Silo Season 1 felt like the platonic ideal of a sci-fi show — a standalone pilot, seamless worldbuilding, powerhouse performances, and a gravely serious tone even when characters used silly sci-fi terms like “The Before Times.” However, it only really covered half of Wool, the first book in the Silo trilogy.
Rebecca Ferguson’s Juliette, a lowly mechanic-turned-sheriff-turned-martyr, was sent out of the underground bunker where she had grown up to clean the camera the silo residents use to view the wasteland above. While every other resident sent to clean this camera collapsed and died after only a few steps, Juliette replaced the faulty heat tape used to seal her suit, meaning she could make it over the hill to see the truth: that there are countless other silos.
Now, in Season 2, the story branches off into two plotlines as Juliette explores what’s going on in the other silo, and the silo she left copes with the news that someone survived the first moments of a Cleaning. It’s a more ambitious effort, but Season 2 manages to seamlessly pivot its focus and grow its scope organically.
We knew that Juliette would encounter someone new in her journey after leaving the silo. Steve Zahn was announced as a new addition to the cast, and it seemed obvious he would be an outsider. Zahn plays Solo, the sole survivor of another silo who locks himself in the vault, only communicating with Juliette through a tiny window. Juliette is trying to get back home to tell everyone the truth about what’s up there, but now she must manage a total wild card.
Zahn is a natural addition to the cast. Juliette, under Ferguson’s carefully controlled performance, has morphed from an unassuming citizen to a leader intent on learning the truth. Zahn’s Solo is chaotic, child-like, and just as stubborn as Juliette, but he’s intent on keeping things the way they are.
But that’s only half the story. The other half follows the world Juliette left behind. Once the populace sees Juliette walk away from her Cleaning, chaos reigns — they were told that nobody could survive outside the silo, so what else are the powers-that-be lying about? Turns out, quite a lot. Mayor Bernard (Tim Robbins) tries to consult the handbook left by his predecessors, but according to it, a failed cleaning means only one thing: war.
And that’s exactly what commences. Led by mechanicals Knox and Shirley, the lower floors start an uprising against the upper floors, but how it all started remains murky. Suddenly, everyone has to choose: risk their lives and revolt, or stick to defending the only order they’ve ever known. The choice is easy for the mechanicals who have nothing left to lose, but for those who have dedicated their lives to keeping the peace, navigating war is far more difficult.
Silo began as a sci-fi show, but this season feels like so much more. There are still sci-fi elements like memory-erasing drugs, infoscreens, and complex apocalyptic lore, but they are just window-dressing for a story that is far more Julius Caesar than Fallout. Juliette is now a Che Guevara-esque folk hero, and the most fascinating element of the entire series is watching how she influences an uprising without ever being present.
But the “mystery box” is still present. We still don’t know why these silos were built, or even what caused the apocalypse that necessitated it in the first place. Characters do learn more — there’s an extended code-breaking sequence that feels very classic hardboiled sci-fi novel, but it’s obvious there is more story to be told here.
Maybe that’s the mark of a good sci-fi saga: a world so well-crafted that every sci-fi element fades into the background. It’s a human story about the human desire for change, and it only changes the show for the better.
