Well, we had some close calls, but this season of Silo stuck the landing. These ten episodes have been messy, especially the ones around the midpoint; based on two seasons of data, the writers of this show know where they want each chunk of the larger story to start and end, but struggle to fill the space in between. They tend to pull off the big moments, though, and “Into the Fire” is no exception, from the character-based climaxes to the Safeguard reveals to the befuddling flashback ending.

It’s only right to begin with Juliette, the true protagonist of this series, even if her scant appearances for much of the season suggested otherwise. These last two episodes have really developed the world of Silo 17, bringing Solo’s arc full circle and introducing a new complicated family, and their scenes in this finale seem to suggest they’ll be sticking around in some capacity. It’s pretty satisfying to see Juliette lay into Audrey for her misplaced resentment of Hope (aka Eater), reminding her of the importance of being there for each other and directing their anger at “the motherfuckers who built this place and put us in it.”

The best moments, though, go to Juliette and Solo, truly the beating heart of season two. Yes, this finale efficiently ups the stakes for Juliette’s return to Silo 18 by using Solo’s buried memories of his parents to reveal the nature of the Safeguard. But isn’t the real Safeguard the friends we made along the way? The moments I’ll really remember are their warm interactions, like when Juliette spontaneously tries to hug Solo over his helmet after realizing he tested the firefighter suit for her in the water—or, especially, when she tells him that “nothing’s gonna stop her from trying” to come back and see him again.

Read more

It’s about time we got to the fireworks factory, huh? “The Safeguard” leaves plenty of material for the finale, ending with some cliffhangers both expected and unexpected, but it also offers real, significant progress in almost every storyline. I still have concerns about the sacrifices in pacing and narrative legibility that it took to get the story to this point, and I’m not sure yet how I’ll view this season in retrospect. But things are happening now, for real, and it’s a pretty good time if you’re still on board.

For one, “The Safeguard” gives us the most complete, meaningful Silo 17 story since the premiere (or at least “Solo”). The Lost-y opening sequence shows us the events of this season from the perspectives of the Silo’s other living inhabitants: a young family made up of two stepsiblings-turned-lovers named Rick and Audrey, their baby, their kid half-brother Benny, and the adopted sister they call Eater. In addition to establishing the basic personalities of this f…

Read more

We’re getting there! With only a few episodes left in the second season, Silo is finally starting to push the story forward. But “The Book of Quinn” isn’t just notable for narrative progress; it’s possibly the meatiest episode in a while in terms of characterization, which in many ways is more important.

In the past couple weeks, I’ve felt some frustration with the pace of Lukas’s storyline. Making an underserved character the IT shadow was a smart move, and the Legacy is a fascinating concept, but the particulars of decoding Salvador Quinn’s letter aren’t as interesting as the show thinks they are. This episode doesn’t exactly shift focus, either; pretty much every Lukas scene is still in service to puzzling out the same MacGuffin message. In fact, outside of the line about knowing “the game is rigged,” we still don’t know the contents of the letter, even by the end.

But everything here just feels so much more essential than previous weeks, and that’s because the episode treat…

Read more

As we get closer to the end of this season, the narrative is ramping up, but a little less quickly than it could be—partly because the story already started in a place of high drama. Compare that to season one, which generally followed a straightforward crescendo from its early setup episodes to the thrilling conclusion (setting aside those unusually bloody first two episodes, when the true main cast wasn’t even established yet). Season two is trying hard to maintain the same level of energy throughout, but it can’t always match the high-octane feeling with actual forward momentum.

I like “The Dive,” as I like most of the episodes of this season, but it’s guilty of some of the same choppy editing and start-stop storytelling as previous installments. It feels like we’re moving toward an intense and action-packed ending, and I’m certainly still on board. But the closer we get, the more I find myself getting impatient for something real.

