From the very first episode of the Apple TV sci-fi show Silo, everyone had the same questions. Set hundreds of years in the future, the show follows people living in mile-deep silos built into the ground. And so, we all wondered things like: Who built the silos? Why did they build him? And why is it so important for everyone to stay inside? Season three of the show, which premieres on July 3, finally begins to answer those questions in some very exciting and surprising ways. It also answers many of the new questions raised by the admittedly disappointing second season. The only problem is that it takes its sweet time to do both.
Apple provided io9 with all 10 episodes of Silo season three, which runs from July 3 through the beginning of September, and don’t worry, we won’t spoil anything specifically. But we will talk about the season generally, and if you want to know absolutely nothing, just know season three is much better than season two. Intrigue, suspense, shocks, everything you loved about the first season is back again. There’s a lot more happening this time around, though, and so the season, ultimately, demands a good deal of patience.
Silo season one ended with Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson) getting out of the silo. Season two saw her arrive at another silo and, after many twists and turns, somehow return to her first silo. It also teased us by jumping back in time to the present day and introducing Daniel (Ashley Zukerman) and Helen (Jessica Henwick), a congressman and a journalist who seemingly had zero connection to any of this, making us wonder why the heck we just saw them in the first place.
Season three really focuses on those two big questions: What happens once Juliette got back to her silo, and who the hell are Daniel and Helen? However, the biggest flaw of the season is that those questions don’t begin to get answered in any meaningful way until almost halfway through the season.
Silo season three begins months after those events. Juliette is somehow now the mayor of her silo in one story, and in the other, Daniel and Helen investigate a military mishap involving Daniel’s sister (Jessica Brown Findlay). They’re both interesting plotlines in their own right, but you can’t help but feel some frustration that neither is tackling those obviously crucial questions. Eventually, you realize it’s because Silo season three has bigger aspirations, and it needs several episodes to set up a totally new, crucial storyline. That storyline, which deals with memory, is intriguing and important, but pales in comparison to those other, bigger cliffhangers, at least at the start.
And so for the first few episodes of the season, the show draws you in but leaves you wanting more. It’s almost hard to fathom that it could so expertly avoid paying off those season two cliffhangers we all waited so long to see. Then, it starts to happen. And for the second half of the season, Silo returns to its season one glory, giving us action, intensity, and mystery in equal doses. With previous antagonists such as Sims (Common) and Bernard (Tim Robbins) no longer a problem, we’re now presented with a new villain, Sims’ wife, Camille (Alexandria Riley). And Camille truly steals the entire season. She’s torn between the love of her family and duty to the silo, and it’s incredibly fun to watch.
Juliette remains the focus of the show, though, and once she wraps up that whole memory thing, she’s back to her kick-ass heroic ways. She also reteams with several of your favorite supporting characters from the previous season, such as Knox (Shane McRae) and Shirley (Remmie Milner), to put together the pieces of the puzzle she began to solve in the other silo last season. That puts them in direct opposition with Camille, and there are plenty of fireworks to go around.
Something that can be a little off-putting, though, is that all of that is constantly intercut with Daniel and Helen’s story. And we do mean constantly. The whole season is a back-and-forth between their story in the “before times” and Juliette’s story in the present. It mostly works, but can often feel a little disjointed. But don’t fret. While Daniel and Helen’s story is definitely paced a little more slowly, it ends with payoffs that are the most fascinating and exciting reveals of the season by far. In Silo, you can trust.
That’s kind of the blueprint for the entire season, too. At nearly all times, the show feels as if it’s trying to avoid providing answers. There are almost constant roadblocks set in the way of the main narrative, delaying those moments as long as possible. It gets more than a little annoying, but once things do come together, it’s well worth the wait. The final two episodes in particular are kind of mind-blowing, and, having seen them, the fourth and final season can’t arrive soon enough.
If you loved the first season of Silo but didn’t think the second season measured up, come back for season three. It takes its time but, ultimately, is just as intriguing, and even more revealing, than that excellent first season.
Silo season three debuts on July 3. It then continues with new episodes each Friday, leading to the finale on September 4. We’ll have more when we can dive into some of those massive spoilers.
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