It's that time of the week again, where we gush about Silo and go over all the latest twists and turns from Apple TV+'s hit science fiction series. "The Book of Quinn" is the eighth out of 10 episodes for the season, and as such it spends a fair amount of time setting up the endgame. It's great as usual, but this episode does feel a little bit more like it's treading water as it moves pieces into place for the big finish.
But hey, every show needs a breather, and it's a credit to Silo that even when it's taking one, it's got enough going on to keep minds bending and butts on the edge of seats. To top it all off, we finally learn some details about Salvador Quinn, the former head of IT whose writings have tantalized Mayor Bernard Holland (Tim Robbins) and his new shadow Lukas Kyle (Avi Nash) all season.
As always, there will be SPOILERS beyond this point.
Silo Episode 208 review: "The Book of Quinn"
"The Book of Quinn" begins and ends with Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson), so let's start there. Silo's previous episode, "The Dive," left off on a cliffhanger with Juliette resurfacing after her daring underwater mission to find that Solo (Steve Zahn) had been seemingly kidnapped. Blood covered the bridge where he had been monitoring her dive equipment, which had all been sabotaged. The identity of his attacker was a great hook to get us rushing back to the couch for this week's episode.
Despite the fact that "The Book of Quinn" opens with Juliette, the episode never definitiely tells us who those kidnappers were. We only get a clue at the very end, when Juliette runs into a trio of angry teenagers, one of whom is wielding a bow and arrow. Who are these people? Tune in next week!
I did like this resolution; I expected the attacker to be someone from whatever Silo or faction is pulling the strings from the shadows, so it was a welcome twist that it seems like someone else who has been living in secret in Silo 17. But it does mean that we ended "The Dive" with the cliffhanger that Solo was taken, and "The Book of Quinn" with the cliffhanger that he was taken by post-apocalypse teens. I did feel a little like Juliette's plotline was treading water and leaving the best for the final two episodes of the season.
That said, everything that happens to Juliette is engaging in its own right, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. "The Dive" foreshadowed the concept of "the bends," a danger in deep sea diving where rising from the pressure of the depths to the surface too fast can cause paralysis and immense joint pain. Since "The Dive" didn't show Juliette succumb to this issue despite her fairly quick ascent, I assumed Silo would go the fairly normal Hollywood route of bringing up a danger like the bends but not actually following through or forcing our hero to deal with it. Instead, Juliette collapses as she tried to follow the trail of Solo's blood, and has to limp back down to the water, set up her gear, and then submerge herself low enough again to allow the effects of the bends to gradually wear off.
Later, when she's shot with an arrow by one of Solo's kidnappers, Juliette also has to flee and then bandage herself using supplies she found in one of the Silo's apartments. This makes "The Book of Quinn" another episode like the series premiere, "The Engineer," for Juliette: she has to use her wits to solve problem after problem, and Silo leans into the science of those problems in a way that elevates the drama. It's refreshing to see a sci-fi show embrace that element of its storytelling rather than treat it like a burden to be circumvented in the name of flashy action.
Of course, none of that would work without Ferguson's acting being as good as it is. Rebecca Ferguson has consistently been giving a fantastic, fairly quiet performance as Juliette. The role would not work without Ferguson's commitment to Juliette's physicality as she goes through all these trials, and it's extremely compelling to watch.
While Juliette wrangles with the secretive residents of Silo 17, elaborate chess games are played in 18. There's been a lot of action in the original Silo throughout this season, and there's no doubt there'll be more before the end of the season. "The Book of Quinn" isn't so much about action, but various power plays which set up the chess board for those final two episodes. That works pretty well; pacing-wise, this feels like the right time for this kind of episode, and Silo makes the most of it.
There are a number of plotlines all knotting together here: Martha Walker (Harriet Walter) is blackmailed into becoming Mayor Holland's eyes and ears in the Down Deep, which leads to the capture of Teddy (Olatunji Ayofe) and his team when they try to get supplies from an upper floor; Kathleen Billings (Caitlin Zoz) finds out that her husband Sheriff Billings (Chinaza Uche) has a picture from before the apocalypse and demands to see it in one of the most moving scenes of the episode; Robert Sims (Common) tries to manipulate his way into staying relevant after being sidelined by Bernard, and is once more aided by his much more effective wife Camille (Alexandria Riley); and Sims' replacement, Rick Amundsen (Christian Ochoa) finally starts to feel like more of a threat as the new head of security.
