Silo<\/a><\/p>\nFarewell<\/p>\n
\n Season 3<\/p>\n
Episode 9\n <\/p>\n
\n Editor\u2019s Rating<\/p>\n
-12 stars<\/p>\n
\n Daniel and Helen tour the silo complex in the 21st-century timeline and take a little too long to realize something is off.
\n Photo: Apple TV\n <\/p>\n
The structure of this Silo season has been frustrating at times, with all the jumping back and forth between scenes from the 21st century and scenes in the silos. The choices of what to put in each episode \u2014 and when to cut from one timeline to another \u2014 have sometimes felt arbitrary, and have often disrupted the story\u2019s overall flow. Or at least that\u2019s been my take. And as Exhibit A for my point of view, I\u2019d like to present this week\u2019s episode, which features a clear division between the timelines. All of the silo scenes take up the first half-hour. All of the scenes in the past fill the second half-hour. Friends, this works so tremendously well that it almost makes me mad that the whole season wasn\u2019t built this way.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s especially dramatic when the episode retreats to Daniel and Helen\u2019s relatively sedate world right when Silo 18 seems on the verge of getting purged. The big storyline in the silos involves Bernard coming out of hiding to surrender himself to Camille. The Algorithm then runs the numbers and determines that the only way to save the silo is for Bernard to go out to clean. But Bernard\u2019s move is a gambit, meant to create a distraction while the Mechanical guerrillas set off dynamite charges in the mines, for reasons as yet unrevealed. It\u2019s a risky play, given that the Safeguard pipe remains uncapped. The whole silo seems in danger of a mass poisoning. And Camille is pissed.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll talk more about Bernard\u2019s sacrifice in a moment, because it\u2019s a powerful sequence and relevant to what happens at the end of the episode. But first we need to talk about Camille. Alexandria Riley\u2019s performance as Camille this season \u2014 coupled with the way the character has been written \u2014 has provided some of this summer\u2019s most crackling television. Camille\u2019s self-righteous anger, so understandable yet so misguided, has burned through the screen every week. Riley plays it with such fervency.<\/p>\n
Last week I wondered if maybe Camille was starting to doubt the Algorithm and considering working with Juliette. The answer? Nah. Camille only wants Juliette to help her manage Silo 18\u2019s transition into memory loss. She\u2019s convinced there\u2019s no way to stop the Algorithm from killing everybody without doing what that scary voice in the Vault says.<\/p>\n
But also? Camille bears grudges. She insists she\u2019s only doing what she must to protect her son. But that doesn\u2019t justify her venomously warning Robert, \u201cBefore long all Anthony will know about you is what I tell him.\u201d Nor does it explain the particular vitriol she has toward Juliette. In one of my favorite moments in this episode, Camille tries to put on a \u201cpoor me\u201d act in front of Juliette, asking her nemesis to consider how hard it\u2019s going to be when Camille\u2019s the only person in Silo 18 who still has her memories, and when Juliette (rightly) responds with a sarcastic \u201cawwww,\u201d Camille slams her hand on the table angrily.<\/p>\n
Even her decision to send Bernard out to clean feels more vindictive than logical. Yes, the Algorithm is telling her that using Bernard as a scapegoat will help unify the silo and tamp down the growing unrest. But Bernard is telling her to listen more closely to that mechanical voice\u2019s tone. It sounds testy, annoyed \u2014 as though it\u2019s not a computer program at all but instead a human pretending to be a computer program, making petty human judgements. Bernard even rasps accusingly at the Algorithm. \u201cIf you were actually omniscient, you wouldn\u2019t have led us here to begin with.\u201d<\/p>\n
Which brings us to the flashbacks, which this week \u2014 unexpectedly, thrillingly \u2014 end with the moment when Per Stensen\u2019s silo project abruptly went live. We pick up three years after Daniel and Helen huffily fled Stensen\u2019s compound. Those two are now a couple, with a baby on the way. When they get invited to the public unveiling of the silos, they make the trip to rural Georgia partly out of curiosity and partly because Daniel wants to check in with his sister Charlotte, who stayed on with the program.<\/p>\n
