By Joshua Tyler
| Published
In its first season, Silo was a series centered around unraveling a mystery. By the end, that mystery was solved. So what’s left for Silo in its second season?
The first episode of Silo’s second season, appropriately titled “The Engineer,” takes this idea literally. It spends most of its run time watching our main character use her engineering skills to build a bridge. She’s alone, in the dark, for the entire hour. There’s no one to talk to, nothing to say. It’s all Juliette, putting the horror of what she’s learned out of her mind by focusing on something she can control: solving a simple engineering problem.
With the mystery solved, to keep its audience interested, now the Silo must build something.
First, the second season picks up where the last one left off, with Juliette outside her silo. She’s suited up and exploring devastation on the surface. The former Sheriff has mentally accepted the truth: she was wrong, and the surface is a hellscape.
Now, her primary mission is survival, and she realizes that in this environment, she won’t last long. Luckily, Juliette bought herself extra time by fixing the sabotaged heat tape on her suit, in season 1. Despite her fix, the suit won’t last long.
Juliette makes her way to another silo, a silo with a darker history than hers. Everyone who once lived there is dead, killed when they convinced themselves it was safe to go out. Now, to keep herself alive, Juliette must climb over their rotting corpses to get inside their now empty but safe home.
Inside this silo, in the dark, Juliet finds a broken bridge. On the other side is a light and a sound. To find out what it is, she’ll have to cross the chasm. Once she does, she’ll need a way to get back.
And so, our born fixer goes to work on fixing by building a bridge.
As she works, she’s also building Silo’s future as a television series. If you’ve read the Hugh Howey books this story is based on, you know where it must go. Now for us, the audience, the hook that’ll keep us coming back won’t be a mystery, which is now solved, but wondering whether or not Juliette can make something worthwhile out of what she knows.
It’s a bold beginning to the show’s second season. The series takes a risk on an episode with only one character, limited dialogue, and nothing but silent shadows.
Silo pulls it off brilliantly, by interspersing the silence and darkness with flashbacks and by leaning on the performance of Rebecca Ferguson. She’s still one of the best actresses on streaming.
Silo season 2 was with the wait. If this first episode is any indication, expect it to be better than the first one.
If you haven’t watched Silo yet, it’s not too late to get started. The first season and now the second, are both available to stream on Apple TV+.