But at the heart of "The Book of Quinn" is Lukas Kyle, who tries desperately to unravel the writings of Salvador Quinn. His efforts lead him to meeting some of Sims' descendants, who have been making the wool which people who go out to clean have used to wipe off the lens of the Silo's camera above ground for the past four generations. I really liked getting this bit of worldbuilding; don't forget, "Wool" is the name of the first novel in this series by Hugh Howey. It's nice to see the symbolism of the cloth come back into play here near the end of season 2.
Through Lukas' investigation, we learn that Quinn's family believes he was a pariah that nearly destroyed the Silo. In reality, he was the one who gave it more than 140 years of peace by inducing what Bernard calls a "radical solution" to the problem of recurring rebellions. In the early days of the Silo, rebellions happened roughly every 20 years. Quinn introduced a memory-erasing drug into the water supply of the Silo, which over time made everyone forget those previous rebellions and the history that came before them. He also wiped the servers of all their historical accounts. This is why the people in Silo 18 all believed that "the rebellion" was the beginning of Silo history, when in reality it was simply the last in a long string of rebellions.
These revelations ultimately lead Lukas to cracking Quinn's cypher, revealing the ominous message that, "If you've gotten this far you already know the game is rigged." I can't wait to see what else Quinn had to say. Silo has teased us with secrets all season long, and at last, the time to reveal them is nearly upon us.
Silo continues to play off its greatest strength: its actors
While all of the plot developments in Silo remain excellent, the thing I keep getting struck by in every episode is the quality of the acting. It's easy to overlook how much of Silo is simply people having conversations, or even acting alone in rooms — such as Lukas' frantic efforts to decode Quinn's writings. Silo has done a consistently great job of casting amazing actors and then giving them the material and space to make the most of it.
I already mentioned Rebecca Ferguson's physical acting as a highlight of the episode. Avi Nash is another standout; it was so fun to watch Lukas Kyle adjust to his newfound power as the IT shadow and mostly come back around to realizing his greatest asset is that he's still himself — not a tough guy, but an honest person willing to level with people. Another set of actors who have crept to the top of the heap throughout the season are Chinaza Uche and Caitlin Zoz as the husband and wife duo Kathleen and Paul Billings. There were a lot of great scenes in this episode, but the quiet moment where Paul shows Kathleen a picture of the Blue Ridge Mountains and they both begin to break down into tears is probably the most powerful.
And then, of course, there's Tim Robbins. He feels more evil than ever as Mayor Holland, which is just right for the escalating stakes this late in the season. He did a delightfully great job acting like "a bastard," as Martha Walker would say. And that awful turn is wonderfully juxtaposed by Harriet Walter (Walker), who is bluntly hilarious throughout even when faced with the terrible decision to become a spy for the Mayor. This is a top-tier cast, and I can't get enough of watching them work.
Silo Bullet Points
- It's painful that Martha Walker's betrayal got Teddy captured. I'm hoping she'll get found out by her fellow Mechanicals and flip back to their side, because it's hard to watch the most senior member of that faction turn into an unwilling mole.
- The room where Martha and Bernard discuss their spy arrangement is the same pump room that Juliette fixed in Silo 17 in "The Dive." I love how Silo is reusing sets like this, showing how they look in a degraded Silo and as well as a working one.
- The teens who attacked Solo tell Juliette that he's dead right before they shoot her with an arrow. But do we believe them? I know I don't; there's no way this show would let Steve Zahn's character die offscreen.
Verdict
"The Book of Quinn" is another rock solid episode of Silo. This one slowed things down a little bit, spending more time setting the stage for the final two episodes than getting the blood pumping, but that felt appropriate for where we are in the season. Capitalizing on its excellent actors, sets, and storylines, Silo remains a consistently great series. I'm so glad that Apple ordered 10 episodes for this season instead of the smaller amounts which are becoming more common in streaming, because Silo is making the most of the extra time.
Episode grade: A-
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