Caemeron Crain
The following recap contains spoilers for Silo S3E3, “A Dark Web” (written by Aric Avelino and directed by Michael Dinner)
Things in Silo 18 seem to be coming to a head rather quickly. Last week, Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson) eluded her chaperone, Deputy Jerry (Liam Akpan), and met with the Outsiders. Patrick Kennedy (Rick Gomez) speculated that Juliette’s vitamins were actually memory suppressors, and that led Juliette to spit out her dose that night.
Silo S3E3 picks up the following morning, with Juliette once again only pretending to take her pills before she takes Jerry up on his offer to give her some breathing room. She wants to walk the silo—alone, she says—but she’s really on the hunt for Lukas Kyle (Avi Nash), despite the fact that everyone seems to think Lukas is dead.
Juliette doesn’t remember Lukas, of course, but she knows a couple of things based on what others have told her: He was sent to the mines as punishment, but released in order to become Bernard’s (Tim Robbins) shadow. What Juliette doesn’t understand is why Bernard would do that, but she’s sharp enough to ultimately infer that it’s not because of something Lukas learned in the mines. They’re hell, so Juliette guesses that Lukas fled to the mines after he was last seen during the rebellion.
I have to take a moment to praise Rebecca Ferguson’s performance in Silo Season 3 so far, as she manages to embody the character we’ve come to know over the course of the first two seasons of the show, even though that character doesn’t know herself. Juliette is still brash and sharp as a tack, even if she’s piecing together her own history more than she’s remembering it. She seems softer, but only to the extent that she’s forgotten to be hard. It’s really something to behold.
Of course, the fact that Jerry doesn’t accompany Juliette on her trek through the silo does not mean that Camille (Alexandria Riley) isn’t keeping tabs on her. Camille has eyes and ears throughout the silo who report back to her about what Juliette is doing, and Camille herself makes the inference that Lukas might be in the mines. Worse, he might be trying to get to another silo.
“A Dark Web” is interspersed with conversations between Camille and the Algorithm, and while something about these scenes continues to feel too on the nose for me, it’s nice to see behind the curtain. We can easily imagine Bernard having similar conversations with the computer offscreen in Seasons 1 and 2, but letting us listen in also gives the writers the opportunity to provide us with crucial information.
Some things we could figure out for ourselves. The denizens of the silo are not allowed to know about the existence of other silos, and contact with another silo will trigger an immediate Safeguard, killing everyone. Juliette has been allowed to live on the condition of her memory loss, and because of the calming effect she’s had on the silo—her return basically ended the rebellion. If she were to regain her memory and tell others what she learned when she went outside, however, that would be no good. So, at the outset of S3E3, the Algorithm is encouraging Camille to release Vitamin D+ (the + stands for induced memory loss) into the silo’s water supply.
A series of scenes between Camille and her husband, Robert Sims (Common), serve to bring home the personal stakes related to this idea. Sims wants to have a family day, saying it’s important for their son to have memories of the three of them together, before Camille tells him about the plan to wipe everyone’s memory in order to save the silo. Neither of them are happy about it, but maybe it’s what needs to be done?
Part of what’s interesting here is how the Algorithm insists that it is Camille’s choice. If she wants to take the risk of the Safeguard being initiated, she’s free to do so. Is this a forced choice, like the mugger who puts a gun in your face and says, “Your money or your life” (where if you were to choose the money you’d sacrifice both), or more like a potential martyr being asked to recant lest they die?
Either way, it’s not fun. But, insofar as we are trying to figure out why the silos were created and so on, the demeanor of the Algorithm informs the questions I care about more: Why all of these protocols? Why the deception? Why the cleanings? And why the Safeguard, which would kill everyone in the silo? Just what is it intended to guard against?
All of this makes me wonder if the silo is some kind of elaborate social experiment (a theory I’m sure I floated some time during Season 1), and I continue to speculate that, while the immediate area outside of the silos is, indeed, toxic, the world at large is fine and they’re pumping something into that area in order to make it toxic. But who knows if that’s right. (People who’ve read the books, I guess; don’t tell me!)
