Caemeron Crain
The following recap contains spoilers for Silo S1E4, “Truth” (written by Remi Aubuchon and directed by David Semel)
I mentioned last week that part of what drew me to Silo is the fact that Graham Yost is credited as the show’s creator. I’m a huge fan of Boomtown, and I would happily go on at length about the ingenuity of its first season’s structure and the crime against television that was its abbreviated second season (seriously, don’t watch those episodes; pretend they don’t exist).
So I hate to be leveling a criticism against Silo in terms of its narrative form, but I do think the risk the show took in changing protagonists in Episode 2 failed to work in a compelling way. Cards on the table, I did not enjoy Episode 3 and thought about giving up on the show, throwing the words I’d written on it in the virtual trashcan, and moving on with my life.
But thankfully, Silo S1E4 (“Truth”) finally does some of the character work I’ve been waiting for with our friend Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson). It’s not earth-shattering or profound, but the series of vignettes showing the young Juliette (Amelie Child-Villiers) deciding to leave her father Jorah Mormont (Iain Glen) to join Mechanical did more to make her feel like a real person than anything in the preceding three episodes of Silo, and I sorely needed that. I actually sort of care what happens to her now.
As expected, Episode 4 moves the story in the direction of an investigation of the death of Mayor Jahns (Geraldine James). Marnes (Will Patton) is convinced it was murder and spends the bulk of the hour roughing up lowlifes about it. Of course, I suspect Judicial, and I wonder if Marnes does too after Sims (Common) pays him a visit trying to replace Juliette as Sheriff. Or maybe once Marnes is attacked and has his own gun pointed in his face that will do the trick? Presuming he lives, that is. Silo S1E4 leaves us there.
Juliette tries to make Marnes an ally by offering to help him investigate Ruth’s death if he helps her look into what happened to George (Ferdinand Kingsley). I think that’s where this story is going, though Juliette and Marnes aren’t quite buddy cops yet. She’s shown him Holston’s (David Oyelowo) badge with TRUTH carved into the back, though we have to wonder if Holston really discovered the truth since we don’t know whether he lived or died.
Regardless, Juliette manages to find George’s file as the episode comes to a close. Holston hid it in the vent of his office, tied to a bolt that was clanging around. I’m still wondering about the note that he left about doubling the flowers in front of the mirror. I’m not quite sure if I missed something about that or if Juliette hasn’t figured it out yet. I think it’s the latter.
Juliette meets a guy named Lukas (Avi Nash), who seems to want to spend as much time as possible looking out the cafeteria window. Maybe he noticed how it glitched when the power was cut and is hoping for another glimpse of what it’s really like outside, wondering if what he saw was a figment of his imagination.
Presumably the play he references as the source of Juliette’s name is Romeo and Juliet. We’ve been told that suicide is considered a serious offense in the silo, so it would make sense that they don’t perform that one so much. I wonder what plays they do perform.
More than anything, though, this discussion of Juliette’s name gets me thinking about her parents. Her father, Pete, is a doctor, though indications are that her mother was from down deep. How did they get together? I guess there is something of a Montague and Capulet tinge to their difference in background, so maybe that explains why they gave their daughter this uncommon name, but were they taking a risk?
Lukas asks if he could get in trouble for what he’s said, and Juliette doesn’t know. Neither do I! Silo still has some work to do in fleshing out its world.
I also wonder about the details of what happened to Juliette’s mother and brother. We know they died, and we’ve seen the aftermath for her, but one thing that is apparent through four episodes of this series is that we shouldn’t take anything at face value.
It’s the overarching mystery that I’m most interested in with Silo, and S1E4 has restored my faith that we’ll be exploring those questions as we move forward. I’m also intrigued by the power structure of the silo and would like more details. Bernard (Tim Robbins) becomes the mayor pro tem because he is the head of IT, which seems noteworthy. I struggle to imagine that the head of IT is elected by the people, though I suppose that’s possible.
“Truth” doesn’t give us the truth so much as a continued promise of it. I wonder when we’ll get there and move to the follow-up question: Is the silo, with all of its rules and deceptions, justified?
