Spoilers: The Tantalizing End of 'Silo' Season 1

By Dustin Rowles | TV | June 30, 2023 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | June 30, 2023 |

Spoilers for Season 1 of Silo

A good multi-season mystery doles out just enough information to keep us from losing our patience, but not so much that it gives the story away. It’s a hard balance to strike, but with its first season finale, Silo successfully pulls it off. We know more, but there is still a lot we don’t yet know, and the characters in Silo have kept us invested in sticking around to learn the answers.

Here’s the season in a nutshell: The series is set in a giant, underground silo where 10,000 people live. They do not know why they live in the silo. They believe the air outside is deadly, but they do not understand why because information about life before the silo is illegal. “Artifacts” which might shed light on their past are also forbidden.

In the season premiere, Allison (Rashida Jones) discovers that the powers-that-be inside the silo control who can have children — we learn later in the season that the silo leaders are trying to breed curiosity out of its population. She also watches a video on a hard drive from the “before times,” which prompts Allison to ask to leave the silo. Anyone who asks can leave the silo, but they’re never allowed to return. After she leaves, the population inside the silo sees Allison keel over and die through a display monitor.

Soon thereafter, Allison’s husband, Sheriff Holston (David Oyelowo), also asks to leave the silo. The people inside also see him die on the display. He names Juliette Nichols (Rachel Ferguson) as his successor. She does not have the appropriate experience for the job, but she does exhibit curiosity. She uses that curiosity to investigate a series of deaths, including that of her boyfriend, George, who purportedly took his own life. The investigation ultimately leads Juliette to the same hard drive that prompted Allison and Holston to leave, and George — as we later discover — to kill himself to avoid being tortured into giving up the whereabouts of the hard drive.

The contents of the hard drive reveal what most of us expect: The display monitor showing the outside world is a lie. For breaking numerous rules, however, Juliette is ultimately forced to go outside by the silo’s mayor, Bernard Holland (Tim Robbins), and his right-hand henchman, Robert Sims (Common). Before she goes outside, she is given her sheriff’s star, which Martha Walker (Harriet Walter) has tinkered with so that it would interfere with the display.

Therefore, when Juliette leaves, the population inside the silo does not see her die because the sheriff’s star has altered the display. However, while Juliette does not die, without the altered display she sees that the lush, green field everyone inside believes to be outside the silo is actually a desolate wasteland and what appears to be scores of other underground silos.

It’s a tantalizing reveal, but it also leaves numerous questions unanswered, chief among them:

— Are those other silos inhabited?
— Why does everyone live in underground silos?
— If there are numerous silos, each must have its own mayor. Who do those mayors report to?
— Where are Allison and Sheriff Holston? Are the images of their corpses on the display also a lie? Or did they actually die? And is Juliette still alive because Supply also altered her suit to allow her to live?
— We see a cityscape beyond the silos. Do people live there? Are those in the silos part of a social experiment?
— Where will Juliette go? Will the second season center on Juliette? Or the people who remain in the silo? Or both?

Apple TV+ has renewed Silo for a second season. It is currently being filmed.