The contrast between Daniel\u2019s world and the Silo 18 world has been stark all season. In the 21st century, someone can make a casual remark about getting takeout chicken, and it\u2019s a reminder of all the simple things we take for granted in our lives \u2014 all the things that the people in Silo 18 don\u2019t even know they\u2019re missing. Similarly, when Daniel and Helen are walking the neatly manicured grounds of the silos, bemusedly watching everyone getting ready for the grand opening, it\u2019s remarkable to see the lovely painted markers everywhere, as though the silo complex were just some high-end modern gated community and not the post-apocalyptic bunker it will become.<\/p>\n
Yet even here signs of unease abound. Sure, it\u2019s all very upbeat and super-chill as Senator Rosalind Thurman practices her speech, and as tour guides explain how Stensen has invited \u201cat least two people from every country on Earth\u201d to live in the dirt. But Daniel also hears for the first time about The Pact, which his sister describes to him as \u201ca book of rules about how to live underground for 500 years without killing each other.\u201d What the hell?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also discomfiting \u2014 if more to us than to them \u2014 that Helen is assigned to tour Silo 18 while Daniel\u2019s expected to hang out with the bigwigs at Silo 1. (Y\u2019know, Silo 1\u2026 the place where 500 years later something calling itself \u201cThe Algorithm\u201d will be threatening to kill everyone in Silo 18.) After Daniel texts Charlotte the start of their usual dark sibling joke about their parents and gets a response that muffs the punchline, he suspects something\u2019s wrong. He and Helen each decide to bail, and they spot each other on the rims above their respective silo craters. But before they can start walking toward each other\u2026 BLAMMO. The sky lights up. A mushroom cloud blooms on the horizon. Everybody is ordered into the silos immediately \u2014 and, presumably, forever.<\/p>\n
Before the blinding nuclear flash, we can see that Helen is in the same spot outside Silo 18 where \u2014 just 30 minutes earlier in the episode and five centuries later in the timeline \u2014 Bernard succumbs to the poisoned air. He dies, leaving unanswered the one question he\u2019d most wanted to learn while Head of I.T.<\/p>\n
That question: \u201cWhy?\u201d Why were the silos built this way? Why are they run this way? We could take Stensen at face value, believing the world was bound to collapse and that he just wanted to keep humanity alive. But how does that square with what Victor tells Daniel about the origins of The Pact, which he reportedly co-wrote with Senator Thurman\u2019s daughter Anna? \u201cA.I. wrote most of it,\u201d Victor chuckles. \u201cWe just did some editing.\u201d<\/p>\n
So there\u2019s Bernard\u2019s \u201cwhy.\u201d The rules that governed him? That killed him? Afterthoughts. Just something a computer threw together while the humans\u2019 minds were elsewhere.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Hey, Peter Gabriel was invited to the silo opening! He was going to perform his very apt song \u201cHere Comes the Flood\u201d for the attendees, but then the world blew up. That\u2019s the bad news. The good news? It\u2019s now canonical that Peter Gabriel and his family survived the apocalypse in Silo 17!<\/p>\n
\u2022 Did you catch the voice of the Algorithm telling everyone to seek shelter in the nearest silo?<\/p>\n
\u2022 One sign that Camille is hopelessly hooked on the Algorithm\u2019s know-it-all certainty? When Bernard tells her that rumors are spreading about her brainwashing Juliette, she immediately turns to the screen and asks, \u201cIs that true?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 Bernard, ever the politician, still takes the time to say everyone\u2019s name as he\u2019s walking into Judicial to turn himself in. And Camille, likewise, makes sure to end even her most ominous silo-wide announcements with, \u201cAs always, be courteous and safe on the stairs.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 Farewell (the title of this episode!) to Bernard, a formidable villain for two Silo seasons and then an unlikely sympathetic figure in season three. He died knowing he was \u201chated by every man, woman, child and sanctioned pet.\u201d But he also died knowing that Juliet and her friends may force some real change in the silos. If the Algorithm\u2019s a machine, it didn\u2019t leave room in its calculations for Juliette, which means it\u2019s flawed. And if the Algorithm\u2019s a person? \u201cA person can be defeated.\u201d<\/p>\n
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