Critic’s Rating: 4 / 5.0
4
The Silo Season 1 finale left the audience hanging as Juliette Nichols departed the Silo and entered a decaying, colorless world of death and absence.
It was a surreal moment that left those who had never read Hugh Howey’s novels facing a year or more of questions and uncertainty. Only the best series are capable of such feats, and Silo’s first outing was more than up to the task.
Silo Season 2 Episode 1 kicks things off, not with Julie, but with unfamiliar faces at an unfamiliar time. It was a bit disconcerting at first — as if we had just skipped a season and entered the triumvirate.
Clearly, things are not going well for these novel characters, who speak in conspiratorial whispers amidst the darkness of the down-deep. Their resolution is no more or less.
A few moments later, Julie is awash in the dead and decaying corpses of thousands, and Season 2 is off to an interesting start.
The confident, stone-faced former sheriff is clearly afraid. It was not a new turn for Julie, but an unfamiliar one at least.
Throughout Season 1, the outside world was a place to fear but sealed away — an extrapolation, almost theoretical if not for the rare acts of “cleaning.”
The real danger lurks within. Now, there is no “within,” and the only thing lying between Julie and certain death is heat tape and a suit of questionable integrity. Julie’s fear and confusion are palpable and expectant.
This is how the vast majority of the episode plays out, with every frame dedicated to Julie’s plight. The characters and goings-on of her Silo remain silent and unseen.
This was the best route to take, especially after last season’s cliffhanger. Sure, there is a lot going on in Julie’s Silo. Still, it’s appropriate to spend the entire first episode completing her hazardous journey across a desolate landscape and into something new and unexpected.
The cinematography, Julie, and the surrounding set pieces sustain a constant feeling of tension and near-death without ever abandoning the overwhelming curiosity of what has become of this world and why.
The camera stays close to the characters, drawing back during specific scenarios to reveal the massive structures surrounding them and conveying their smallness amongst these megalithic and mysterious structures we know so little about.
The ever-present darkness characterizes the feelings of despondency and desperation. It’s not so much Julie’s journey that darkens the heart, but the world where she lives and fights to survive.
As an avid book reader, I tackled the Wool, Shift, and Dust books long ago, but the series brought those feelings back as if I closed the cover on the first book yesterday.
Julie’s ordeal is harrowing, and her future prospects are bleak. It’s hard to imagine returning to her own Silo, where certain death at the hands of Bernie and crew awaits her.
It’s even harder to imagine how she’ll survive in a world where a single breath outside of her helmet is a giant question mark. Rebecca Ferguson tackles Julie’s impasse with zeal and the appropriate modicum of fear and anxiety bubbling just beneath the surface.
The derelict silo Julie discovers is a character as well, telling the story of the silo she just left, or at least a possible version of it. Something clearly went wrong here, and the results are in piles outside, throughout the entryway, and jamming the entrance.
The darkness and disrepair set the stage for the solemnity of Julie’s situation and those she left behind. Even so, there are a few bewildering observations in this new yet ancient silo. There are lights. Julie hears music. There are strange sounds emanating from within.
This cold place of death and aged despair may yet hold life. The impact of such a discovery will reverberate throughout the remainder of the season.
It’s easy to get caught up in the mystery and awe of it all. However, this is Julie’s Cast Away, and most of the first episode is spent in silence, without the need for dialogue.
The lone exception is the flashback scenes, which take us back to Julie’s childhood and her first foray into the down deep. At first, it seems as if these scenes are a juxtaposition — contrasting the current state of Julie’s current silo location to her old one.
Unfortunately, it adds little value to her current situation and robs us of the ever-present feelings of awe, discovery, and danger. Flashback scenes are always dangerous to overutilize.
While they don’t ruin the episode, they feel misplaced and unnecessary, re-establishing relationships already established, while the terrors of the world and Julie’s passage through them are constantly interrupted.
It’s one thing to use flashbacks as a character-building device, but Silo had an entire season to create the Julie Nichols we know and fear for. It’s been over a year since Apple TV+ left us hanging, and Julie’s childhood is not what the audience was waiting for.
Regardless of the intrusion factor, the flashback scenes are otherwise well-done and well-acted. There’s little in the way of complaints where the acting on Silo is concerned, even when utilizing kids, a notoriously difficult group to work with for obvious reasons.
Back in the present, Julie’s exploration process is slow and methodical. It’s not until near the end of the episode that she constructs a sound-enough bridge to cross from one side of the silo to the other.
Granted, in a massive, hollow tomb, I can’t blame her for taking things slow and cautious. There are some genuinely surprising moments, some of which are spooky and resonating, and enough action to keep things moving along at a more or less enjoyable pace.
It’s difficult not to compare Apple TV+’s Silo with the book version, known as Wool. However, the books were well beyond this point, which makes the show feel like more of a crawl: an entertaining crawl, but a crawl all the same.
While Silo Season 2 Episode 1 is a slow start, it does the job, relieving the sense of disquietude the Season 1 Finale left us with. For all of Julie’s effort, the final revelation of this episode seemed surprising but small.
For now, we’ll have to satisfy ourselves with Julie’s discovery and wait until the next episode to possibly get a glimpse of those back in the living silo.
The plot moves ever onward, and here’s to hoping it moves just a little faster in the future.
Did Silo Season 1 meet the enormous expectations set by Silo Season 1?
Share your thoughts in the comments, and be sure to grade the premiere below.
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