Ryan Kirksey
The following recap contains spoilers for Silo S2E8, “The Book of Quinn” (written by Remi Aubuchon and directed by Amber Templemore)
When I truly love a television show, as I do Silo, it’s rare that I find myself truly disappointed with both the plot and character development of a single episode of the series. After years of thinking about, studying, and critically reviewing television, I have a small idea of how hard it must be to make it all work in terms of plot, character, pacing, and real-world constraints.
Undoubtedly it is very difficult to pace a mystery box science fiction show like Silo where you move the story along fast enough, but also have room to breathe and let the characters develop.
I have been disappointed with various aspects of the plot of Silo several times before. You just need to read what I have written about Season 2 or listen to our breakdowns on the podcast to know that I have, at times, been tremendously critical of the plot and pacing of the Silo 17 storyline, in particular, this season.
But even in times when I have lamented that I must watch Juliette complete yet another engineering science fair project, it has been accompanied by silo history exposition or peeling back the layers of the Solo onion to learn more about his past or his role. Even when I have been glass-half-empty about the show, I still recognize that half a glass is still much, much better than nothing when you’re thirsty for good television content.
That’s why I find myself wondering why I am so disappointed in Silo Season 2 Episode 8, “The Book of Quinn.” I am disappointed in the pacing and lack of revealed information when we finally learn what Salvador Quinn’s book is. I’m disappointed that the timing of what’s happening in Silo 17 doesn’t quite line up with the fast-moving pace of Silo 18, so we have to force Juliette to jump back into the water so she can heal her case of The Bends just so she can be injured again. And I’m mostly disappointed by the turncoat character development of Walker, who once seemed the staunchest ally of Mechanical and their mission.
Each of these deserves a full breakdown, so I will look at each section of this very full, dense eighth episode one at a time.
Silo 17 and Juliette’s Discovery
When we last left Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson) in Season 2 Episode 7, she had emerged from her deep dive to fix the water pump only to find that someone cut her air supply. Solo (Steve Zahn) was missing, and there were bloody weapons and trails strewn about.
I wondered at the end of that episode whether or not Solo’s warning to her about coming out of the water too fast (resulting in The Bends) would come to mean anything, and it certainly did. After Juliette is forced to explode up the surface because of lack of air, she becomes disoriented and stricken by pain.
She discovers traces of something horrific happening to Solo but can’t make herself do anything until she recovers from coming up too fast. Her solution to that problem is to basically stall 10 minutes of episode time by going back underwater and letting her body adjust so she can slowly come back out.
Perhaps these are the necessary steps to curing The Bends, I truly don’t know, but it just smelled like your classic “We don’t have enough plot for Silo 17 this episode, so we’re going to send Juliette back into the water for a while.” I suppose if the goal was to introduce the three young attackers at the end of the episode, the trade-off would have been Juliette creeping around looking for them throughout the silo during the episode. Pick your plot-filler device, I guess.
What is striking about the reveal of the three characters at the end of this episode is how young they are. Without any other information or having watched ahead, my guess would be that they are teenagers. That obviously raises a lot of questions.
These kids wouldn’t have been around during the Silo 17 rebellion if it was 20-25 years ago, right? If they weren’t, where did they come from? Did more people survive that rebellion and these are their children? Did these three come from another silo? Do they have some kind of vendetta against Solo? Where is Solo now?
With just two episodes left, there is whole other series of problems that have been dropped in Juliette’s lap if she wants to make it back to Silo 18 by the end of the season. I still think she will make it there by the end of Episode 10, but her odds of definitely returning probably dropped from -10000 to maybe -4000 after these characters show up.
Lukas Kyle Finds the Book of Quinn
New IT Shadow Lukas Kyle (Avi Nash) has a fancy blue ID badge given to him by Bernard (Tim Robbins), and boy does he love to use it. Tasked with using a book belonging to Salvador Quinn to break the code of his letter that Judge Meadows possessed, Lukas kicks a couple of Judicial jabronis out of her apartment and claims her books as his own.
Apparently exhausting not only The Wizard of Oz (which was Bernard’s guess), but a whole host of other books, Lukas decides to try and track down descendants of Salvador Quinn to see if they can shed any light on the subject. He finds someone named Terrance Penbrook, and tracks down his family to ask them questions.
