Silo Recap: Who Knows What Evil Lurks in the Hearts of Men?

In Silo’s first episode, we were introduced to the idea of “relics” — those little pieces of technology or art from the pre-apocalypse world sold illegally in Silo 18’s black market. My understanding has always been that the relic trade is loosely tolerated by the powers-that-be (many of whom have some pretty choice relics of their own) because one of the sneakiest ways authoritarian societies thrive is by letting their subjects get away with petty rebellions. Plus, given that IT secretly has eyes on everyone, the important relics — like the hard drive from the series premiere, which later ended up in Juliette’s hands, then Bernard’s — can usually be retrieved before causing any real trouble.

Then there’s this: Because of the way the transfer of information has been throttled in the silo from generation to generation, it’d be hard for anyone to take a few stray relics and piece together any kind of cohesive narrative about what life used to be like. Even the lore that does exist apparently differs from silo to silo. Last week we learned that Silo 17 had Founders Day while Silo 18 has Freedom Day. This week Solo is surprised to learn that in the version of Romeo and Juliet that Juliette knew in her silo, the lovers don’t die.

Any off-the-books knowledge that gets passed down tends to move on a one-to-one basis: from mentor to trainee, or from leader to “shadow.” That — along with the importance and the potential volatility of relics — is a big part of what this episode is about.

By the end of the hour, Sims will be promoted to judge, while the raider Rick Amundsen (Christian Ochoa) will replace Sims as the new head of security. Meanwhile, Sheriff Billings and the Down Deep Deputy Hank (Billy Postlethwaite) will commiserate over how excluded they are from the silo’s biggest decisions; and the four fugitives will have drawn on their connections with other departments and their awareness of secrets they’re not supposed to know to aid a thrilling escape. Everyone remains just isolated enough to stay well clear of grasping any fundamental truths about the silo.

The fugitives’ story is the most dramatic. Carla, because she works in Supply, has influence with Calvin (Jon Chew), a former porter who has been a boss in that department ever since his back became too stooped to carry. Calvin offers to move Knox and company back to the Down Deep via the grain belts, but Carla instead wants him to break out some forbidden porter tech: a winch-and-cable system banned by The Pact (in part because it would potentially makes porters obsolete, and porters are part of a silo’s traditional order).

Calvin proves untrustworthy, sending the Down Deepers back on the run — with the exception of Walker, who is such a recluse in her everyday life that Carla suggests she should just mosey on home on her own, unrecognized and unprotested. (The two exes share a sweet smooch before Walker walks.) After hiding out and resting up, Knox and Shirley head back to Calvin and demand to use those fancy cables. This sets up an exciting action sequence that sees Knox and Shirley zipping down the center of the silo as an angry mob — whipped up by raiders disguised as citizens, planted by Amundsen — break down the barricades meant to contain the mayhem.

None of this is going according to Bernard’s plan — which is one of the main points of this episode. Unlike last week’s episode, this week’s is less focused and less pulse-pounding overall, but it does offer some intriguing detail on how order can break down within a social structure designed to keep reliable information from flowing freely. In this system, even the people who are supposed to know what’s going on can be surprised.

Even when Bernard pulls Lukas out of the mines to ask him to investigate Juliette’s notorious “red-level relic” hard drive, Bernard seems surprised when Lukas learns it contains schematics that show a previously unknown tunnel beneath the silo, as well as what appear to be power-lines connecting into IT and Judicial from outside the walls. (Bernard is less surprised to hear that the drive also has a love letter written by the fabled Salvador Quinn to his wife, featuring a combination of sweet words and a mysterious code.)

Those unexpected power-lines come up in Silo 17 as well, where Juliette is trying to figure out how the power could be out throughout the flooded facility except on the IT level. Solo outright tells her that IT has its own power source, coming in from the outside — though he doesn’t elaborate on how or why. Instead, he pleads with Juliette to find a way to pump out the slowly rising water levels before they reach IT. (He estimates he has 10 months before the flooding gets to him and not much longer before he’ll have to evacuate.) But Juliette has her own problems. The wound on her arm is infected and making her woozy. And while looking for a replacement helmet for her return to the outside, she inadvertently discovers that Solo has stolen the identity of Silo 17’s real former IT shadow, Cole Myers.

The scene where Juliette confronts the man who calls himself Solo about his lies is a harrowing one, thanks mainly to the performance of Steve Zahn, who shifts in an instant from sweet and childlike to viciously angry. (“I am Solo,” he shouts directly into her cringing face. “I am the IT shadow!”) The fake Solo also hints that he may have done something unforgivable to the real Solo and his girlfriend, Trina Samuel, muttering, “Actually I don’t like thinking about her.” It seems possible that in order to survive the uprising in Silo 17, this usurper had to take the place of one of the only people who even had the option of safety.

And so we’re back to this idea of a heavily divided and strongly enforced hierarchy, which forces people to make desperate choices out of ignorance as much as fear. The Order is supposed to provide a blueprint for people like Bernard to exploit this hierarchy, to defuse tensions and re-assert normal authority — like Bernard does this week when he takes the rebellious folk hero Juliette’s personal effects out of circulation, to prevent them from becoming “venerated.” But because he doesn’t really have total control, mistakes happen.

We see this when Carla bribes Calvin. She offers him “a case of before-times bourbon,” which he takes. But what Calvin really wants is a discarded piece of equipment that Carla can confirm once belonged to Juliette. New relics are being created in real-time. Bernard is right to be worried. The venerators are already venerating.

The Down Deep

• How are there still whole cases of real bourbon available?

• Another good example of how Bernard struggles to maintain control: He’s offended when Amundsen refers to the undercover raiders as “my people.” But what does Bernard expect? No matter the intention of the silo’s designers, the stratification of this society means that people will naturally feel more loyal to their friends, families, and departments than they ever will toward the silo as a whole.

• Sheriff Billings and Deputy Hank are excluded from the fugitive hunt until the end of the episode when all hell breaks loose, and Bernard needs every (more or less) loyal officer he can find. However, the sidelining suits these two just fine, as it gives them time to track down Patrick Kennedy, the fire-bomber from a couple of episodes ago. No one in Judicial seems to care about him anymore — because, of course, Bernard and Sims helped stage the riot — but Billings and Hank find Patrick anyway, injured and sheltering in a secret passageway. The old relics dealer promises to tell them “everything you do and don’t want to know.” Bring it!

• Camille Sims becomes an even more fascinatingly mercurial character this week, as she puts on the face of a fundamentalist in front of Bernard — talking about reading The Pact with the family every night and quoting its thoughts on how “mothers are a vessel to deliver our children into the world” — and then putting on an old raider uniform and sneaking the fugitives into a janitor’s apartment, to keep them away from the authorities. What game is she playing here?

• That janitor’s name is Asa (Ross Armstrong), and when he grumbles to Knox and Shirley that he’s “just a hard-working guy, keeping the silo running,” it prompts Knox to ask, “Do you think every department thinks they’re the ones who keep the silo running?”

• Asa, awakened by Camille and told to prepare to have guests: “Can I put some pants on at least?” Camille: “I don’t know why you didn’t reach for those first.”