Warning: Deep spoilers for Silo’s season-one finale lie ahead.
Apple TV+’s postapocalyptic drama Silo, about 10,000 people living in a gigantic silo deep in the ground because the world outside is (maybe) poison, and also murder, dropped its whopper of a season finale today. It provides us with some clear answers — yes, we do learn what’s going on outside — while also setting up a host of questions for season two — because do we really know what’s going on outside?
In the finale episode, main protagonist and mechanical whiz kid turned unlikely sheriff Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson) attempts to show everyone in the Silo that they’re being lied to about what the outside looks like, but mostly fails. She eventually accepts a deal from the secret Big Bad of the season, Bernard the mayor (Tim Robbins), in which he promises no harm will come to her friends and family as long as she accepts her cleaning sentence, which up to this point means certain death. Oh, plus she learns what happened to her boyfriend George (Ferdinand Kingsley), who jumped off the railing to keep the hard drive with clues as to what is really going on in the Silo safe. It brings closure but is also devastating.
All in all, Jules has a pretty shitty last day in the Silo, but her story only gets wilder once she steps outside in the last five minutes of the episode. What she discovers moves the series into a whole new gear. But some major discoveries and reveals are happening within the Silo walls, too. So let’s take a look at the whole picture with a deep dive into five major moments from the finale, and what they might mean for the story that lies ahead.
1.
Juliette goes out to clean.
This is the big moment that changes the game. In a tragic turn of events, the finale reveals that, yes, the display is a lie — it’s just that we’ve been talking about the wrong display. To backtrack: The catalyst in Silo is, of course, Allison (Rashida Jones) and George finding that video of an old cleaning on the holy grail of a hard drive from before the rebellion. The video, you’ll remember, is purportedly (who knows the truth anymore!) from the POV of the woman sent to clean, and instead of the desolate land on all the displays within the Silo, the world outside is green and lush — there are even birds flying across the sky. Of course, they assume this means the displays within the Silo are fake to keep people inside when the outside world is safe and lovely. It’s clearly what Allison sees when she goes to clean and why she gives the signal to Holston (David Oyelowo). When Juliette is sent to clean, we actually see that this vibrant outside world is what Holston sees when he goes to clean, but perhaps you, too, noticed the birds flying by in the exact same pattern as the video on the hard drive and thought it was suspicious that once Holston takes off his helmet, we stay tight on his face as he dies next to his wife’s body. It’s very rude, to be honest. But it sets up a great mystery: What the hell is happening outside? When Juliette steps out to clean, we finally learn the truth, which is a doozy.
She, too, sees the thriving outdoors, but she notices those birds flying in the same pattern as on the video, and she realizes it’s the display on the helmet that is fake. Thanks to a fun little assist from Walker (Harriet Walter), Juliette has more time than anyone ever has to explore the outdoors, which means eventually that fake screen on her helmet disappears and she sees the hellscape that’s been on the big Silo screens all this time. Those displays are real. The world outside is a nuclear wasteland. But there’s a reason for the fake helmet screen: It’s an assurance that whoever is out there to clean won’t see the truth being kept secret before they die. The truth is that out in that wasteland are dozens and dozens of other Silos. And beyond those Silos buried in the ground? There’s a ravaged city skyline. Who knows how much oxygen Jules has in her suit, but let’s hope that it’s enough for her to get a few steps closer to the real truth. Or at least, go freak the hell out of her new Silo neighbors.
2.
Walker figures out the heat-tape situation!!
Heat tape is a main character. Who knew? I love this for heat tape. Toward the top of the list of what makes Silo great is how it pulls off this reveal by sprinkling seeds from the first episode and somehow never giving away the tape’s significance. Heat tape is hiding in plain sight! How many other shows have tried and failed at reveals like this? (So many!) The first time we see heat tape is when Allison is being suited up for her cleaning in the premiere. Of course, they wrap the special tape around her gloves and boots to help seal in her suit — they’re sending her out into what everyone believes (correctly, we now know) is a highly toxic environment; the tape is a part of the deal, it blends into the background. It only comes up again when we learn that one of the major reasons Bernard and Sims (Common) don’t like Juliette for sheriff is because she’s a thief — she stole IT’s heat tape from Supply to bring down to Mechanical when they ran out. This note about Juliette stealing heat tape comes up over and over again, and each time with extra details, including the fact that Walker typically makes her own heat tape for Mechanical and it’s much more effective than the standard heat tape. Sure, at one point, I was like, Man, these people are very serious about tape, but I never thought about the implications. It’s woven in so organically that it was easy to accept this as the development of character dynamics between Jules and authority figures. It’s just background on Juliette.
