WHAT TO WATCH: SILO on AppleTV+

One of the best television shows I have seen in years.

Reader’s note: Major spoilers from episodes 1 & 2 of SILO below this image.

Friends, if you know me, you know that I LOVE a good dystopian drama. I am fascinated by TV shows that encourage us to question the nature of our reality and the origins and manipulative means by which the systems that oppress us were put into place.

Shows that encourage us to ask: “Why is this the way it is? Who made it that way? Who stands to benefit the most? Who first told me to think this way?”

Shows and books of this nature have never failed to captivate and enchant my imagination. By framing things through fictional means, it gives us the chance to explore and deconstruct from the safety of our homes.

Some of my favorite shows of this ilk include Westworld (Seasons 1 to 4, formerly on HBOmax, now on Tubi), Extrapolations (all episodes streaming now on Prime Video), The Hunger Games franchise (which is getting its prequel novel adapted to film, out this November!!), and now SILO, the stunning new series from AppleTV+, a faithful adaptation of Hugh Howey’s absorbing trilogy.

The series, which stars Rashida Jones, David Oyelowo, and Rebecca Ferguson, takes place in a military-style bunker underground called THE SILO, in which all the inhabitants of the known world dwell.

They exist under an iron-clad set of rules outlined in THE PACT, which decree that you must never, under any circumstances, ask or even think about going outside. Doing so will get you what you wish: they will open the doors, sending you out into a world full of death, disease, and toxic air that will kill you in minutes.

Allison, portrayed by Rashida Jones, is a skilled technologist who is called to assist in the recovery of deleted files on a hard drive that her techie friend, George, has found. Only one problem: relics of this kind are illegal, and engaging with or hiding a relic of the outside can get you on the fast track to a swift death. Despite the risk, Allison explores the disk, and she and George discover an entire online world full of schematics from the time before the hard drive was built.

Allison, who has recently won the fertility lottery with her husband, and has after her allotted year still not become pregnant, begins to unravel. What if, like what she’s found on the hard drive, her fertility journey has also been a lie? What else is the Judiciary keeping from her? From the citizens of the Silo?

She becomes convinced that not only are they lying about the Silo, but that they are lying about the outside world. She believes that the cavernous images they are shown from the viewing gallery, where the people of the Silo meander, depicting an outside world full of death and decay, are nothing more than an AI-generated image, an illusion, a trick, to keep people too scared to leave the Silo.

The descent into madness is swift, and after proclaiming that she wants to go outside publicly, in front of all the Silo to see, she is granted her wish and sentenced to her death.

Before she goes, she promises her husband this: if she comes back to clean, it means that she was right, that the world of the Silo is a lie, and that the outside world is safe after all.

"Cleaning" refers to the book's namesake, Wool, where all exiled citizens are asked to clean the camera lenses through which the citizenry of the Silo view the outside world. These lenses are only accessible from the outside and tend to grow gray, dingy, and rotten over the years between cleanings.

This request is optional, as once you are exiled you are permanently outside of the law, however, for some strange reason, almost all of the exiled come back to clean the lenses? WHY? What do they see? What do they wish to be made more clear to the Silo’s inhabitants?

Hundreds of people watch as Allison is sent out into the toxic world beyond, and to the shock of her husband, she turns around and wipes the lens, in the tradition of those who came before.

Does this mean the outside world is safe after all? What does her actions imply? Was Allison correct all along? Is everyone being lied to? I guess you will just have to watch to find out. ;-)

SILO IS NOW STREAMING ON APPLE TV+