Take the ongoing story of Lukas decoding th…

Read more

From what I’ve seen on here and on Reddit, there’s a bit of a split in the Silo audience. While the reviews for this season are generally good, some seem to find it slow-paced, frustrating, and confusing while others find it thrilling and unpredictable. What might strike one person as wheel-spinning could feel like a valuable diversion to another viewer.

This phenomenon could apply to any TV show, of course—opinion is subjective, and no series can please everyone. But I’m also experiencing it myself as I review the show, waffling a little on whether individual choices work or don’t work, unsure about what exactly Silo owes its audience when it comes to logic and pacing.

Take, for example, the decision to pause Juliette’s story at this crucial moment. After 15 minutes or so of “Barricades,” I figured we wouldn’t get any follow-up to last week’s cliffhanger-ish ending, and I couldn’t help feeling disappointed. So I was relieved when the episode did return to Silo 17 in its closin…

Read more

This season of Silo has made a lot of improvements when it comes to the complexity of characterization, which has translated to less predictable storytelling. But “Descent” strikes me as a season one-esque episode—partly because of the general conflict of “the raiders are after fugitives from Mechanical!” but mostly because it feels a little transitional. It’s not that any particular scene feels slow in the moment; it’s just that we’re running in place a little, putting off any significant plot movement until next week.

That applies to both Silo stories, but especially to Silo 17, which gets less screen time than usual this week. There are some interesting strands introduced here, but none reach a resolution within the hour, leaving it all feeling a tad unsatisfying. Take, for example, Solo’s request that Juliette save him from eventual drowning by running power to the pump, a plot point that must come into play again down the line, if not next week. See also: the old arm woun…

Read more

At the heart of the conflict in Silo 18 are two opposing goals. The rebels in Mechanical, broadly speaking, want to find the truth; the people in charge, broadly speaking, want to maintain order, which means suppressing the truth. But season two has really excelled by reminding us that human beings are flawed and argumentative, and having the same general goals doesn’t guarantee harmony. The three most prominent voices in the Silo’s administration (Bernard, Sims, Meadows) may be aligned in many ways, but they have different ideas of what the job requires, and what exactly “order” means. After all, Bernard and Sims end up inciting a mob in this episode—stoking disorder to preserve order, in theory.

Knox’s idea to formally meet with leadership (and Shirley’s suggestion to include Judge Meadows) provides this episode with a smart central focus to bring out all these tensions. Everyone’s reaction to the idea is different: Meadows thinks it’s a great opportunity to keep Mech…

Read more

Programming note: to avoid the holiday, Apple moved this week’s episode of Silo to a Wednesday release.

Read more

A couple scenes into this week’s episode of Silo, I realized we likely wouldn’t be returning to the new Silo at all until next week. After the Steve Zahn cliffhanger, it’s hard not to feel a little disappointed by that; I’m itching to see Juliette make contact again and learn more about the history of this place. Even more than that, I’m curious what exactly her game plan will look like going forward. Does she plan to make contact with the original Silo again if she can and return home? What about visiting other Silos? And will she become involved with the rebellion brewing over at the Silo we focused on last season?

But “Order” is a necessary episode to have, catching us up on everything “The Engineer” left out. We may still be in the first act of season two’s story—it isn’t until the end that a resistance group is formalized—but pieces are already clicking into place for a dramatic showdown ahead.

What role does Bernard serve in the story of Silo? The endgame of season one framed the character as the surprise (or not) main villain, with Sims as more of a henchman than a mastermind. (This reveal also tracked better with the respective performances of Tim Robbins and Common.) But it also seemed to hint that Bernard wasn’t at the top of this food chain, that his villainous actions come from a place of genuinely trying to protect these 10,000 lives. Sacrificing the occasional person for cleanings doesn’t seem so bad when you look at the big picture and consider the risks that come with being entirely truthful about the world outside.

Read more

Welcome to Episodic Medium’s coverage of Apple TV+’s claustrophobic dystopia drama Silo, which returns for its second season. As always, this first review is free for all, but subsequent reviews will only be for paid subscribers. To learn more about what we’re covering in the coming months, see our recent schedule update.

