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Critic’s Rating: 4.25 / 5.0
4.25
Silo Season 2 Episode 2 is more about fallout than order, though we’ll get to the latter in due time. Season 2 Episode 1 begins and ends with Juliette Nichols and her discoveries.
Episode 2 covers what she left behind and the reaction to her disappearance over the hill, an event that never happens in series lore.
It’s also an entertaining study of a reactionary, bureaucratic autarchy cloaked in controlled democracy. There are reasons to empathize with Bernard Holland, the head of IT and provisional mayor.
For one, he knows things the audience does not, some of which struggle out from behind the veil of secrecy, telling us that not everything Juliette is doing will lead to paradise and neverending bliss.
Whatever those things are, Bernard is frightened of them enough to pay Judge Meadows a visit, asking for her help to quell the unrest and rising anxiety within the Silo. There’s clearly a history between Bernard and Meadows (romantic in nature?).
For two, absolute control is slipping through his fingers. So long as there is an element (Juliette Nichols) that he cannot reach out and touch—whose puppet strings are just beyond his fingertips—Bernard will never truly be a settled man.
It’s a simple thing to despise him, but that means neglecting history and the human condition. Malicious despots often think of themselves or their cause as righteous.
Bernard is no different. There is a method beneath the madness, and it’s worked for at least a century and a half.
We’ve also learned a few things, some of which carry over from the previous season. For example, we know that Bernard can see everything Juliette sees, at least until the connection loses signal or when she shatters the glass of her visor.
We know that Bernard is aware of the existence of other Silos, but he was not aware of Silo 17’s demise, at least not from his projected surface.
We know that Solo is inside Silo 17’s version of the same room in which Bernard watches through Juliette’s visor.
Now we know that Juliette’s perspective sparks Bernard into panic mode, driving him to see Judge Meadows for fear of a revolt.
Book readers know there is much more going on in Bernard’s world than meets the eye. On top of that, Robert Sims is every bit the political instrument, subtly orchestrating his own cost-benefit balance and endeavoring to rise within the ranks.
While Bernard and Meadows seek rapprochement through cavalier speeches and subsidies, Sims works with his equally ambitious but more quietly analytical wife.
Sims is resourceful but also jealous and confounded by the fact that he is not Bernard’s shadow — the why and the how driving him to plot his own course.
If Bernard loses Sims, his list of allies grows thin, especially considering Judge Meadow’s demand in exchange for her help.
In many ways, the Silo is a microcosm of nationwide politics, whether they be democratic in nature, despotic, or everything in between.
The ideological viewpoint under which the society in Silo 18 functions is irrelevant to the fascination of watching it unfold on a much smaller, more constrained scale.
It’s also an encapsulated version of the ‘greater good.’ Are Bernard, Judge Meadows, and Robert Sims evil? Or are they guarding against something so devastating that, from a more agreeable point of view, necessitates their control?
If that is the case, then who is evil? The one who mistrusts the power of knowledge in the hands of the commoner, or the person who cuts through the chain link fence at Area 51 and goes charging in?
In the meantime, rebellion is brewing in the belly of the beast, a cost Bernard is desperately averse to paying. The politics in the down-low are more emphatic and brute.
“It’s a challenging role in that it’s a character within a position of authority that has to take a tremendous burden on his shoulders in order for the silo to survive.“
-Tim Robbins in reference to his role as Bernard Holland
Knox plays a tepid voice of reason, while Shirley is the moody teenager, hopped up on hormones and unable to see the potential consequences of her feral, headlong charge ahead.
This diametrically opposed force is a poison within the lower levels. Rebellions in the Silo don’t have a great history, as Silo Season 2 Episode 1 revealed, and this one is not getting off to a coordinated start.
Knox and Shirley are so opposite that it’s hard to imagine this alliance rolling forward smoothly, especially with brains like Sims and Bernard working to thwart it.
Let us not forget that there are cameras, microphones, and spies everywhere within the Silo. Knox’s approach will seemingly hold everyone back while IT continues to dominate. Shirley’s will doom them all to an early grave.
Episode 1 was all about Juliette Nichols. Episode 2 is the exact opposite, with most of the denizens of Silo 18 believing her dead. This is especially true after Bernard’s big announcement.
Even her closest friends can only speculate, believing in their hearts that their greatest fears are indeed true.
Juliette’s departure over the hill has a resonating impact on everyone, for good or ill. Writer Cassie Pappas and Director Michael Dinner did a good job of conveying the resonating power of Juliette’s supposed demise on the denizens of Silo 18.
It didn’t require a ton of dialogue and numerous references to Juliette, either. The effect is in the actions of those she left behind, the melancholic undertones behind her father’s (Iain Glenn) motions and inflections.
The raw panic behind Bernard’s eyes, the rage behind Shirley’s, and the reverent but resolute measures Knox is willing to take all echo Juliette’s ephemeral presence and loss.
But, Silo is nothing if not reflective of the human condition — to march forward in the face of overwhelming loss and the near hopelessness of facing something far bigger, more coordinated, and more knowledgeable.
At this point, Silo feels like it needs to ramp things up a bit. Juliette stepped outside for the first time at the end of Season 1 and has only made a modicum of progress since, with an entire episode diverting from her character.
Sure, there is plenty to build up in Season 2, but it just feels like this will go on for a while.
That’s two episodes to set up the stakes in two Silos. Hopefully, Episode 3 will open things up a bit more.
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