Apple TV loves to spend tons of money on prestigious sci-fi projects like “Dark matter“and”Basic“, but their best in this subgenre is somewhat Graham Yost’s captivating”Silo.” The first season of this adaptation of the books by Hugh Howey played like a timely riff on philosophical sci-fi noirs like “Blade Runner,” stories that require big ideas to say something new about relatable themes. It was layered in mystery , convey its willingness to take risks right in the premiere, when it sent out high-profile actors David Oyelowo and Rashida Jones to reveal that the real star of this show would be the phenomenal one Rebecca Fergusonplays an engineer who discovers that everything she knows is a lie.
If you didn’t watch season one, go back and watch it first, because we have to get spoilery (and it’s one of the the best shows of 2023). At the end of season one, Juliette Nichols (Ferguson) was basically kicked out of the silo by the deeply corrupt Bernard Holland (Tim Robbins) and superficially corrupt Robert Sims (Common). After seeing footage of Allison’s departure from the silo, Juliette became convinced that the Powers That Be had lied and that leaving was not as dangerous as the residents had been led to believe. When she actually walked up the hill outside the exit, she discovered that there was a lie embedded within a lie. The film was a false vision given to Allison before the faulty thermal suit she was wearing led to her demise. The world has indeed become a desolate hellscape, but Martha Walker (Harriet Walter) had prepared Juliette’s costume enough that she could still walk across the gray horizon.
What now? How do you proceed with Juliette out of the silo? The second season of “Silo” doesn’t just spin Juliette back into the silo to fight Bernard and Sims again, which might have been narratively tempting but would have lessened the impact of the first year. Juliette doesn’t just return to Silon. Without spoiling too much, it’s not long before Juliette is forced into another shelter, where she finds a single survivor, perfectly played by the great Steve Zahn. He tells her about how all the other residents were inspired by someone leaving their Silo to try to do the same, leading to the piles of skeletal remains outside the door. Juliette realizes that this could be the fate of her Silo and her role in it, as false hope could lead to mass carnage. She vows to return to stop the destruction of a people and trade a lie for a more deadly truth.
As the two-hander unfolds across the landscape, the second season also centers on a growing resistance in the silo as people become increasingly convinced that Juliette was alive and that her banishment was not out of hand. Much of the planning there involves Knox (Shane McRae) and Shirley (Remmie Milner), emerging leaders of a movement that Bernard knows he must destroy.
It’s a season about stories and who controls them. It is also about how the rebellion grows through kernels of truth. In the last season finale, Holland told his lackeys, “What you’ve just seen, you’re going to see.” Of course he learns that it is impossible, but the writing is even richer than that in that it delves into the idea that even what we see, which leads us to what we think we know, can be wrong. It is not so much about what is true and false as how these beliefs can be used to control people and shape society. It’s an incredibly rich, smart show.
That said, it lacks a bit of the momentum of season one as the writing often seems to revolve around these ideas without the same driving plot to drive them. Fortunately, when it feels like it’s starting to repeat itself, one of the performers will find a character trait to ground the philosophical meandering. Robbins and the rest of the silo crew are solid, but the season belongs to Ferguson and Zahn, who strike a perfect balance between the fascination of seeing another real human being and the paranoia and fear that has worked its way into every fiber of his being. Isolation makes you lonely but also destroys your communication skills and trust in humanity. Zahn and the authors understand that.
Apple TV has become one of those services crowded enough now that it can be difficult for even its best shows to break through the noise. When people tell me they’re considering a free trial—and I think everyone should, given the company’s overall batting average—I always encourage them to prioritize “Silo.” It’s not a show that can easily be cut into viral videos, and it’s not as flashy as some of their more high-profile offerings. Still, that’s what people always tell me they miss from Prestige TV’s heyday: Character-driven writing that doesn’t treat its audience like idiots.
If the first season felt like an allegory for how we all wanted to escape the nightmare of the pandemic, the second one poses an even scarier question that we will all have to answer with more urgency in the coming months: What now?
Six episodes are displayed for review. Premiere November 15Th.