Subscribe now

There’s a certain feeling that comes with starting the second season of a mythology-rich puzzle box show like Silo. I first remember sensing it during the second-season premiere of Lost, particularly the famous opening set to “Make Your Own Kind of Music.” (I was in fifth grade at the time.1 Thank God my parents let me watch, or I might not be writing this today.) But it comes back from time to time: for example, returning to that cabin in the woods at the beginning of Yellowjackets season two after a brief flashforward to a third timeline we’ve never seen before. I’m sure I’ll feel it again when Severance returns this January.

It’s a feeling of wonder, of joy, of discovery. It’s the feeling of waiting so long with a cliffhanger, dying to know what happens next, and then after months—or a year or two years or sometimes many years—you’re actually watching the show again, and it feels so good. It’s watching a sci-fi show from the beginning, and then seeing it expand its premise by the end of that solid inaugural season, and then finally getting to see what exactly that expansion looks like.

Silo has never been quite on the same level as those previously mentioned shows for me, and I don’t totally expect it to start now. It’s too early to say whether season two will represent a significant step up from an enjoyable but flawed season one. But “The Engineer” does feel bigger and bolder than the average Silo episode, holding my attention for the whole time (almost). That’s impressive, considering this premiere doesn’t offer many answers for viewers curious about the dozens of Silos glimpsed last episode, or about the higher authority Bernard reports to, or about the history of this whole system. A rebellion is brewing in the Silo where we spent the entire first season, but there’s not a single present-day glimpse inside.

Yet the choice to limit the episode to Juliette’s perspective ends up being a smart one: we’re trapped with her, immersed in her headspace as she explores this strange new world and focuses above all on survival. As a protagonist, Juliette is one of this show’s biggest assets, just as she was in Hugh Howey’s original novel Wool; her engineer background sets her apart, and it’s fascinating to just watch her work. That continues in this aptly named episode, which is specifically about watching Juliette work—first making sure she’s sealed in the Silo without danger of losing oxygen or dying of radiation poisoning, then getting the lay of the land to make sure she really is alone here.

Some of the same issues do persist. Michael Dinner directs this episode well, but everything is still way too dark in the wrong places, even if this second Silo is supposed to be very low on power considering the flooded generator. It sometimes makes it difficult to feel the full gravity of a new discovery: this Silo seems to directly mirror the one Juliette knows, down to the layout of the cafeteria and staircase, which should be pretty mind-blowing. But the episode doesn’t spend much time lingering on the eerie similarities. The most effective moments are the ones where we know exactly what’s going on—for example, the zoom out to show a crater completely littered with bodies in full daylight, extending into the long dimming corridor at the center.

And then there’s the flashbacks. Look, I’ve never been a huge fan of the flashbacks on this show, so it should come as no surprise that these scenes are my least favorite parts of the episode. Most of them don’t convey much new information: yes, Juliette has always been a bit of a loner, especially after losing her mom, and she has always loved fixing things. And in an episode otherwise effective for its straightforward narrative and lack of dialogue, they do feel a little disruptive.

But they’re not as useless as some of the others, and there is some value in showing the birth of Juliette’s friendships with Walker and Shirley in Mechanical. In one instance—Shirley’s story about slowly, calmly escaping the pitch-dark hideout she woke up to—the anecdote provides some insight into Juliette’s own patience and ingenuity in problem-solving. And on a character level, it makes sense that Juliette would be homesick right now. On a very literal level, she’s more alone than she’s ever been.

There’s a lot of tension throughout “The Engineer,” especially when it comes to the survival element. It’s almost hard to watch Juliette bash her helmet until the glass breaks, risking taking her eye out in her desperate gasping for oxygen. The episode doesn’t ever dispense with much exposition about what exactly Juliette is doing while she’s at work, but I really respect that choice by writer Graham Yost. Her actions mostly speak for themselves, and Rebecca Ferguson’s expressive acting helps make it clear what she’s thinking throughout this adventure.