His family are apparently fourth-generation wool-makers (yes, the same wool that is used to clean when people go outside, also the name of Hugh Howey’s first short story, Wool), and have basically disavowed the name Salvador Quinn because of his role in inciting a rebellion 140 years ago.
Lukas tries to tough-guy his way into more information, but Penbrook sees right through that and is all “Hey kid, slow your role.” Put in his place, Lukas scampers back to Bernard for a status report, where Bernard tells him that Quinn actually saved the silo many times over by destroying everything that gave silo residents a sense of what happened in the past, specifically that rebellions tended to happen about every 20 years. Quinn, in a weird way of thinking about it, is responsible for 140 years of peace, but now recent developments have threatened that.
Lukas takes this information back to Penbrook’s family and they confess Meadows had the same conversation with them many years ago, and that the book he must be looking for is Quinn’s copy of The Pact. Lukas locates it, but is only able to decode the following before we are forced to wait one more episode:
“If you’ve gotten this far, you already know the game is rigged.”
Apparently “The Book of Quinn” was always about just identifying what book of Quinn Lukas needed, and not anything about what is inside that book or what his code would tell us with that book.
Could it just be a case of a misleading episode title? Sure, but so much apparently seems to be riding on what is inside this letter, and I know I’m not alone in thinking this was going to be the episode that would finally reveal its secrets.
Martha Walker Betrays Mechanical
Speaking of secrets, there really is no second-guessing who has the biggest one coming out of this eighth episode. Walker (Harriet Walter) decides to enter into her Benedict Arnold era in this episode and I just can not understand this decision.
As they frequently do, the Shirley (Remnie Milner) and Knox (Shane McRae) team of rebels share their upcoming plans with Walker to get her insight and wisdom before they proceed. They want to rob Supply of resources since the farm level they procured is not providing enough of what they need.
Walker’s idea is that they should try to free Walker’s former flame Carla first. Walker’s justification is that Carla can give them access to Supply. How will that happen? I have no idea, but Walker is having a tough time seeing the forest for the Carla-shaped tree here and thinks their plan is ridiculous.
Using the connection gained when Walker accidentally turned her camera on S2E7, Bernard invites Walker to come to fix a broken water pump on Level 90. Shirley tells her it’s obviously a trap, but Walker basically says “Ya think? Well, I’ll risk it,” before she makes her way up, hoping to find a way to see Carla.
Bernard, who is waiting for her on 90, is happy to give her the chance to see a shackled, shriveled Carla, but only if Walker will start feeding information to Bernard about what’s happening in Mechanical so he can stay ahead of them. In addition to the Carla carrot, he also has a stick he can use. He will torture her relentlessly if Walker does not cooperate, so Walker’s stiff upper lip and alliance with Mechanical cracks.
We next see the raid on Supply by the Mechanical team, and Judicial security is there waiting for them. Several are taken prisoner, leaving Shirley to confide in Walker that there is a snitch somewhere around these parts and they need to find this person. Maybe start with the most recent person who has spent time in the Upper Levels, Shirley!
I fully and completely understand the motivations behind Walker’s decision to turn on her people to try and save Carla (as foolish as it may have been to believe Bernard). Love can make you do crazy things, and apparently the spark they once had has been ignited once again in Walker after the time spent leading this rebellion.
My problem, I think, is that they certainly tried to tell us as viewers about their love in the past couple of episodes, but they haven’t shown us. They haven’t made it important. Apart from one quiet moment in a prison cell 25 years after they separated, why should I be convinced that Walker feels so strongly about Carla that she would turn her back on Mechanical, on Juliette, on Dr. Nichols, and on the entire ethos on which she has built her life?
Walker is one of several characters and plot points that has put a slightly sour taste in my mouth as we fly into the last two episodes of the season. There seems to be so much to do in Silo 17 before Juliette can leave. We still don’t know Quinn’s message. Now, Walker and Bernard have a direct line with one another. And don’t forget, we have three new characters that we have to learn something about before the end of the season.
We will be back next week for the penultimate episode of the second season.
