Silo on Apple TV+ is a really good science fiction mystery that answers most of the big questions by the end of season one.

I finished up Silo that was on Apple TV+. It honestly is some of the best science fiction on television right now. I get excited about it in the same way that I felt looking forward to Expanse seasons when it was still going on Amazon. The production values are really high, and it's been greenlit for a season two, which makes me happy. It got me reinterested in reading the Wool series of novels. I recently learned about them, because of my interest in the show. I've no doubt that the brilliance of the series has a lot to do with Hugh Howey's obvious genius/talent in just writing good stuff. I think I might wait until after the whole series has been aired though, as I've read online that the adaptation of the television show holds pretty close to the book. In other words, if I go and read the book, then I'm going to spoil the whole plot. Silo is at its core a mystery. And I think it would take a lot of the punch out of the story if I read the books and then know how it all ends.

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So, how did the first season go? The main character in this show is Juliette, who is played by Rebecca Ferguson. We actually don't even get to meet Juliette until the end of the first episode, when we see her at work at the bottom of the Silo trying to repair the generator that keeps electricity flowing. Without this generator, everything would basically shut down and pretty much, everyone living in the Silo would end up dead. It would be an awful circumstance were it allowed to happen.

Then over the course of the remainder of season one, events unfold. There's a huge machine that probably dug the silos located in its own chamber that few people in the Silos actually know about. And when I say, "huge" I really mean that this thing is "colossal." Like, it would be the size of a Star Destroyer in Star Wars if it were filmed in that universe. At the bottom of this pit that holds the digger there is supposedly a door that a man named George found (he's dead at about episode two, and his death spurs Juliette to do a lot of things to uncover the facts around his death). But we are never told where the door leads. There's also the problem that the bottom of it is filled with water, which is pretty intimidating if you breathe air. 

There's also an ancient hard drive making the rounds in the Silo that contains (among its many files) a view of the outside world that doesn't match anything that they see through their big screen in the cafeteria, which looks out on a pit with a dead tree and a bunch of dead bodies scattered around in a landscape that is desolate of all life. The alternate view of the outside world is one with a blue sky, green grass, flowers in bloom, a tree that is vibrant and healthy, and birds are flying in the distance. You don't really know which one is real until the very end of season one, but you suspect that the "green view" is the real view and that everyone in the Silo is being lied to because of some kind of Machiavellian need to rule over others. It plays very well into human nature, due mostly to the fact that every single one of us has interacted with people who crave power. I myself have never craved power, but I had a friend who admitted to me point blank that it was all he even cared about, and that he was frustrated that he failed to achieve the kinds of power that he desired in life. In the years that followed, I tried to understand that feeling, but I never could. It just seemed so pointless (and it still seems pointless) unless you just want to abuse people (which seems like a mental illness to me if I'm right).

In episode after episode we are slowly fed facts. Judicial has a few members that actually run everything in a secret room labeled "Janitorial" that is filled with screens that monitor all things in the Silo. You find out that it is a complete surveillance state, with cameras behind mirrors in people's homes, there are boogey men that murder people who know too much, institutionalized gaslighting, and doctors who don't remove birth control from women who are greenlit to have a child because they don't actually want that person to reproduce but don't have the guts to tell them. I mean...it's a dystopia yes...but it's just people being at their worst most of the time. It would be a horrible situation to live in, and I think knowing all that we know by the end, I'd prefer to "go out and clean."

By the season finale, Silo actually does a good job at answering most of the questions I had. Juliette does eventually get rounded up after she becomes extremely problematic for the boogey men/shadow government who decide that she needs to go out and clean. However, she has enough friends and enough acumen and skill that they are forced to broker a deal with her and reveal their hand. They show her a video of George actually choosing to commit suicide by jumping from a bridge. So he wasn't murdered. However, he chose suicide because he was just being led somewhere to be tortured until he revealed the location of the troublesome hard drive with all of the damning files and footage on it. Juliette also has a tinkerer friend named "Walk" that manages to replace the heat tape with her own homebrew heat tape that Judicial uses to seal suits with for those people forced to "go out and clean," which is a death sentence since you aren't allowed back into the Silo. The heat tape that Judicial uses to seal those suits allowed lots of toxins into the suit, which slowly killed the person wearing it. We are to assume that this is intentional. Somehow, I missed a detail that might have alluded to someone figuring that out. But they did, and it ends up saving Juliette's life when she walks out to clean.

And yes, that happens at the end of the season finale. Juliette walks out to clean with the special wool they put in a pocket, and she sees this beautiful green world. Now, this ends up being a lie, and she figures that out pretty quickly, because the footage is identical to the footage on the hard drive. In other words, she recognizes it all as a gif or some kind of video (probably helped by the fact that a dead George left a "video" for her to view that then explained what a "video" was). Juliette also refuses to clean, which is something no one has ever done. The reasoning that Judicial has for the fake green world shown on the inside of the visor/helmet of the vac suit that they wear when they go outside is that if the person sees a green and gorgeous world, then they will be compelled to clean the lens so that those inside will "see the truth."

Juliette manages to break the feed to reveal the real world through her visor. Because she has good heat tape keeping the toxins out, she doesn't die. And we see her walk up to the rim of the ridge, stand there a moment, and disappear, leaving everyone else watching inside gasping. I mean...no one has ever done this. And then the camera pans out on Juliette walking through a post apocalyptic landscape where there's circular ridges everywhere, indicating that there may be dozens if not hundreds of other "silos" where people live. It's a pretty incredible reveal, and I'm super excited to see where it leads. However, I've no idea how Juliette is going to survive when her air runs out, or when she needs food or water. This is a cliffhanger for sure, and season two can't get here soon enough. However, because of the writers strike, it may be 2025 before I see a follow-up to this series. At least, I hope so. It could be 2026. Ah well, the writer's strike is important, and I hope that it ends well for everyone involved.

Anyway, if you have Apple TV+, Silo is definitely worth your time unless of course all of the above spoilers have ruined the show for you. If that's the case, I apologize. But, I just wanted to talk about it.