Silo S2E67: The Dive

Holland has made Lukas Kyle his shadow, and shows him (and us) the silo’s secret inner sanctum (the equivalent to the room Solo is holed up in over in Silo 17). We know from Solo’s ramblings that the vault contains forbidden books from the before times, food, and we assume some master control center for the silo. But there’s so much more. It’s a museum, with glass cases full of artwork and books comprising, according to Holland, the whole of human history, knowledge, and art, and even more stored digitally on a tablet that responds to voice commands. After seeing the rest of the silo run on DOS with 1980s-style monitors, it’s the equivalent of bringing a Depression-era farmer into the Apple Store.

Lukas is allowed to see this, because last week Holland officially made Kyle his shadow — his number two, who’s being groomed to replace him one day. It’s far more likely that he intends to use him in the short term and kill him after he’s no longer useful, as that’s how Holland usually operates. But Kyle’s a legitimately good choice for the job. He’s very smart, and he’s not afraid to push back when Holland contradicts him.

Holland needs him to decipher the code left by Salvador Quinn — an I.T. head who guided the silo through a previous rebellion, but Kyle’s bright enough to piece together that Quinn was writing about a problem potentially bigger than the ongoing rebellion, which is why Holland is so interested.

But he still has the current rebellion to worry about. Shirl is collecting paper from the lower level residents. Knox is collecting gunpowder. They use each to fire a rocket up to the top level that distributes leaflets all the way down. Clever folks, mechanical. Holland arrives on the scene amid a blizzard of slips of paper raining down on the silo. Once again, his desire to maintain order at all costs just leads to more chaos, and the slips of paper whipping around his head does a great job of underscoring that.

On each slip of paper, the central issue of the series thus far: 

I.T. lies to us. Mechanical wants THE TRUTH. What happened to Juliette? How did Meadows really die? What is I.T. hiding? Look and see.

Information is so tightly controlled in the silo, and the same dangerous questions that got Rashida Jones, the original sheriff, the previous mayor and so many others killed, and got Juliette exiled have now metastasized throughout the silo. There’s no way for Holland to put this back into the bottle, and no book is going to guide him through what to do next.

Knox and Shirl also have one more trick. They shut down power to the silo — not as a show of force, although it serves as that too — but to show the residents that, even when the rest of the silo is in darkness, I.T. has their own power source. A lot of angry residents who want to know what goes on in those well-lit rooms. And we’re not even at the opening credits yet.

Meanwhile back in silo 17, Solo’s blackmailing Juliette into fixing the flood in his silo before he’ll let her return to hers. He’s convinced (not unreasonably) that if he lets her go, she won’t come back, or won’t live long enough to. She stubbornly pushes back, as is her way, and confronts Solo again about not actually being 17’s I.T. shadow and stealing the identity from the real Solo. He breaks down, and acknowledges that he’s scared to make the dive because he’s a fuckup, and Juliette is competent. And that he needs her to save the silo — even if he’s the only one left in it — to make up for some failure of his in the past, although we don’t get any hint as to what that was.

Solo’s yet another bottomless mine of secrets, although the action in 17 feels a lot less urgent. It doesn’t actually matter that much why Solo’s the lone survivor, just that he is. And there isn’t a ton of suspense about the dive of the episode title — we’re pretty confident Juliette isn’t going to drown. And in general, Holland’s complex machinations and Knox and Shirley’s inspired plans are just a lot more interesting to watch. There’s always some new plot twist in the original silo, whereas the Juliette/Solo storyline is essentially the same thing every week. Solo’s paranoid and a little crazy, but he needs Juliette’s help; Juliette’s wary, but she needs Solo’s help; they work together and get her a bit closer home, but then there’s another thing they need to do next week. Rinse, repeat.

It’s a necessity of the story, and a lot has to happen in the original silo before Juliette can return to either set things right or ignite the powder keg. But her end of this season feels dragged out.

That being said, the actual dive of the title is terrific, mostly because of the haunting visuals of the abandoned, underwater silo. There are likely very few shots on this show that don’t involve CGI, but it never feels like it. We’re constantly reminded of the silos as a physical space, even if that physical space barely exists as a practical set. There’s also something very satisfying about watching a difficult job done well, and that’s been Juliette’s entire life to this point.

Stray thoughts:
We learn that the silos were built 352 years ago. Even Holland doesn’t know why or by whom (or claims not to, although given that that’s the central mystery that hangs over all of the series’ other mysteries, we’re going to assume even he’s in the dark.) 

• Holland interrogates Carla (who we find out is Walker’s ex-wife, as of 25 years ago, around the time Walker went into seclusion). She had refused to speak to his enforcer. “I’m ancient. I don’t have time for middlemen.” “Fair enough.”

• Judge Sims is still trying to get back into Holland’s good graces and get his old job back. His wife, playing Lady MacBeth, convinces him to let Holland come to him, so he has more power in the relationship. Common has underplayed virtually all of his dialogue on this show, to the point that Sims feels disengaged from everything happening around him. He finally gets angry here, and its some of the best work he’s done on the show. Except he has to do it opposite Tim Robbins, whose Holland has been building up a head of steam all episode, so Sims still seems too muted by comparison.

• As with Solo describing an elephant a few weeks ago, it’s impossible for him to warn Juliette about the bends without sounding insane. He also has to explain what swimming is.

• Hank and Sheriff Billings continue their annoyed-cop/exasperated-cop pairing, and continue to uncover more answers and more questions.

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