The primary source of suspense, of course, is the “am I alone?” question. The chopped rope is an early hint that there’s another human threat somewhere here, but is it just the one guy we glimpse at the end, or could other scavengers be hiding out? The episode feels like a case study: “what’s the worst that could happen to a Silo?” In the opening flashback, we see a resistance group headed by a sheriff—not far off from what we’ve seen with Juliette and her friends—break out and meet their early deaths. Is this what could happen to the other Silo? Could it become a shell of itself like the one Juliette’s exploring now? Is this what the founders were afraid of when they put these repressive systems in place, or is there more to the story?

It’s fun to think about these questions, and pretty thrilling to watch the answers start to come together. To some viewers, this episode will be frustratingly low on plot or closure, and I do think dropping the first two at once might’ve been better. But when I look at most of my gripes here, they pale compared to that excitement of poking around the new corners of this ever-expanding world. Watching a mysterious, seemingly amusing, possibly dangerous new character announce himself in the final scene, I found myself grinning; it really does feel like a Lost moment, and there’s no better compliment than that.

Stray observations

• Everything with the makeshift bridge was pretty cool, and I really felt those dark depths beneath Juliette as she fell, even knowing there was water down there.

• The nametag repeatedly banging on the fan was a nice detail; it does sound very human from far away.

• Welcome back to Silo coverage. We had some great conversation in my season one rewatch over the summer, and I’m excited to pick that up here. For those who weren’t following, I have read the books, and so I will be doing some (light) book spoiler conversations following the strays. [Ed. We’ll try to remember to put an image between them so you can avoid more easily.]

Book spoiler observations

• I did miss the soup decontamination from the book, which was such a visceral detail; you could really smell it throughout that ordeal.

• Solo is introduced completely differently than in the book, where he seemed pretty harmless immediately (though the lead-up to Juliette’s discovery is equally tense). But I don’t mind this at all, and I can tell Steve Zahn will be perfect in this role.

• Not much setup for Shift to report here, and with the deliberate pacing, I’m unsure we’ll get much from that book at all this season. As I said in one of my earlier reviews, the most likely bit I can see is the Solo backstory, which could easily take up a whole episode.

Compared to the novel on which it’s based, Silo’s first season has been defined by a certain coyness. We’ve never known whom we can fully trust, or who stands a chance of surviving a given episode. We knew Allison Becker’s theory about the world outside the Silo, and we came to understand the role of IT and Judicial in carefully controlling the flow of information to the Silo’s 10,000 citizens. But there remained so many ambiguities, sometimes to the show’s detriment.

I can imagine a different version of this series that adapts the entire first book of Hugh Howey’s trilogy in these ten episodes, rather than just the first half-ish—it would be a version more forthcoming from the beginning about the nature of the cleanings and the sensors, and the evil of IT, and the significance of relics. It might be leaner and more pulse-pounding, with much less George and much less Common, along with less time for sleuth-inclined viewers to think ahead and figure out the bigger reveal…

Read more

The first half of this season of Silo was dominated by unexpected death. Four different “main characters” lost their lives, either murdered by agents from Judicial or killed by the dangerous outside world after electing to clean. I’ve written a lot about both the positive and negative effects of that narrative choice: it made those episodes unexpected and raised the stakes for future installments—this is a show where seemingly anybody can die, besides maybe Juliette—but also made it difficult to know which characters we could enjoy getting to know longer-term. The next few episodes were somewhat disappointing by comparison, settling into a comfortable groove but veering away from some of the most intriguing elements of this sci-fi world.

