‘Silo’ Season 2 Episode 10 Recap: ‘Into the Fire’

Silo

Into the fire

Season 2

Section 10

Editor’s assessment

4 stars

****

Photo: Apple TV+

There was a moment last week Silo episode that for me exemplified everything remarkable about Rebecca Ferguson’s performance this season. It happens when Eater—sorry, I mean “Hope”—tells his sad origin story to Juliette as they rummage through apartments looking for clues that might lead them to the Vault’s door code. Juliette isn’t unsympathetic to Hope’s rough past, and yet…she really doesn’t have time for this. And her face – especially her eyes – reflect that. Juliette is in a state of perpetual anxious distraction, even as the other person in the room pours her heart out.

This has been the way Ferguson has played Juliette all season, whether the character is managing Jimmy’s erratic behavior or trying to persuade the Silo 17 scum to let her complete her mission. Some actors tend to play moments and focus only on the scene in front of them and not what came before. Not Ferguson. Her Juliette carries the weight of season one with her into season two, and as soon as she hears from Jimmy that Silo 18 is in danger of total social collapse and potential slaughter, Ferguson never stops playing the character’s desperate sense that it is urgent. She hair to come back immediately. She needs everyone in Silo 17 to stop wasting her time.

The Silo finale is an intense, action-packed affair that mostly deals with exactly the kind of chaos in Silo 18 that Juliette has feared. The episode builds to an unexpected climax and a brutal cliffhanger before ending with a “whoa” coda that seemingly comes out of nowhere. Ferguson deserves a lot of credit for adding some smaller, more emotional, more human notes to a heady mix. Sometimes genre TV shows rely too much on characters who just shout the stakes to the audience and expect us to care. But it’s easy to feel Juliette’s concern. She doesn’t have to say much.

Most of Juliette’s scenes in this episode involve her preparing to leave while also coming to terms with what may await her in Silo 18. Jimmy has a handy flash of memory about what “the Safeguard” is, he recalls, his parents figuring out how to prevent a gas pipe that causes mass extinction from doing what it was designed to do during a riot. Jimmy also – cutely – tests the airtightness of Juliette’s field trip suit after his father’s suit turns out to be full of holes. The two share a few awkward attempts at hugging as she explains that she can’t promise she’ll return, but she’ll definitely try.

I’d argue that Juliette’s annoyance with Jimmy and the other Silo 17 residents throughout the season is what makes her kind gesture in the finale so touching. She never loses her focus on getting back to Silo 18 immediately. But she recognizes that the people she’s met in Silo 17 need something from her before she leaves, and she tries to give it to them. This is how she gets “Eater” to reveal her real name.

This partly inspires a pep talk, which happens after Audrey once again blames Hope for something going wrong. Juliette tells everyone that with the vault open, they have the resources to live together, while back in Silo 18, everyone Juliette loves—including her father—may be on the verge of dying, if not already dead. “Look at everything you have,” she says, adding, “Be angry with each other, not on each other.”

Juliette’s anxiety about what is happening at home is heightened when Silo 17 shakes from a huge boom outside. The source of that sound? A devastating explosion – set off by Juliette’s own father working with Mechanical – which has destroyed two whole levels of stairs.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s hard not to, since so much of what happens in Silo 18 this week consists of twists and turns where what happens turns out to be part of larger plans we weren’t privy to.

Let’s take the major plot twists and character beats one by one:

Walker: In the first half of the episode, we see the rebels continue to discuss their plans in Walker’s apartment, where we know that a hidden camera is transmitting everything to Bernard. Walker apparently suffers a major embarrassment when the entire crew is arrested and she is thanked in front of them (and her ex-wife!) for her service. But then! While meeting with Bernard, Walker reveals that the people in Mechanical have a sign language they use to communicate over the generator’s cries. It turns out that she has been secretly keeping Knox informed of what has been going on all along.

