Summary
Silo kicks off Season 2 with a ballsy episode that is content to let action and tension speak louder than words.
Silo is all vibes, all the time, and none of them are good. This was true of the first season and remains true of Season 2, Episode 1 of which, “The Engineer”, has a sense of creeping dread to it all throughout. After 18 months since the first season finale, you’d think it’d take some effort to settle back into Apple TV+’s dystopia. But no. The premiere picks up minutes after we last saw the show, and it feels like no time has elapsed in the real world in between.
Just in case you need reminding – it has been a while, after all – the first season ended with Juliette climbing out of the titular Silo and making a couple of important discoveries. One: The world is indeed wrecked, as claimed. But two: There are many more Silos, and all of them contain – presumably – more survivors. It’s a big wide world out there, ravaged by some unspecified calamity though it might be, and the suspense of exploring it is partially what powers “The Engineer”.
Revolution!.. Or Not
There’s a nice parallel to the idea of throwing off the Silo’s shackles in the opening of the Season 2 premiere, which depicts an ill-fated revolution effort through the eyes of Tim, a youngster who races to deliver a vital message from engineering warning that in 15 minutes the Silo’s generator will flood.
It’s in the details, like the graffitied Founders propaganda on the walls. What was accepted truth becomes lies. What was safety and security becomes oppression. These people are willing to throw themselves at armed guards, sacrificing themselves so that their peers can climb over their corpses to overwhelm the armed oppressors. Their escape feels like a victory, and the survivors march free of the Silo’s confines, waving a green flag.
But it’s not a victory – Juliette finds the flag outside surrounded by skeletons. Tim and his people made it out into the wasteland and all choked on the noxious air. Sometimes, freedom isn’t exactly all it’s cracked up to be.
Spelunking
A lot of Silo Season 2, Episode 1 follows Juliette as she navigates this new Silo, which is totally devoid of power. Dark, silent, and eerie, it feels like what it is, which is essentially a tomb. But it’s an interesting location to explore, and Juliette does so largely silently, with nobody to talk to except, occasionally, herself.
It’s a testament to how well-made Silo is that these sequences are so riveting. Juliette is imperiled time and time again – she almost suffocates and has to shatter the glass of her environmental suit’s helmet, she has to MacGyver a rope solution to cross a broken walkway, and then falls into a body of water and almost drowns. By the time she was screaming in frustration, I was right there with her.
It’s a bold start, this. For a show to eschew dialogue almost entirely, devote long stretches to silence and environmental storytelling, and play on the already bedded-in understandings and expectations of its viewers – the familiarity of the Silo’s design juxtaposed with the oddness of its stillness and hazards – is storytelling of an extremely distinguished vintage.
Amelie Child Villiers in Silo | Image via Apple TV+
Storytelling
Juliette’s adventures periodically trigger – all together now – flashbacks. But these are illuminating too, since they’re a way to parallel present-day Juliette’s well-heeled survival instincts and attitude with the lessons she learned in childhood under Martha and Shirley.
These two women have stories, obviously, and in those stories are wise words of wisdom, experience, and truth. Young Juliette’s tendency to skirt around her mother’s suicide is challenged, because in the Silo, being upfront and forthright keeps things working. Key themes are touched on – loneliness, isolation, determination, but also community, values, and asking for help when it’s necessary.
How this relates to adult Juliette exploring the Silo isn’t exactly a mystery, but it works. The rooting in Juliette’s perspective gives us nothing else to focus on or think about except the perils Juliette is confronted with and the skills and attitude – all informed by the past – she uses to overcome them.
You Can’t Come In
Silo Season 2, Episode 1 only provides further disappointments for Juliette. After risking her life again and literalizing some old advice to take things very slowly, she finds the source of the ominous clinking sound she has been following and discovers it was totally innocuous, just an ID card hanging from a desk fan.
But music is a less incidental noise, and that’s what Juliette hears next – Audrey Hepburn’s “Moon River”. She begins to follow this instead, and it leads her to a giant, locked vault door. Another disappointment.
If nothing else, there’s some reassurance to be found in the Silo not being empty. There’s a survivor behind the vault door, which we know since they open the eyehole hatch to snap out a warning. If Juliette attempts to open the door and get inside, she’ll be killed. Not exactly a meet-cute, but it’s about right for this show.