Now we’re approaching the end, though, and it’s time to return to the speed and drama of those opening episodes. “The Flamekeepers” and “Hanna” are both pretty exciting, and a big part of that comes from the full-circle feeling they pro…

Read more

Last week, I started to perceive a pretty clear distinction between the two principal types of stories Silo is telling. On the one hand, we have Juliette’s slow-burning investigation into the overarching mythological questions about the origin and history of the Silo, along with the outside world—an investigation she inherited from her partner George, in many ways. Some of those mysteries might be solved this season, but I suspect many will bleed into future seasons. Then there’s a more familiar type of mystery to provide a specific framework for these ten episodes: people are being murdered, and it’s up to the sheriff to find out who’s responsible.

It’s easier to get excited about the former type of story, because it’s much more unusual—and this show does a really good job building intrigue. Unfortunately, the structure of the series requires that those issues be tabled for a while, with the detective elements prioritized. Still, these two episodes do a good job distracting f…

Read more

The first two episodes of Silo raced through quite a bit of plot: in addition to introducing the Silo and several ongoing mysteries, the series killed off two characters who seemed like leads. As thrilling as that was, it left me feeling slightly disoriented, not knowing where exactly the focus would lie in future episodes.

It can be fun to watch a TV show plow forward with plot, but that type of pacing isn’t always sustainable for very long. Shows tend to need some sort of status quo, some basic day-to-day reality to return to. In a sci-fi series, so much of the characterization happens during those slow stretches between the bigger action sequences and mythology-related reveals. (“Tricia Tanaka Is Dead” is one of my absolute favorite Lost episodes.) So while these next two episodes are much slower-paced and overall weaker—especially watched a week apart, as they originally aired—they’re also very necessary in establishing a flow for this season.

They’re also good for world-bu…

Read more

Welcome to Episodic Medium’s coverage of Apple TV+’s Silo, which debuted last year—we didn’t cover it at the time, but with a second season coming this fall and some meaningful dialogue among subscribers, we figured a summer lull was a chance to encourage some catchup. As such, Ben Rosenstock will be covering two episodes of season one a week this summer, with season two coverage to come later in the year. (He hasn’t seen the show yet, so you should be able to watch along). To join the conversation, become a paid subscriber—you can see our full summer schedule here.

Subscribe now

The Apple TV+ drama Silo began as a novel, which began as a short story. In Hugh Howey’s “Holston,” self-published on his website in 2011 before serving as Part 1 of the complete Wool omnibus, the sheriff of an underground bunker community makes the unthinkable decision to step outside into a nuclear wasteland, following in the footsteps of his wife who died doing the same. It isn’t until the following novella, Proper Gauge, that we meet the book’s most important character, Juliette Nichols—and it isn’t until the novella after that, Casting Off, when she becomes the true protagonist.

Don’t worry, I won’t blather on about Wool too long; these reviews aren’t meant solely for “experts” à la Myles’s Game of Thrones reviews over at The A.V. Club, though I may experiment with leaving some notes for book readers at the end. Still, I think the structure of Wool helps explain the structure of these first two episodes, despite all the changes made in the adaptation process. And it accounts for both the immediate high stakes and some slight narrative clumsiness early on.

But let’s start with the basics. Silo was created by Graham Yost of Justified fame, a writer who pays a lot of attention to crafting immersive, lived-in settings. Harlan County, Kentucky was as much a main character in that earlier show as any of the leads, and the titular Silo of his newest series is much the same. Neither of these first two episodes takes too much time on world-building—we’re pretty much off to the races from the beginning—but we get a good general sense of how this underground society works, with 144 levels dedicated to different functions. The mayor and sheriff work Up Top near the surface, while many people live on residential levels in the Mids. There are farm levels, along with a powerful IT department, a repressive Judicial department, and a Mechanical team who live near the bottom and keep the Silo running. And connecting them all is a grand staircase, quiet at night but teeming with activity during rush hour.

