Silo
Solo
Season 2
Episode 3
Editor’s Ranking
3 stars
***
Photograph: Apple TV+
What’s it about Steve Zahn that makes the middling into the memorable and the great into the good? I watched this week’s Silo with my youngest, who’s dwelling from school for the vacation break. The child had by no means seen any of Silo earlier than however had encountered Zahn beforehand in That Factor You Do! and because the voice of “Dangerous Ape” in Conflict for the Planet of the Apes. We talked afterward about how Zahn’s scenes in “Solo” — enjoying the title character, the lone survivor of what he calls “Silo 17” — completely riveted us. He brings a sure unpredictability and vulnerability to almost each half he performs, however right here, he’s so shaky and uncooked that we each wished to climb into the display and provides Solo a hug … if he didn’t attempt to kill us first, that’s.
About half of this episode — the higher half — issues Juliette’s efforts to earn Solo’s belief and to search out out extra about what occurred in Silo 17. She has some success with the latter. Solo, whereas cautious, needs to speak. He rocks Juliette’s world proper off the bat when he tells her there are 50 silos. He shakes her up even additional when he tells her that the inciting incident for the final word destruction of Silo 17 was when a person named Ron Tucker went exterior and didn’t clear.
Instantly, Juliette’s mission adjustments. She had no concept — how might she? — that her resolution to not clear would possibly doom everybody she is aware of. Now she’s anxious to search out one other swimsuit, discover some good tape, and hustle again dwelling. To try this, although, she’ll want Solo’s assist. So she’s again to the 1st step: profitable him over.
It’s exceptional how a lot stress, heat, humor, and drama Zahn and Rebecca Ferguson are capable of coax out of their scenes collectively, with him behind a locked door (seen solely from behind or by way of one slim window) and her in a dim, rubble-strewn room. Hat-tip to this episode’s director, Aric Avelino, and the credited author, Cassie Pappas, who protect a lot of Solo’s mysteries whereas additionally hinting at what a tricky life he’s led to this point, alone in his vault. He’s clearly one of many handful of in-the-know IT folks distributed all through the surviving silos. He’s not stunned when Juliette tells him concerning the faux photographs she noticed in her helmet when she walked exterior. And he has entry to the books and music that unusual silo residents don’t.
He’s additionally, apparently, needed to defend his dwelling within the vault earlier than, provided that Juliette finds some corpses within the corridor exterior which can be “not as outdated as the opposite ones.” Did life within the Silo 17 survive for some time after the rebel? Or did these guests come from one more silo? Solo isn’t volunteering any details about that but. As an alternative, he cooks up some rooster stew for Juliette — not simply to place her relaxed however to verify she’s an actual particular person and never a figment of his creativeness. As soon as she’s satisfied him she’s a corporeal being who can devour meals, she asks a favor. The supplies she wants for her tour again to her silo are on a flooded stage of Silo 17. Will Solo come out and supply oxygen to her whereas she navigates by way of the water?
The Solo and Juliette components of this episode finish with the haunting picture of a haggard and bushy Solo lastly rising from his vault, venturing additional out within the heart of Silo 17 than he has in a really very long time — or maybe ever. He takes all of it in: the cavernous area, the wreckage. And we depart the 2 of them there, for now, sitting on a crumbling walkway. I look ahead to seeing them once more subsequent week.
As was the case with the season premiere, there’s an unlucky and inevitable imbalance on this week’s episode between the scenes of Juliette’s adventures in Silo 17 and, nicely, all the things else. Silo 17 is new. Solo is new. That outdated silo subsequent door? Even with a rebel brewing, it’s — comparatively — a bit drained. It doesn’t assist both that the motion within the outdated silo is so diffuse this week, with subplots galore and solely a pair getting their due.
That mentioned, it’s price acknowledging simply how dangerous issues are getting within the Down Deep, the place the judicial’s resolution to complement the sheriff’s deputies with Sims’s goons and raiders is making everybody edgy. The locals are pushing again towards martial regulation, defiantly spraying “Juliette Lives!” graffiti and demanding the discharge of individuals they see as political prisoners. They’re additionally — distressingly, but in addition predictably — beginning to fracture.
