From the beginning, Silo has been a mystery show. What did the Silo government do with its birth control? What did they know about life beyond the door out? Who was behind all these murders? What could Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson) do about it?
Season 1 ends with some good intentions. But in the end, Season 1 ends with a lot more questions – and honestly, that’s a good thing. The arc of Hugh Howey’s Wool series promises a lot more sci-fi intrigue than we got in it Silo season 1. And the end of season 1 promises a much bigger, more complicated season 2.
[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for the end of Silo season 1, and some discussion of the first book in the Silo series, Wool.]
What does the end of Season 1 of Silo mean?
Image: Apple TV Plus
In a certain light, Silo Season 1 is weighed down by all its conspiracies. Fortunately (or unluckily for her), Juliette manages to untangle most of them in just a few weeks as sheriff. Government has have effectively controlled the population by keeping some people infertile. Robert (Common) and Judicial have been monitoring the Silo and controlling its citizens through a mix of espionage, brute force and bureaucratic nonsense. George’s death was actually a suicide, an attempt to escape Judicial’s clutches. And new mayor Bernard (Tim Robbins) conspires with Robert to keep the Silo people calm and in limbo.
But the full extent of their control is not something Juliette, or the public, fully understands. After all, we get hints that the inhabitants of the Silo might be drugged into forgetting the outside world (which explains why no one remembers what “stars” are, even after a little over a hundred years underground). It’s not something Silo really gets into it – yet – but it seems in line with the mysterious founders’ mission to focus on living in the Silo.
Perhaps most importantly, Juliette learns what the Silo looks like outside – and it is worse than the government let the people know. The idyllic “outside” that Juliette and others had given out was an illusion, seemingly a visual effect the government created so that those sent outside the silo would feel the urge to clean the sensor before they died.
Ultimately, Juliette is able to stay alive thanks to truly functional heat tape that keeps her suit airtight. And by getting over the hill, she sees two very important things: the world above is even more desolate and devastated than the cameras led to believe, and there are many more silos.
It’s a perfect place to leave Silo pick up in one already greenlit season 2. The question “What’s outside the silo?” puzzle took a backseat to most of the inside silo intrigue. But it was also the problem that loomed above all, a mysterious motivating factor behind both Juliette’s personal questions and George and Bernard’s attempts to keep the Silo under control. While season 1 may get caught up in one mystery over another, the final episode promises to unite them all behind the greater, animating force. There are more silos, more people, and more dire conditions to explore than just Juliette’s Silo.
That’s good, since the Wool book series Silo is based on has even bigger problems ahead once Juliette understands the full scope of the conspiracy.
How does the first Silo book end?
[Ed. note: This is where the book spoilers start, obviously, so only read on if you want to know what happens in the book and maybe the show.]
Image: Apple TV Plus
Still interesting enough Silo is quite faithful to the general plot of the first book, Woolthe season ends shortly before where the book ends.
In the book, after Juliette is sent out to clean, she finds herself at the entrance of another Silo. A man explains that she is currently in Silo 17, where he is the sole survivor of an uprising several years ago. He shows her how to connect between silos and she reconnects with her IT guy in her house Silo (Silo 18), and together they force Bernard to reveal his real plan. It turns out that the silos have often been disrupted by revolts, which often fail. But if a silo uprising succeeds, the authorities in silo 1 will wipe out everyone in that silo; Bernard simply hoped that maintaining order would be in the public interest. In the end, Bernard is sent out to clean up (and dies), while Juliette is overwhelmingly elected mayor of Silo 18.
We’re not yet sure how closely the show will follow the rest of Wool, or the rest of the Wool series for that matter. But it’s yet another compelling place for the show to go — a sci-fi series that asks: Maybe that government conspiracy… made some points?