Since its inception, more than anything, Apple TV+ has excelled at genre television, especially in the sci-fi space. The sheer number of science fiction shows that populate the relatively small service is frankly overwhelming. Yet the best of those shows has somewhat flown under the radar. “Silo” premiered last year to acclaim, if not the deafening noise that followed something like “Severance.” Created by the great Graham Yost (“Justified”) and starring Rebecca Ferguson, the show’s mystery-box approach to a future society kept viewers like me compelled over the course of its ten-episode first season.
READ MORE: Fall 2024 TV Preview: 40 Must-See Series To Watch
Some eighteen months after its initial premiere, its return sees the show downshift in terms of pleasurable, binge-inducing twists. Yet, if it doesn’t possess the sheer WTF-is-going-on attitude that propelled the first season, this newest one is much more compelling in terms of character development. Since its beginning, “Silo” has been the type of show to introduce characters only to kill them off relatively quickly. In the pilot alone, we saw David Oyelowo and Rashida Jones’s married couple both sent out to “clean” before revealing that the protagonist was, instead, Ferguson’s Juliette Nichols.
When the last season ended, it appeared that Juliette was about to suffer the same fate as Oyelowo and Jones’s characters. After discovering secrets related to the silo’s origins and realizing that those sent out to clean were fed an image overlay in their suits to make it appear safe outside, Juliette refused to clean the camera. She walked over the hill where so many others had died. With that, she was confronted by a desolate landscape and the realization that her silo wasn’t the only one.
Season two picks up in the immediate aftermath, tracking Juliette’s frantic attempts to get into another abandoned silo before her air runs out. While this type of show works best going in with as little knowledge as possible, it’s probably not so much of a spoiler to say that Juliette does make it into the other solo, only to realize that she’s not alone. She finds Solo (Steve Zahn), a mysterious figure who has trapped himself in a vault and is wary of Juliette.
Solo eventually tells her that those in the abandoned silo all went out into the open air because they saw someone refuse to clean and, wrongly, believed it was safe outside. Eventually, the idea took hold, and a mass revolution led to the silo’s eventual extinction. Realizing that she’s done the same thing to her own silo, the bulk of Juliette’s narrative this season is her attempts to return to warn everyone.
Meanwhile, in her own silo, the new mayor Bernard (Tim Robbins), is dealing with the ramifications of Juliette’s decision, which has led to growing unrest, especially all the way down in mechanical, how he and his #2 Robert Sims (Common) attempt to quash an uprising before it begins makes up the bulk of the other narrative in this season.
By jumping back and forth between these two narratives, the season essentially separates Juliette for the entire season (or, at least, the nine out of ten episodes provided for review). Her arc with Zahn’s Solo is compelling but also somewhat stagnant as she works to rebuild her suit to go back to her own silo with a series of side-quests throughout the abandoned silo (half of which is underwater).
The Bernard and Robert stories are more compelling, if only because it has more characters to populate its narrative. It becomes clear that this isn’t the first time a revolution has been formed. While the silo’s playbook essentially tells those in power to blame the lower-class mechanical, that idea becomes much more complicated considering how mechanical responds. It’s a season that sees the build-up to something, whether that be an all-out war between the upper and lower inhabitants of the silo or not, is best left unspoiled.
But, if season one felt like a compelling world-building wrapped in a mystery, this season feels like a prologue to Juliette’s eventual return. Nevertheless, Graham and his co-writers have effectively set the stage for a captivating finale and eventual season three. While it may sometimes feel like we are spinning our wheels here before we get to the good stuff, this show still remains one of the most puzzling and fascinating in the Apple TV+ library. [A-]
