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Dystopias continue to be a popular sci-fi subgenre, despite how much the real world itself feels more and more like it’s pulled from the page or screen of one of these stories. Maybe it’s because we see ourselves in these characters more than we used to, or relate to their struggles more deeply. Or maybe it’s because, despite often insurmountable odds, they find a way to hold on to hope.
Based on the book Wool and its sequels by Hugh Howey, the Apple TV+ series Silo follows the last surviving vestiges of humanity, relegated to living in massive underground silos because the outside world has become too toxic. Asking to go outside, or, really, asking anything about the world before, is forbidden. Anyone who does is given their request and sent out to clean the sensors that show the rest of the silo the desolate wasteland that surrounds them. For everyone who has ventured out to clean thus far, it has been a death sentence.
Season 2 begins right where we left off, with Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson) having been sent out to clean by her silo’s leader, Bernard (Tim Robbins), making it further into the outside world than anyone before her ever has and stumbling upon a silo that appears to have been long abandoned. But what she doesn’t realize is that in doing so, she becomes a symbol of hope to the people she’s left behind, inspiring them to ask questions about their existence and the lies that have been told to them.
While Juliette fights to survive in Silo 17, a rebellion starts brewing in Silo 18. Juliette’s friends on the mechanical level see her survival as proof that the higher-ups have been lying to the people and demand that the truth be spread.
“You get that sense that things are a little different down there, and I think that they are sort of a persecuted class and that, historically, we find out they’ve always been blamed for the rebellions, even if they had nothing to do with it,” showrunner Graham Yost says of why mechanical feels different from the rest of the Silo. “They’ve got people that are trying to divide them and trying to divide the Silo, and their answer is, hold together.”
One of those people looking to sow division in the name of returning order is the leader of Silo 18. “This is the tragedy of someone like Bernard,” Tim Robbins says of his character. “We see these people throughout history, where they feel that in order to achieve what they believe is best for society, they have to disobey the laws of society or basic human decency.”
Just like in the real world, there are so many people this season that truly believe they are fighting for the good of the Silo, for the good of their fellow man. We’ll just have to see if their hope for a better future comes to pass, or if the line between order and oppression continues to blur.
New episodes of Silo season 2 premiere Fridays on Apple TV+, culminating with the final on January 17, 2025.
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