But then!! In the finale, Walker does think about the implications. It dawns on her that it makes zero sense for Judicial or the mayor to be so incensed about some rolls of heat tape. It is so nonsensical, in fact, that there must be a reason for it. The epiphany spurs Walker to finally leave her home after over 20 years (Harriet Walter is so freaking good in this episode) and go see her ex-wife Carla, who works in Supply, for help. The higher-ups were so upset by Juliette stealing the tape because they didn’t want her or anyone else down in Mechanical to figure out what Walker has just figured out: The standard heat tape is shitty so that toxins are guaranteed to get into the hazmat suit of anyone sent to clean. It’s shitty so those people will die before ever reaching the top of the hill. Walker has Carla switch out the tape assigned to Juliette’s suit with her vastly superior tape, and it allows her to go beyond the Silo. Tape hasn’t had a moment this big since the season-two finale of For All Mankind, and I couldn’t be more thrilled on its behalf.
3.
Juliette maybe turns everyone into a Flamekeeper?
Gloria’s speech to Juliette about the Flamekeepers in episode seven — “You are the last Flamekeeper now†— is emotionally stirring and integral to the series. While Jules doesn’t seem exactly thrilled to have the pressure of preserving the truth about civilization put on her, she should be happy to know that on her way out, she’s inadvertently lit a few fires of her own. (Okay, maybe a few quite advertently.) Jules may know the most, but when we cut to black in the finale, there are a whole lot of new people asking questions. Billings has seen the Georgia travel book, and even this man of protocols can’t help but save one page for himself before burning the rest. What happens to a by-the-book lawman when he learns the law is based on lies? Obviously, Patrick and Danny, who helped Jules upload the contents of the hard drive to the computer system, have some fun stories to share with people. And, of course, after watching Juliette survive her cleaning, Walk (and her ex-wife) knows that her hunch about the tape was right. Plus, there are all those people in Bernard’s Janitorial surveillance room who, despite his orders to “unsee†what they saw, uhhh, definitely saw the fake display screen Jules broadcast across the system. Bernard may think he has unlimited power, and making people close their eyes and pretend they didn’t notice they are clearly being lied to might be great as a metaphor, but practically? No one is unseeing what they just saw, baby. Just one of these accidental Flamekeepers would be able to complete the puzzle alone, but there are enough people out there with pieces of it that Bernard will have to make a hell of a lot of “adjustments†to quash whatever rebellion may be brewing. Flamekeepers, so hot right now.
4.
It turns out Sims was out of the loop, too.
And yet, if season two continues to follow the characters we’ve been hanging out with in season one, the one to watch will most certainly be Robert Sims. Paul Billings may be the protocol guy, but more than anyone, Sims seems to have really bought into preserving the Silo in the way the Founders saw fit. Unlike Billings, he’s willing to go to extremes to do it. When Sims is told to “unsee†what pops up on those screens, he might try to hide it, but you can see the confusion wash over his face. Add that strange incident with his inquiry as to what Bernard means when he says “she knows†during Juliette’s cleaning before he runs off, and, well, it seems like Sims might be poised more than anyone to start poking into what is really going on here. All this time, Sims believed he was in on the secrets of the Silo, and something tells me that he’s not going to love his realization that he’s actually in the dark about, well, most of it. And, more than anyone, Sims has the access and the power to get some answers. Will Sims flip on Bernard in season two? Will he be the key to helping the growing number of Flamekeepers rebel once more? It could be fun! For us!
5.
Bernard uses the 18 key and unlocks a whole lot of questions.
When it comes to Bernard — our reserved but strict head of IT turned secretly villainous mayor — the finale leaves us with more questions than answers. We already know he is the top dog in the Silo, that Judge Meadows is terrified of him, and that he uses Judicial as his secret police squad. He also clearly knows about the fake display and why it’s used — which means he knows about the other silos. Knowing that the number 18 was on the hard drive and Bernard’s key has the number 18 on it, I think we can safely assume that this Silo is No. 18 out of … well, who knows. A lot! It looked like a lot! When Bernard realizes that Jules knows the screen on her helmet is projecting that verdant visual and can see that she’ll cross over that hill with ease, he takes off. We see him use that 18 key to open a door to … well, we don’t know yet. Is he going to alert other Silo leaders? Does he even know other Silo leaders? Maybe I’m crazy, but could Bernard really be trying to protect the Silo? Does he know the real story of how the Silos came to be and what happened to the outside world, or is he only given as much info as needed by his bosses? Quick follow-up: Who are his bosses??
The reason I question Bernard having the full story on Silos and Silo-adjacent matters is one other important little moment in the finale: When he visits Juliette ahead of her cleaning and preaches to her about making “adjustments†(see also: murdering people) in order to stop the Silo from metaphorically (and probably literally) exploding, she unleashes a laundry list of questions as to why the truth needs to be kept from the people of the Silo, and in it, breezes by the “massive steel door at the bottom of the Silo†that George found. In this moment, Bernard’s look is … curious. Is he surprised that Juliette knows about that, or is he just surprised to hear about a giant door at the bottom of the Silo? Personally, I lean toward the latter, which means that Bernard doesn’t know as much as he thinks he does. “The Founders left us with many mysteries†sounds like a guy covering his ass. So maybe Sims won’t be the only one finally questioning what he believes to be true. Cue oppressively dramatic music and images of nautilus shells, please and thank you.