Silo S2E6: Barricades

Once again, tensions are rising in the silo. Despite Mayor Holland’s machinations to restore order, Knox, Shirl, and Walker escaped after he framed them for murder, and the populace is furious — both that the supposed killers are at large, and that Holland’s cops are cutting off one half of the silo from the other.

To make things worse for Mechanical, someone in the down deep has been poisoning the food, and thanks to the blockade, no more can get through. “Only nine missed meals separate a functioning society from chaos,” Holland intones menacingly.

Knox, who’s been thus far preaching caution, reveals that he’s been preparing for this moment all along. A few episodes ago, he demanded that no one in the down deep make weapons. Turns out, he didn’t want anyone making weapons for anyone but him. He has friends who have been quietly putting together an arsenal.

All of this is lost on the public on the lower levels, who blame Knox and Shirl for the food embargo, and don’t care if they were framed for Judge Meadows’ murder or not. (People are apparently all too happy to choose fascism if the price of eggs goes up below ground too.) The mob are ready to hand Knox and Shirl over to Holland themselves, until Walker talks some sense into them. She shames them for lying down for the mayor, and reminds them that the powers that be will continue to mistreat them as long as they keep rolling over.

Then Knox himself cuts through the argument. The recycling department is also in the down deep, and a lot of people throw out perfectly good food. Especially when people deliberately want to get food to mechanical to help them.

Except that’s all part of Holland’s plan. It gives him an excuse to post guards at the garbage chutes and crack down even harder. (At a certain point, you have to wonder how many cops a 10,000-person silo can support, given he never seems to run out)

Which means both sides keep ratcheting up tensions and raising the stakes. Juliette (who’s almost entirely absent this week) has been desperate to get back to the silo to stop things from boiling over, but at this point, could she even make a difference? 

Nothing’s resolved this week, but the lower levels do get a win, as Knox and Shirl carry out a clever plan involving the barricades of the title. But it’s only one battle, in a war that’s only just starting.

Stray thoughts:
• As we noted last week, Camille SIms has only just started to get involved in silo politics, but she’s already proven to be a savvy operator. Holland confronts her about helping Knox and Shirl escape, but as they were escaping vigilantes, she was upholding due process and the law was on her side. The real question is, why did she step in to help, when the vigilantes were sent by her husband?

• We get an emotional scene of Holland apologizing to Judge Meadows’ corpse. At the bottom of it all, he wants to keep the silo running safely and smoothly. But his desire to do that at all costs is only making things worse and he’s tantalizingly close to  grasping that. The only thing worse than a remorseless monster is one who has a conscience and ignores it to do monstrous things anyway.

• Billings and Hank are still working together to find the real culprit behind the Judge’s murder, and they rope Juliette’s father in, to help treat their star witness. Silo is starting to line up its characters on both sides of the conflict.

• Holland finally names someone as his shadow. We guarantee it wasn’t who you were expecting.

• We don’t see Juliette and Solo until the final scene, but there’s enough going on in the original silo this week that cutting away would only break up the episode’s flow.

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