This early on, Sheriff Holston Becker (David Oyewolo) and his wife Allison (Rashida Jones) are our point-of-view characters, introducing us to the Silo via their relationship and their individual careers. Through Holston, we meet Deputy Marnes (Will Patton), Hank (Billy Postlethwaite), Mayor Jahns (Geraldine James), and Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson) herself; through Allison, we meet fertility counselor Gloria (Sophie Thompson), along with Bernard (Tim Robbins) in IT, who will inevitably play a bigger role down the line.

Allison and Holston’s two-years-apart deaths also serve as the series’ inciting incidents, though they play out slowly instead of, say, in the first couple scenes. Allison is the real main character of “Freedom Day,” with Holston as the second lead. That means there isn’t much time to touch on the whole ensemble, especially in that first episode; Bernard only shows up briefly, while Juliette, the actual protagonist of this show, shows up at the end without any lines.

These episodes dropped at the same time, so perhaps they were always meant to be consumed as a two-hour pilot. Still, even episode two isn’t very hasty about developing the characters: Juliette comes into focus, and we meet her friend/mentor Martha Walker (Harriet Walter), but head of security Mr. Sims (Common) barely gets a line, and several other important characters haven’t popped up at all yet. We don’t have a full grasp yet of who really matters in this cast. I mean, I have an idea, but only because I’m familiar with the source material. Otherwise, the only clue is a glance at the list of regular cast members, though even they’ve started dying off early.

In other words, this opening pair of episodes feels slightly haphazard on a structural level; I’m never not entertained by what I’m seeing, but they feel a bit like two slices of a (groan) ten-hour movie instead of seamlessly constructed episodes of their own. “Freedom Day” ends with the good-enough cliffhanger of Holston reiterating his intent to leave the Silo and learn the truth, only for us to see him die (or do we?) immediately when the second episode starts. “Holston’s Pick” also ends somewhat anticlimactically, with Juliette dropping some stuff in the water while suspended by a rope, on her way to find a mysterious door her dead boyfriend saw in an old drawing. Intriguing? Sure. But it feels like the ending could’ve gone a little bigger.

Maybe I’m being a tad harsh because I re-watched the Lost pilot last week, an impossible bar for any sci-fi pilot to clear. But besides the sheer frequency of “oh shit” moments in that two-part episode, it also features an impressive number of small moments of resonance with the characters, paying off mini-arcs introduced only a few scenes before. (This time, Kate following Jack’s “let the fear in for five seconds” advice during the Smoke Monster chase really struck me.) It’s a great show partly because it’s intensely episodic, a quality that Silo doesn’t totally share. Without checking the air schedule, I might’ve guessed these ten episodes dropped at once, intended as a binge. Structure doesn’t seem like a strong consideration.

Setting aside those concerns, though, these are two very engaging episodes. Holston and Allison’s attempts to have a baby in the allotted one-year lottery window make for a compelling, character-driven story in “Freedom Day,” even if their quick (apparent) deaths mean we won’t see much of them after this point. It’s affecting to watch their reproductive efforts slow down over the course of multiple time jumps, just as Allison finds herself digging deeper and deeper into conspiracy theories around the rebellion that supposedly wiped out recorded history before 140 years ago. When we learn that someone above is dictating which women get pregnant, possibly Judicial, it’s another concrete example of the evil happening in the background while thousands of people go about living their lives in the Silo. The episode smartly uses Allison as its firsthand victim.

This episode also nails the intrigue angle. There are plenty of ongoing mysteries established from Holston’s very first opening voiceover: who built the Silo and wrote the laws outlined in the Pact? What happened that makes outside so unlivable, and how long ago? Are there other Silos, and if so, how are they structured? All of these questions will play a role going forward, but Yost’s script simplifies the overarching mystery by honing in on one haunting tradition in particular: cleanings, which function as executions that are both mourned and celebrated by fascinated onlookers. “People need to see what it’s like out there,” Jahns says gravely.

