Each week Joe and Terry discuss the most recent episodes of Apple TV’s Silo Season 2, alternating between our respective sites.

Catch up on Season 1: 1.01-1.02 / 1.03 / 1.04 / 1.05 / 1.06 / 1.07 / 1.08 / 1.09 / 1.10

Catch up on Season 2: 2.01 / 2.02

Spoilers follow for Silo S02E03 “Solo”: Bernard turns to Judge Meadows for help. Billings begins to wonder if he's being lied to. Juliette finally meets the man in the vault.

TERRY

It was about halfway through “Solo” when I realized who was playing the titular character, Joe. All we’d seen up to this point was his eyes – those so familiar eyes. And that voice. Then it hit me. Solo is played by Steve Zahn! And what a great casting choice. Speaking of great choices, this episode got me back on board because it managed to add some intrigue while nicely splitting the time between Jules in Silo 17 and the rest of Silo 18.

But backing up a bit. “Solo” begins where episode one left off, with Jules (Rebecca Ferguson) meeting the man behind the vault, who is quickly identified as Solo (Zahn). He says he’s named Solo because he’s alone and, between his discussions with Jules and Bernard (Tim Robbins)’s discussions with Judge Meadows (Tanya Moodie), we learn that he’s been there for a very long time. So long that he doesn’t initially believe that Jules is real.

Zahn plays Solo as skittish and untrustworthy; a feral cat who obviously wants to have companionship but has been on his own for so long he doesn’t know how. We don’t get to learn a whole lot about him, save for the fact he was Russell’s shadow. It’s here that the comparisons between Silos 18 and Silo 17 come into stark focus. Like Bernard, Russell belonged to IT. When everything went to hell through the rebellion, Russell told Solo to stay inside the vault and protect it. And so he did.

Silo 17’s version of Jules was a man named Ron Tucker: “the cleaner who didn’t clean.” He, much like Jules, left but he wrote “lies” in the dust on the camera – an act that led to the citizens of the silo to scrawl “LIES” on the screens in the cafeteria. Solo describes the day that everyone left as a nice day, full of smiling people…before “the dust” came back and killed everyone.

This story clicks in Jules’ head because she immediately sees the repercussions of leaving and the idea that the entirety of her silo watched her leave, unharmed. She must go back to Silo 18…but the problem is that she doesn’t have a suit and the one person who could help her has been alone for so long that he doesn’t trust that she’s real.

Back at Silo 18, violence is bubbling just beneath the surface. Judge Meadows tries to reason with Bernard that following The Order’s plan for the continued safety of the silo is not the move. She says that Jules was “singular” and that The Order didn’t account for how unique she was. It’s time to improvise.

What I found fascinating is that The Order plans for the rebellion by blaming Mechanical and uniting the rest of the silo against them. It makes me wonder how many times this has happened, Joe. How many cycles of unending violence has taken place in these silos? And to what purpose? As Judge Meadows tells Sheriff Billings (Chinaza Uche) when he confesses he has The Syndrome, humans weren’t meant to live underground. So what purpose do these silos have?

While I’ve enjoyed these first three episodes, Silo Season 2 is off to a somewhat rocky start. It makes sense that we would flip back and forth between the two silos and obviously have to split our time between Jules’ adventures and the growing rebellion, but, as a weekly show, the structure doesn’t completely work for me. I don’t find the episodes, so far, have enough meat on their bones, so to speak. Maybe this season would play better as a binge show, rather than a week-to-week…but it seems as if the writer’s strike threw a wrench into the meticulous planning of the first season.

At any rate, there’s more to unpack here, so I’ll throw it over to you, Joe. When Bernard starts to measure Judge Meadows for her own suit…did you think he was going to strangle her? What do you make of the secretive plotting that brings back Patrick Kennedy (Rick Gomez) and sends him and Cooper (Matt Gomez Hidaka) to an untimely demise? What about Judge Meadows and Sheriff Billings’ quiet investigation into whether Jules asked to go outside?

JOE

A lot going on here, but yeah, I’ll admit that the Silo 18 stuff captured me a bit more. As a character, Solo leaves something to be desired because he’s so wary and skittish; in a lot of ways he came off infantilized to me, as if he’s had a stunted upbringing that has left him with a child’s capacity to understand the world.

