Silo is back with a deep dive into dystopia and unanswered mysteries

Common in Silo. Image: Apple TV+

By Tracy Benson

27 Nov 2024

One of the best new series of 2023, dystopian sci-fi mystery Silo returns to Apple TV+ with the start of Season 2.

Warning: This article will contain spoiler details for Silo Season 1.

Released in 2023, Silo might have slipped under the radar for a lot of people, but this dystopian, post-apocalyptic mystery is absolutely worth your time – in fact, it can be argued to be one of the top three new streaming series of last year.

As with the likes of Foundation, Severance, Dark Matter and For All Mankind, Silo is yet another example of Apple TV+ going hard with its prestige, premium sci-fi delivering genre entries with big name actors and extreme production polish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLJDR-vFUdY

Silo, starring Rebecca Ferguson, Common and Tim Robbins (with prominent Season 1 roles for Rashida Jones and David Oyelowo), is based on a book series by Hugh Howey, known as the Silo Trilogy – comprising Wool, Shift and Dust.

The first season of the Apple TV+ show establishes the backdrop for the story: the last remaining 10,000 or so members of humanity live underground in a city-sized, spiral-shaped silo, sealed away from the apparently toxic and deadly environment of the surface world. Society has been completely reinvented and records of anything that happened before humanity’s downfall have since been lost… or have they?

As the cliffhanger ending of Season 1 attests, there are more questions than answers to what is going on in the world of Silo. The main character Juliette AKA Jules (Ferguson) has surprisingly been promoted from an engineer on the lowest level of the silo to its sheriff, determined to find out the truth of her lover’s apparent murder. In the process, she uncovers a Silo-wide conspiracy of population control, subjugation and lies, which sees her unwillingly sent outside the Silo by the powers that be.

Silo is back with Season 2, and promises to be one of the top streaming series of the year. (Image: Apple TV+)

Rebecca Ferguson in Silo. Image: Apple TV+

Jules walks out the Silo, first refusing to follow tradition and clean the outside camera and then disappearing beyond the point where every other cleaner has died, igniting a tinderbox of emotion among the Silo’s population. Unable to return, Jules must move forward into a desolate landscape dotted with multiple hatches, in the hopes of finding somewhere else to survive.

The first episode of the new season is both a fantastic set-up of what’s to come, and a reminder of why audiences fell in love with this show in the first place. As Jules breaks into a neighbouring uninhabited, non-functioning Silo, the tension is just beginning, with some massively anxiety-spiking scenes as she explores in near silence.

Much like the generator repair episode from the previous season, there are some incredibly nail-biting moments, starkly contrasted by the cool, dispassionate desolation of the Silo Jules finds herself in. Silo’s impeccable environmental storytelling is in full swing from the get-go, with richly detailed, decaying sets that stand as a counterpoint to the run-down but believably habitable sphere Jules was forced to leave.

A scene from Silo Season 2. (Image: Apple TV+)

Tim Robbins in Silo. (Image: Apple TV+)

Common in Silo. (Image: Apple TV+)

That said, from its opening moment Season 2 is already set up structurally in a way that has previously been a nail in the coffin for other TV shows (looking at you, Sweet Tooth): splitting the party.

When the main character is removed from where the bulk of the action takes place, the rest of the plot threads run the risk of either being left to dangle in the wind, or failing to hook viewers.

A couple of episodes in, it is already clear that Season 2 of Silo will probably be at its best, and most compelling, when focusing on Ferguson versus the friends and grey-hued foes she left behind in the increasingly unrest-plagued Silo.

Audience engagement is centred predominantly on Jules, the driving force of the show itself and now a martyr-like figure for the populace. As strong and capable as Jules has been, she’s now faced with a new mystery to unravel with far deadlier stakes — how does she survive in a dead Silo on her own? How did things fall apart in the first place? And what is going to happen with the loved ones she left behind?

While the rest of the season seems happy to answer that last question, devoting a lot of its running time to the events in Jules’s home Silo, the truth behind Silo’s biggest overarching secrets may not be forthcoming yet, if at all.

What we do know is that Silo Season 2 is off to an incredibly strong start, with deeper mysteries and even stronger acting from Ferguson. DM

Watch new episodes of Silo Season 2 every Friday from 15 November until 17 January on Apple TV+. Season 1 is also available on the streaming service.

This article was first published on PFangirl.

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Warning: This article will contain spoiler details for Silo Season 1.