The great mystery here, in many ways, is why so many people choose to clean the sensors despite swearing they’ll never do it. Perhaps it’s both Allison’s personal experience and her innate interest in history and truth that leads to the episode’s climax, when she cuts out her own birth control then makes a scene in the cafeteria, saying the words you can never say: “I want to go out.” There’s something fascinatingly ambiguous about watching the footage of both Allison and Holston’s deaths, because we can’t trust anything we’re seeing through a screen, either the verdant green hills and blue skies in Holston’s visor or the dusty apocalyptic landscape displayed in the cafeteria windows.

“Holston’s Pick” deepens that intrigue using some flashbacks to Juliette’s unsanctioned relationship with George Wilkins (Ferdinand Kingsley), whom she claims was murdered. In fact, it gets a bit repetitive to see how many times Juliette insists it was murder in this episode, in several different scenes. But Ferguson’s performance is really working for me—you can feel the repression in her twitchy body language, her discomfort with opening up about anything. It’s a powerful (but not out-of-character) contrast to her more relaxed, affectionate demeanor with George.

It’s clear that Juliette will end up the new sheriff of the Silo in the coming episodes, which could deepen the murder mystery element already present with her investigation into her ex-boyfriend’s death. That’s a smart choice for a show where the stakes may get abstract, depending on how long it takes to learn the truth about what’s really going on. With its somewhat thin characters (for now) and high-concept sci-fi hook, Silo feels a bit like the streaming equivalent of the type of network genre show that proliferated in the wake of Lost—something like The Event or Revolution, but with a very strong writer at the helm and an Apple-size budget. Most of those shows flamed out early, but this one has real potential as a good old-fashioned sci-fi thriller with mind-bending twists. As a big fan of Wool, I’m ready to become a fan of Silo.

Stray observations

• If it wasn’t clear, these reviews should be accessible to both new Silo viewers and anybody who wants to refamiliarize themselves with season one in the leadup to season two this fall (which I’ll also be covering). But I also haven’t watched ahead at all, so reviews won’t discuss plot points from any episodes later than a given week’s episode. Feel free to label your own comments with a spoiler warning if you want to discuss later episodes, or discuss details from the books—I’ve read Wool, but neither of the sequels, which I plan to pick up soon.

• I will also admit that watching Fallout (and playing Fallout 3) recently makes some of this stuff feel a tad less novel to me—I’m also thinking back to City of Ember—but it’s still a pretty distinct setting, especially with the cleanings.

• It’s hard to argue with Holston’s point that Allison should’ve come to him and told other people when she figured out the truth, rather than suddenly choosing to go outside.

• Okay, so Allison tells her husband that if her theory is correct and it is beautiful and safe out there, she’ll clean, but if she’s wrong, she won’t clean. But shouldn’t it be the other way around? And how does that really prove anything either way when the sensors have the ability to lie? I’m also not sure her theory makes sense about people cleaning in order to show the truth about the screen—why would they expect it to show anything different than usual after rubbing it with wool?

• I think the episode mostly does a good job showing that Allison is interested in the Silo’s history separate from her own personal baggage—both the sadness over not having a kid and the trauma from realizing the doctor has been sabotaging her. But I’m curious what others think about her slide into delirium.

• I’m still not sure I fully get how “sanctioned” relationships work and how seriously people take them. Juliette seems worried to admit to hers while talking to Holston, but when George was still alive she seemed pretty carefree about it.

• The set of the hidden tunnel with the massive buried digger is pretty cool, but those scenes are just so distractingly dark.

• Holston recommending Juliette as sheriff suggests that he recognizes her as the best shot at exposing the same secrets his late wife (and Juliette’s late boyfriend) learned about the Silo, so maybe he has some more clues from beyond the grave. I also expect to see him again in at least a couple flashbacks—and hey, maybe even present-day scenes if his death was a lie.

• Speaking of which, both of these episodes do jump around the timeline quite a bit, which can somewhat disrupt the flow even when it’s easy to keep everything straight.

• In both the book and the show, I really love the world-building detail of the friendly porters always scurrying up and down the stairs with heavy deliveries strapped to their backs.