With that said, when he gave Jules the sandwich, I 100% thought that she was going to be poisoned. I’m still not convinced that he isn’t a murderer, after all there is that pointed moment when Jules asks him about the other “more recent” bodies that surround the vault and have clearly carved “We’re going to get in” within his limited eyeline.

But back to 18! Yes, the stuff with Bernard and Judge Meadows is intriguing. Everything that we know of how these silos operate (and Solo confirms there are 50!) suggests that they have always operated under a veil of secrecy and lies in order to maintain control and keep the population subservient.

And yet, considering Bernard knew exactly what to do according to The Order, the cycle of rebellion must be a regular thing (or at least regular enough that it occurs within someone’s lifetime ala Silo 17). Admittedly this is pretty commonplace for dystopias (example a: the original Matrix trilogy, which revealed Neo’s rebellion against the machines had failed countless times), but, yes, it begs the question why bother holding a population of 10K hostage within such a vice grip?

The reality is that if Jules doesn’t find a way to make a suit with Solo, there will be rebellion. It’s clear in the way that Shirley (Remmie Milner) refuses to back down from Knox (Shane McCrae) and Deputy Hank; it’s clear in Bernard’s efforts to stoke the fire by planting Jules’ two co-conspirators in the mix in order to rile things up; and especially now that Cooper was killed in a riot, there’s no walking things back.

And yet the most interesting aspect of all of this (or perhaps the piece I still truly don’t understand) is Bernard and Meadows’ relationship. Where you read murderous intent in the measuring sequence, I read flirtation, Terry. Bernard is a tough character to read - and Robbins is keeping a lot of the man’s interiority close to his chest - so perhaps this is all Machiavellian subterfuge and he’s simply using Meadows as a) a scapegoat in the event his plot is discovered, b) as a means to an ends that he can string along with lies until he no longer needs her, or c) someone he wants to sleep with, but doesn’t actually trust.

None of those options involve genuine feelings or partnership, which is why I did appreciate the moment that Meadows confronts Bernard about the lies surrounding Jules’ request to go outside. And obviously we’re meant to infer that her projected home videos, replete with children running and playing in the surf, are driving - at least in part - her desire to go outside and no longer “live underground” where humans weren’t meant to live. But a lot of this is speculative and I don’t truly understand the character’s motivations or actions.

Can we trust Judge Meadows? Is that why she sent Billings off on his investigation? Because it doesn’t seem like she has plans to reveal the truth to the rest of the silo; this is strictly for her own personal interests of getting out. But she also had to know that if he discovered anything, he’d be a liability…or a loose end. Will she react to such a threat as Bernard and Sims (Common) do with Patrick: abduct and threaten him, blackmail him, offer a treatment to wipe away his memories and ultimately send him to his death?

As we’ve learned, a lot of things lead to death in the silo. But asking questions and seeking the truth? Well that’s the number 1 way to wind up in an early grave.

Back to you, Terry, what did you think of the pregnancy subplot involving Dr. Nichols (Iain Glen)? Are you excited to see Jules and Solo try to work out an underwater breathing apparatus? And considering what happened to Patrick, should we be worried that Martha (Harriet Walter) and Carla (Clare Perkins) were recorded and are next on the hit list?

TERRY

The pregnancy subplot felt a little tacked on in order to keep a side character employed in th plot; that said, though, it was another inkling that people are going to stop listening to the rules. Dr. Nichols has been through a lot, both before the series started but also all throughout the first season. So it makes sense from a character perspective that he’d lose his subservience to The Order and the Founders. Mostly, it just felt like a good visual aid that the rebellion is brewing.

The moment the camera was subtly shown watching Martha and Clare, I audibly sighed because, yes…they are liabilities. And we have a lot of proof that Bernard and Sims don’t like liabilities…

Back with Jules and Solo, I’m curious to see if their underwater apparatus will give us one of Silo’s classic intense set pieces (think back to the generator or the trash chute). The potential excites me. And I guess we’ll find out more when we move back to Queer.Horror.Movies.com for Episode 4!