In order that’s all one thing to maintain observe of — together with Knox’s suggestion that he thinks he is aware of what the long-unexplained “wall of names” within the silo’s lowest ranges would possibly imply. However the extra intriguing components of the principle silo story this week contain two characters: Sims and Choose Meadows.
What’s fascinating to me about Robert Sims is that right here’s this loving household man with a completely affordable ambition to be a pacesetter, but to get what he needs, he’s needed to domesticate an id as somebody whose “mother and father threaten their children with in the event that they don’t eat their broccoli.” Sims throws his muscle round twice on this episode. First, with the rebellious Patrick (Rick Gomez), he gives a compromise whereby Patrick will head all the way down to mechanical as a literal bomb-thrower, stirring up issues in accordance with how The Order suggests uprisings be dealt with: by making the mechanical division right into a public enemy. In return, Patrick will probably be given a particular drug that may make him neglect way back to he needs: earlier than Juliette’s escape, earlier than the dying of his spouse Doris, and even earlier than he met Doris.
Later, he drafts the retired raider Reggie (Kieron Jecchinis) again into service, reminding him of how he as soon as gave him additional time alone with an particularly creepy felony to dole out personal punishment. Whereas Sims could not have the key information that Bernard or Choose Meadows possesses (although goodness, does he ever need it), he has realized from them that within the silo, energy affords privileges — to be exercised or to be bestowed.
As for Meadows, her request to exit comes with loads of preparation and settling of affairs. Amongst different issues, she wants to know precisely what occurred with Juliette. How did she grow to be so savvy concerning the silo’s secrets and techniques, just like the hidden cameras? And did Juliette really say she wished to exit? Meadows must pin all this down for a few causes. She must know what sort of nightmare may be in retailer for the silo in her absence, after Juliette’s departure triggered The Order’s “put together for conflict” warning. She additionally must know if Bernard is mendacity to her.
The reply to that second concern is simple. After all, Bernard’s mendacity. He lies continually. It’s how he controls data, which is how he controls folks. However he does appear to care about Meadows genuinely and does appear honest sufficient when he explains how he’s going to assist her depart the silo. There will probably be no announcement or ceremony. The show screens will shut down momentarily. He’ll deal with all the things himself, proper all the way down to measuring her for her swimsuit — in a second of bodily intimacy that’s each awkward and candy.
Can Bernard be trusted? In all probability not. However as Meadows pulls out a forbidden video projector and watches some mysterious and exquisite photographs, she’s certainly seen lots of of occasions — of individuals enjoying on seashores, within the snow, or at a party — she is aware of she has no alternative. She’ll danger oblivion for an opportunity at paradise.
• Amongst all of the scantly developed subplots on this episode, there’s one which significantly bears watching. Dr. Pete Nichols (Iain Glen) has a pleasing dialog with a girl named Phoebe Wells (Caitlin Innes Edwards), who has blended emotions over getting into the lottery to have a toddler, as a result of she is aware of the one cause the lottery reopened is as a result of Pete’s daughter Juliette left the silo. Whereas doing the operation to take away Phoebe’s contraception implant, Pete is ready to interchange it with one other implant (as he’s required to do when the silo’s authorities determines {that a} parenting candidate is undesirable) however chooses to not. A small rebel, however important.
• Choose Meadows has a pleasant second with Sheriff Billings wherein she admits that she is aware of he has “the Syndrome” however that he shouldn’t really feel ashamed about it as a result of it’s in all probability essentially the most pure human response to residing underground. (“It’s time to do away with the stigma tied to a couple discriminatory phrases within the Pact,” she says.)
• Solo’s music of the week: “Crimson Rain,” from Peter Gabriel. How does this music sound to Juliette? Can she even wrap her ears round what she’s listening to?
• I strive to not overthink what the silo’s residents do and don’t know concerning the world exterior, however I couldn’t assist however discover that Solo explains the idea of birds to Juliette in a single scene after which, in a later scene, serves her rooster stew.
• Talking of that stew … did anyone else suppose Solo had poisoned it? Particularly after he appeared alarmed by how shortly and unquestioningly Juliette ate it? Or perhaps I’ve simply been watching Silo too lengthy. I’ve bought belief points.
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