Summary
The ending of Silo Season 2 is as good an episode of television as you’re ever likely to see. Episode 10 is expertly crafted stuff, and will leave anticipation for further seasons more intense than ever.
I’m not going to tell you that Season 2 of Silo has been perfect, but I’m happy to say unequivocally, without any hyperbole whatsoever, that its ending is perfect. Episode 10, “Into the Fire”, is expertly crafted television, a true masterclass in tension-building, plotting, acting, emotional payoffs, and setting up even more mysteries in a wider story. Whatever ups and downs we’ve endured to get here; they were worth it.
Sometimes TV – like life, really – works out like this. We’re always led to believe that the journey is more important than the destination, but if this was the destination all along then, truthfully, I’m not too sure. Silo played the long game. And it paid off big time.
Mechanical’s Plan
The first half of “Into the Fire” is largely framed around Mechanical’s scheme to overthrow IT and depose Bernard. And to be fair it is obvious that this is all a ruse, but it’s remarkably satisfying to see how it all comes together.
It starts with Shirley and Knox recruiting Pete, right after finally providing him with a convincing case that Juliette is still alive. And it’s this knowledge – the possibility of its accuracy, at least, since nobody can quite be sure at this point – that later underscores Pete’s heroic self-sacrifice, but more on that in a minute.
Knox lays out a plan to storm the barricades to create a three-hour distraction; long enough to rig the generator to explode. But since he’s laying this out in Martha’s workshop, where Bernard can hear it, it seems like the plan is rumbled before it can even begin. Judicial Raiders are immediately deployed to arrest everyone and race to the generator.
Pete’s Sacrifice
Bernard’s smugness at having caught the conspirators and ensured everyone learns it was Martha who supposedly ratted them out gives the game away. But it’s a convincing performance. Carla rejects Martha outright, claiming she hopes she gets sent out to clean. Knox looks devastated. Martha slopes off to see Bernard, apparently in shame.
But this is all part of the plan. While Bernard waits for confirmation that the generator is safe, Martha tells him a story about how Mechanical developed a one-handed signing system to communicate over the noise of the generator. So, all the time Bernard thought he was listening in on Martha’s conversations with Knox and Shirley, they were really having a very different conversation, putting the actual plan together.
All of the Sheriff’s Department are in on it. The generator bomb is a distraction. The real explosive device has been carried halfway down the staircase by Pete and Hank. The intention is to blow the stairs and trap the Raiders, all of whom were sent to secure the generator, on the lower floors, leaving IT defenseless. And it works a treat, but not without a key casualty.
Since the bomb lost its timer in transit, someone has to stay behind to detonate it manually. And Pete volunteers himself for the task. He gives his watch to Hank, telling him to give it to Juliette if she turns out to be alive, along with a heartfelt message reminding her how perfect she always was. No, you’re crying!
Robert Sims Finally Becomes Bernard’s Shadow
Lukas finally manages to report what he learned at the end of the penultimate episode to Bernard. We don’t hear it, though, since he has to whisper it under the noise of the crowds so that the Silo’s monitoring AI can’t hear. But Sims witnesses the conversation, and it’s obvious from Bernard’s shellshocked expression that it’s serious.
Bernard doesn’t tell Sims what was said, but he does finally make him his shadow. Still perplexed, Sims follows Lukas home and holds him at gunpoint in front of his mother, demanding to know what he shared. Lukas won’t tell, but he does tell Sims to get into the Vault and check out the Legacy for himself before it’s too late.
Sims does precisely this, along with Camille and their son, but the AI instructs the males to leave, leaving only Camille behind.
Common in Silo | Image via Apple TV+
Solo Figures Out the Safeguard
The answers that the Silo Season 2 finale provides about the safeguard come from Silo 17. Juliette takes Solo, whose real name is Jimmy, to his old apartment, where he finally manages to recall his past with his parents. A note reading “Safeguard Procedure” jogs his memory further still. He can remember his parents whispering about it, though can’t recall what it is, and he knows they figured out how to stop it, though he can’t remember how.
Jimmy eventually remembers that the safeguard was a pipe full of poison that will gas everyone in the Silo. But they don’t have time to investigate it, since the explosion from Silo 18 is felt even this far away, and Juliette knows she needs to get home before everyone rushes outside.
Before leaving, Juliette manages to smooth things over between Audrey, Rick, and “Eater”, whose real name is Hope, and Rebecca Ferguson is just superb here. But the real emotion comes when Jimmy suddenly disappears, and Juliette finds him coming out of the floodwater in Juliette’s suit. He was testing it to make sure it was safe for her to venture outside in. She’s so overwhelmed with emotion that she tries to hug him and he pushes her away, but when she’s about to leave Solo reaches out to emotionally hold her.
No, you’re crying. I told you already.
The Ending of Silo Season 2 Throws in A Giant Curveball
Having heard Lukas’s news, Bernard locks himself away and is presumably debating killing himself before the throngs of Mechanical rebels manage to break in and make him pay for his actions. But everyone is suddenly distracted by the live feed, which depicts Juliette in her suit coming over the hill and back down to the camera. To enthusiastic chants of “Juliette lives!” she cleans and then holds up a message warning everyone not to go outside.
Juliette can’t get back into Silo 18 until Bernard, now wearing his own suit, tries to get outside. They bicker for a while over the safeguard until Juliette reveals she might know how to stop it, but they take so long that the doors begin to close. They both hurry back into the airlock and are hit by the cleansing fires, their fates unknown.
At this point Silo Season 2, Episode 10 throws in a giant curveball by delivering a final scene from Washington, D.C., that predates the Earth’s downfall and the construction of the silos. A senator played by Ashley Zukerman (this must be Donald Keene) meets with a journalist played by Jessica Henwick, who asks him if the U.S. plans to retaliate for the apparent use of a dirty bomb on American soil by Iran.
The exchange is a little mysterious, and a lot flirtatious, but reveals little. Donald leaves his new friend with a parting gift that he picked up from a convenience store on the corner – a PEZ dispenser with a little rubber duck on the top.
