the rebellion that he's made it impossible for Lukas Kyle to find him with information that could seal the fate of the entire Silo. The idea that IT is so obsessed with keeping the order of things that they overlook the wellbeing of the people they're supposed to be shepherding is at the heart of the series, and rarely is it made as clear as it was in this episode where Lukas is forced to go it alone while Bernard spies on an unwilling mole in Mechanical.
Verdict
Overall, I've been very impressed with Silo's second season. I haven't read the book, Wool by Hugh Howey, so I have no real basis for comparison aside from the quality of the show itself. And what I've seen has been awesome. Silo is a show that isn't rushing, but taking its time to set up and pay off long-running plotlines. There hasn't been a single episode that I didn't enjoy immensely, but "The Safeguard" is easily one of my favorites, up there with "The Dive" from a few weeks ago. I can't wait to see what happens next week in the season finale.
Episode grade: A+
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