The fourth episode of Silo's second season, "The Harmonium," is a pivotal turning point. Over the past few weeks we've watched as Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson) arrived at the neighboring Silo 17 and befriended Solo (Steve Zahn), the last living survivor of his Silo and her only hope of getting the materials she needs to build a suit to return home. Meanwhile, rebellion is brewing in Silo 18. As people demand answers and Mayor Bernard Holland (Tim Robbins) is forced to crack down, he makes a shocking power play that puts Knox (Shane McRae) and Shirley (Remmie Milner) in the crossfire.
It should surprise no one that "The Harmonium" is another great episode of Silo, even if it does bid farewell to one of my new favorite characters. Read on for our review, which contains SPOILERS.
Silo Episode 204 review: "The Harmonium"
Just like Episode 3, "The Harmonium" is split pretty evenly between Juliette and everyone back in Silo 18. The show is striking a great balance with that pacing; so far I haven't minded whenever it's pulled people off-screen for an episode, and having a few back-to-back with all of the main cast has kept things feeling like they're humming along.
This is probably the most exciting episode of the season yet, for a few reasons. The first is Juliette and Solo, who construct a makeshift breathing machine that will let Juliette swim down into the flooded levels of the Silo in hopes of getting a firefighter suit which she can repurpose to let her go back outside. Ferguson and Zahn are just a wonderful pairing to watch onscreen; they have great chemistry, and both of their characters have fascinating quirks that make them riveting to watch. Zahn in particular delivers a heartachingly good performance this episode, as he describes what ancient circuses were like, gives Juliette the idea for her breathing machine by playing a harmonium in a class room, and ultimately has a nervous breakdown because he's spent so long away from his vault.
The settings in the Juliette portion of the episode are also particularly striking. I don't always think to comment on the sets for Silo, but that's because they're so seamless that it's easy to forget just how good they are. But the ruined Silo 17 is great, and Juliette's underwater journey is harrowing to watch.
There are also a few interesting details to be sussed out here. Solo comments on how he sat next to one of the kids in the abandoned classroom when he was younger, which calls his timeline of the Silo 17 rebellion into question. He freaks out when Juliette asks him about it. I smell secrets.
While Juliette goes swimming, a lot happens in Silo 18. The biggest development is the death of Judge Meadows, played by Tanya Moodie. Moodie has been absolutely crushing it this season, so I was sad to see her go...but she really wrung the most possible out of her final scenes.
Let's break down why Mayor Holland (Tim Robbins) decided to poison her, and then use it to frame Shirley (Remmie Milner) and Knox (Shane McRae) from Mechanical. All season long, Robert Sims (Common) has been lamenting the fact that he's lost Holland's confidence, and he and his wife Camille (Alexandria Riley) know that Holland has been confiding in Judge Meadows instead of Sims. So they come up with a scheme to push an impeachment vote for Meadows as a way to stir more unrest in the Silo and bring Holland back to Sims.
This works...kind of. Sims' plan does indeed force Holland's hand, and he decides to murder Meadows to use her death as a way to bring the Silo together by causing everyone to unite against her supposed killers. It also solves an inconvenience for Holland: Meadows was asking for an environment suit so she could go outside herself, and he had been gaslighting her about it because he needed her help, but clearly never planned to actually give her one.
The only catch is that Holland actually respected Meadows, and he's smart enough that he knows Sims backed him into a corner. He tells Sims as much in the episode's closing moments, so however Sims was hoping to use Meadows' death for his own advantage, I doubt Holland is going to be so obliging. The fact that Holland didn't want to kill Meadows added a ton of gravity to her death scene, which is one of the standout scenes of the season so far. Robbins and Holland acted the hell out of it, and the anguish radiating off both of them made it extremely compelling.
Another highlight involving Judge Meadows is the scene where she brings Lukas (Avi Nash) back from the mines so he could argue his case that he didn't deserve a 10-year sentence there. Lukas helped Juliette with the illegal hard drive in season 1 and was subsequently sent off to the mines. Here, Meadows asks him about his theories for what the "lights in the sky" are, and Lukas reveals his theory for how the Earth is round and rotates, showing he's figured out an astonishing amount of the lost information about the world simply by observing and theorizing. Meadows reveals even more to him, telling him exactly how the solar system works...before sending him right back to the mines. It's a crushing scene.
As for the Down Deepers, this was an episode of build-up that took a catastrophic turn with Meadows' death. Knox and Shirley lead a group to the upper levels, backed by Martha Walker (Harriet Walter) and Carla McLain (Clare Perkins). They intend to have a conversation with Meadows in hopes of getting permission to build suits to go exploring outside. Meadows grants this request, planning to railroad it with politicking down the line...but the people of the upper levels are hostile to those from the lower levels in their midst. They threaten to throw them over the side of the massive staircase in the Silo.
This leads to one of the more tense scenes of the episode, when McLain drops different colored balls off the stairs to signal to their allies below to cut the power to the entire Silo until their demands are met. The standoff on the stairs is really well done, and feels like a precursor of things to come, considering that "The Harmonium" ends with Knox and Shirley fleeing the upper levels and Sims stoking rioters to go after them. Things are heating up on Silo!
Silo bullet points
- Before dying, Meadows reveals that a letter from Salvador Quinn was on the hard drive that Juliette had discovered, written in code. She says he was the head of IT during the last rebellion, over 140 years ago. That seems to have been part of the reason she quit as Holland's shadow, but she doesn't tell him what it said before she dies.
- Knox and Shirley start the episode by looking at a wall deep under the Silo, which has a bunch of names written on it. Knox thinks these are the people from Mechanical who died in the Rebellion, which he realizes was not some big world-ending event, but simply the last time Mechanical rose up against the people in the upper levels. This aligns with what Meadows and Holland said in their final conversation.
- The most chilling thing is that the wall has scrawled stages of the rebellion on it: blaming Mechanical, causing a food shortage, and stoking division. Silo has riffed on the idea of predictable human nature a few times when it comes to how IT keeps control of the people in its Silo, such as when Solo told Juliette in Episode 203 about how the rebellion started in Silo 17. I'm curious to see how events will line up with or contradict what's written on the wall.
- Another important development is that Sheriff Billings (Chinaza Uche) heads down to the lower levels, hoping to keep the peace and find the man who was responsible for throwing the firebomb at the deputy station in the previous episode. I'm looking forward to seeing more of him in the next episodes.
Verdict
Silo is on a hot streak, and isn't showing any sign of slowing down. "The Harmonium" is probably the best episode of the season so far, with some intense scenes as well as others which are quiet but no less riveting. At the core of it all is really good writing and outstanding performances from the cast; it's such a testament to the team behind Silo that even though the show is led by heavyweights like Rebecca Ferguson and Tim Robbins, every single actor coming across the screen is bringing their A-game. I can't wait to see where this show goes next.
Episode grade: A-
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