Invoicing: After Bernard tells the deputies that the sheriff is responsible for leading the rebellion, they have him arrested and build a makeshift prison in a cafeteria, as instructed. But then! The deputies, as they had planned all along, free Billings and the rebels after turning in their badges en masse.

Knox: The rebels, led by Knox, announce their intention to distract the attackers until they can hook up an explosive device, which they will then detonate, trapping the attackers in the Down Deep and forcing Bernard to negotiate. All this is going according to plan. But then! Patrick Kennedy convinces a large part of the rebels that before Juliette went out, he saw an image of a lush green landscape outside. He wants them all to leave the silo, potentially triggering Safeguard.

Lukas and Sims: After learning about Safeguard from the tunnel’s mysterious voice (identified in the captions as “the algorithm”), Lukas believes that everyone in Silo 18 is doomed. He gives up his shadow cabinet and goes to spend his last hours with his mother. But then! Bernard makes Robert Sims the new Shadow and gives him the code to the Vault, which Lukas urges the Sims to see while there’s still time. When the Sims’ family enters, the algorithm greets them and is reassured to hear that they will save Silo 18. But then (again)! The algorithm tells Robert and his son to leave the room so the voice can speak to Camille.

Bernard: Convinced that the Safeguard is about to be deployed, Bernard grabs his own secret suit. He sits alone and cooks for a while, with a gun in his hand. But then! On the view screens, everyone sees Juliette walking into the crater, where she symbolically cleans the camera before raising this warning sign: “UNSAFE DO NOT COME OUT.”

I don’t want to give the impression that Juliette is responsible all the emotional and thrilling moments of this finale. Her father has a powerful scene giving his watch to Deputy Hank to pass on to Juliette before Dr. Pete completes his suicide mission and blows up the stairs. The scene where Walker reveals she duped Bernard is also a humdinger, including the moment where she counts down to the explosion… and nothing happens. (The bomb detonates a few seconds later, after Bernard sarcastically says, “That was dramatic.”)

But Juliette anchors the episode in the moving scenes in Silo 17 and in the poignant final moments. Juliette struggles to pry open the Silo 18 door with a crowbar, only to see the door being opened at Bernard’s command…and then to see Bernard waiting at the bottom of the stairs, all dressed up and with his gun. They talk briefly about what the security control is, why it can be deployed, and by whom. (Bernard: “I know who, but I don’t know why, and I don’t give a damn.” Juliette: “I think I figured something out.”) Then Juliette fights them both into the airlock before it closes. The season ends with them facing possible doom from the airlock’s cleansing wall of fire.

Dramatic, right? The season could have ended there, and Silo fans would still talk about the ramifications during the long offseason.

Instead, we get another scene, set in Washington DC (!), in what appears to be close to our present day (!!). There’s a new congressman from Georgia on a date with a Post reporter that turns into an opportunity for her to grill him about a recent Iranian dirty bomb explosion and whether the U.S. plans to retaliate. Fascinating and entertaining, the scene resonates when the congressman abruptly leaves after giving the reporter a cheap gift he picked up at a convenience store. It is the rubber duck Pez dispenser that will later be a relic in Silo 18.

How does a novelty candy end up in a post-apocalyptic bunker hundreds of years later? That narrative will have to wait until season three, unfortunately.

I can be as nervous and preoccupied as Juliette until then.

• How many days passed between the moment Juliette stepped out of Silo 18 and the moment she returned? With no sun underground to track the passage of days, it is difficult to pin it down precisely. (And, of course, Juliette was passed out for a while with an infection.) If I had to guess, I’d say this season covered maybe a week?

• Jimmy’s Vault contains so many wonders: pop-up books, nature footage, canned pineapples. It’s also important to remember that Juliette has never been to Silo 18’s Vault and has never seen so many relics in one place. Once again, I salute Rebecca Ferguson, who subtly conveys the character’s fascination with all of this thing – while showing how Juliette won’t let it become a distraction.

• And it encloses Silo season two, people! There seemed to be more buzz around the show this year, which I hope carries over into a season three that — based on this episode’s coda — should be wild.