Silo S2E4: The Harmonium
To get back to the original silo (Silo 18, it turns out), Juliette needs to repair her hazmat suit. To repair the suit, she needs to build a different suit, to dive underwater in the flooded Silo 17, to find materials that have lain dormant since all but one of that silo’s population died trying to escape. And she needs a way to pump air down to herself, and while she’s extremely resourceful, even Juliette has her limits.
Solo tries his best to be helpful to Juliette, but after untold years with no human contact, he just can’t stop talking. He tries to describe the circus, and what an elephant is, which, to the uninitiated, sounds completely insane. He’s also read Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, which means either every silo’s secret vault for its secret ruler has a library, or Solo got especially lucky with his silo’s forbidden relics. (You can’t get that much enjoyment out of Silo 18’s Pez dispenser without any actual Pez.)
Back in 18, Knox is still trying to talk Shirl out of diving headlong into revolution, but it turns out it’s not out of any love for the ruling class. He’s just worried about how a revolution will go. He shows her a room in one of the caves under the silo with names scrawled on the wall — names he’s come to realize are people who died in previous rebellions. The rebellions started out in different parts of the silo, but in the end, they all ended up getting blamed on Mechanical, per the instructions in The Order, which mayor Holland is still doing his best to follow.
So instead of an armed revolution that could end in disaster, Knox suggests a small, in-person confrontation with the mayor, demanding to know the truth about the silo. But Shirl’s smart enough not to trust Holland. So she suggests another option: Judge Meadows.
As the figurehead in the silo’s power structure, Meadows had made it clear she’s only helping Holland in exchange for being let out of the silo. So she’s happy to meet with her constituents over Holland’s objections. Neither of them want a violent revolt either, but she’s skeptical that the tried-and-true “blame Mechanical” playbook is going to work for Holland and is hoping to find another option.
Holland may also pay a price for going to Meadows for advice that he never listens to — Sims is acutely aware that he’s been replaced as the mayor’s favorite, so he starts scheming to impeach the judge on the grounds of her (recently reformed) alcoholism, in the hopes of shifting Holland’s affections back to him, a plan that definitely won’t backfire down the line.
Solo does end up helping Juliette — he plays the harmonium organ, of the episode title, and points out that it has a bellows that pushes air through it. (Of course, he can’t give Juliette that key information without annoying and confusing her first.) By episode’s end, he’s a step closer to overcoming his distrust, and she’s a step closer to getting home. But they’re not there yet.
Stray thoughts:
• “Did you have any holidays?” “Freedom Day.” “What did that celebrate?” “Freedom, Solo.”
• Solo running his mouth to Juliette, who’s not one for conversation at the best of times, makes for a very fun dynamic.
• Meadows also hears a request from Lukas Kyle — Juliette’s stargazing friend who Meadows sentenced to work in the mines. But she’s entirely unsympathetic. At least, until she asks the guards to leave and asks him earnestly about the lights in the night sky. He outlines his theory that the world is round, and their view of the sky changes as the world rotates (clearly not common knowledge in the silo). Meadows reveals that he’s correct, and that the stars are made of flaming gas… and then sends him back to the mines. Even a little knowledge is a dangerous thing..
• Walker’s among the group that goes up from Mechanical to talk to the judge, and we get a nice scene where she regrets all the years she spent never leaving her workshop, afraid of the outside world
• As our folks from Mechanical head upstairs, Sheriff Billings heads down, to investigate Coop’s death and the firebomb from last episode. Judicial has sequestered the kid’s body — and the gunman’s, presumably having rubbed him out first.
• We won’t spoil what eventually happens between Holland and Meadows, but it’s a tremendous scene between Tim Robbins and Tanya Moodie.