Speaking of pumping something toxic into an area, this becomes Camille’s plan after she surmises that Lukas might be hiding in the mines. Call it rat control, but Lukas might be one of the rats, and who cares if some miners die?
This occurs as Juliette and Knox (Shane McRae) approach the mines to look for Lukas Kyle. Juliette gets a gas mask, but she uses it to help a random miner, who returns the favor by beating her up and stealing the mask. She collapses to the ground because she’s been poisoned and can’t breathe, until Lukas shows up to drag her to safety. He then runs and manages to get rescued by the Outsiders.
Juliette, however, is in bad shape. As the episode ends, she’s unconscious in her bed, and a limited number of people have approved access to her. One of them is Camille, of course, and given this whole series of events, the Algorithm has gone from suggesting that Camille memory-wipe the silo to suggesting that she kill Juliette to solve the problem. Camille agrees to do so.
I’m presuming that next week’s episode will not begin with Camille smothering Juliette to death with a pillow or otherwise bringing about her death. Despite the fact that Silo killed off the characters who seemed to be the protagonists through its first two episodes, it’s since made clear that Juliette is the main character in this story. She’s got that plot armor going for her.
What I’m curious about is how she will manage to survive this situation, and how quickly the story arc that depends on the threat of the Safeguard will resolve. My money would be on that taking all season, which leads me to think that Jules will be saved by the Outsiders and hide in the shadows for a bit, but we’ll see.
I’m also presuming that this story isn’t going to involve everyone in Silo 17 losing their memories. That could be interesting in its own right, but it would undermine the narrative’s ability to progress.
Among other things, the first three episodes of Silo Season 3 have seeded a mystery with regard to Orla Kent (Quelin Sepulveda). In S3E1, she told her boyfriend she had some suspicions about something. By S3E2, she had gone missing. Here, in S3E3, we learn that she not only took her position in Supply from Glenda Harwood, but that her boyfriend, Mike Davidson (Chris Fulton), used to be Glenda’s boyfriend. That’s messy!
Further, for some reason Orla was in the mines when the “rat fumigation” occurred. Sheriff Billings (Chinaza Uche) finds her dead. It’s clear that what happened to Orla will be important to the plot of Silo Season 3, and I have to imagine that its importance will extend beyond a love triangle and interdepartmental political disputes.
When First We Practice to Deceive
In the Before Times, Daniel (Ashley Zukerman) attends a funeral for Juan Alameda (Marcello Cruz), who was a part of Charlotte’s (Jessica Brown Findlay) battalion in Iran. After the service, he talks with Juan’s father, and Mr. Alameda (Joseph Balderrama) tells Daniel that there is probably a flight recording out in the world somewhere, since the team used outdated comms that couldn’t be encrypted.
(A grey-haired man lurks in the background—the same one who keeps lurking in the background—and I’m sure he’ll be significant at some point, but we haven’t met him yet.)
Helen (Jessica Henwick) gets fired from her job, likely because she’s been looking into Iran, but maybe because she hated her job and was half-assing it. It’s probably the first thing, though.
Helen makes contact with a guy who calls himself Steve (Ed Coleman), but who she’s supremely confident is not actually named Steve, who claims to have the flight recording. When Helen and Daniel arrive at his place, Steve demands to copy Daniel’s congressional badge as payment, and Daniel ultimately acquiesces. I’m not entirely sure what you can do with such a badge, but maybe Daniel plans to address that later.
Regardless, Daniel and Helen ultimately listen to the flight recording, which Steve won’t let them take with them, and find it to be horrific. Disappointingly, we don’t get to hear what they hear, but there’s a chance that it’s the same as what we heard (and saw) back in the season premiere. If there’s more to it, I’m sure we’ll find out later.
Daniel and Helen leave, but before they get home, Daniel insists that they go back and do whatever they have to do to get the recording. The American people deserve to know, and so on. However, when they get back to Steve’s place, they find it trashed. Steve is gone. His equipment is all smashed up, and the recording is nowhere to be found.
Who did this? Probably that grey-haired man I mentioned, but, again, we haven’t met him yet.
See you next week.
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