TL;DR – Much like the staircase that stretches from the top to almost the bottom, the situation in the Silo is starting to spiral out of control.  

Disclosure – I paid for the Apple TV+ service that viewed this series.

Silo Review –

While Silo started to lose its way, a touch, in the middle, like many shows before and after it, last week’s Hanna felt like an immediate return to form as the show threw off its restraints and started running at 100km an hour. This week continues that same pattern as we barrel along to the season finale.  

So to set the scene, all seems lost as Bernard Holland (Tim Robbins) reveals that as well as being the Head of IT, he is also in charge of the secret force that maintains order in the Silo. He and Holston Becker (Common) lie that Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson) said she wanted to go outside, a death sentence. There was one hope, as Nichols was being marched up the central staircase, she realised that Paul Billings (Chinaza Uche) was having one of his tremors and used it to escape his grip, grab her bag with the hard drive and dived off the staircase. Thankfully landing on one of the cross-struts and not plummeting to her death 70-odd layers down. But now she is on the run, and almost everyone in the Silo is after her and the secrets she holds. Now from here, we will be looking at the episode as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead. 

While you can’t plan it, it is almost fortuitous that this episode of Silo came out when it did. If you are reading this in the future, or hell, maybe it will have all changed by the time I wake up tomorrow, the growing tensions and miscommunications in Russia as an authoritarian government trying to control information just had their whole messaging strategy blow up literally and metaphorically in their face. The small overreaches and manipulations streamed out of control as the mercenaries Russia put in a place of power turned against the country. I bring this comparison up because we see the same thing play out here in the show.  

Much like there are many layers of the Silo, there are also many layers to the control over the people. The first is the formal government with an elected mayor, a sheriff that maintains law and order, and a legal system based on The Pact. Then there is the Judiciary, a quasi-legal entity that shifts in and out of what feels like natural justice. But they are still front facing, so you know who they are. Then there are the watchers, people hidden from sight but with an unmeasurable reach. Each of these layers is now focused on one thing, stopping Nichols because she has an independent source of information, and in a closed society, knowledge is dangerous.

We get and an interesting side-story as we follow now Sheriff Billings have his ‘Road to Damascus’ moment as he tries to find why Nichols would want to go outside. Billings is an interesting character, because he is a walking contradiction. He knows The Pact probably better than any other single person in the Silo, but he is also in fragrant violation of that same Pact. He still believes in what he is doing, in the system, which literally falls apart in front of him when he finds the book. This is a nice parallel to Sims who feels he is the next apparent guardian but will he put his family or the Silo first? There is a lot of subtle acting happening here, along with the big moments, and it another of the reasons that makes this show as compelling as it is.

All season, these powers have been shown using passive and aggressive control methods to keep people in line, including using coercive unknowing sterilisation to limit threats. However, all that did was increase resistance to their control, even when that control was almost absolute. We have seen all season the potential for this to fall apart as the truth of what might be outside lingers, waiting to spill forth and the desperate attempts to stop it. We end with a very tense cat-and-mouse chase, with the apparent truth of what is outside the Silo being revealed to three people who will absolutely not keep it to themselves.  

In the end, do we recommend Silo: The Getaway? Yes, yes, we do. With these final episodes, you can feel the show put its foot on the accelerator without losing control. I am fascinated to see where they go in the finale, and looking at the title, discover what is the absolute truth.    

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you seen Silo yet ?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day.    

Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Silo
Directed by – Adam Bernstein
Written by – Lekethia Dalcoe
Created by – Graham Yost
Based On – Silo by Hugh Howey
Production/Distribution Companies – Nemo Films, AMC Studios & Apple TV+
Starring – Rebecca Ferguson, Common, Harriet Walter, Chinaza Uche, Avi Nash, Rick Gomez & Tim Robbins  with Ferdinand Kingsley, Billy Postlethwaite, Caitlin Zoz, Christian Ochoa, Alexandria Riley, Will Merrick & Iain Glen and Helene Maksoud, Oscar Coleman, Nimisha Odedra & Akie Kotabe