Silo S2E9: The Safeguard
We open with a flashback that reveals that the teenagers-with-medieval-weapons who accosted Juliette last week have been watching her since the moment she entered Silo 17. They don’t know what to make of her, and disagree on what to do with her — one had previously tried to kill her, another saved her, all without her realizing anyone was there. They’ve been able to take care of themselves in the aftermath of the silo’s collapse, and we spend a little time getting to know the five of them.
Audrey, who shot Juliette with an arrow, is the leader of the group, and is intent on killing Solo, who they only know as “The Killer”. Her boyfriend Rick is a little more cautious (he’s the one who saved Juliette earlier). There’s also a younger teenage girl, Eater, a boy of about 8 whose name we don’t get, and Audrey and Rick’s baby.
Their ongoing debate on what to do about Juliette brings them up to the events of last week’s cliffhanger. While Solo’s feeding Juliette air for her deep-silo dive, they ambush him and shoot him with an arrow. While last week they told Juliette he was dead, they’re in fact keeping him alive because they want access to the food he has in the vault. Juliette wants her hazmat suit, which he’s also keeping in the vault. So she grudgingly agrees to get them into the vault in exchange for keeping Solo alive.
Eater goes with her to help, only after Audrey loudly announces they don’t care what happens to her. Feels like a strategic blunder on Audrey’s part.
As they rummage through papers in the hopes of finding the door code, Eater tells Juliette her story. Her parents are the bodies outside Solo’s vault. Her mom was sick, and asked Audrey and Rick to look after her; they died trying to get into the vault to get food. Audrey calls her Eater because all she sees her as is another mouth to feed.
Without beating the audience over the head with it, our tiny Silo 17 community gives us a microcosm of Silo 18. Audrey, like Holland and Judicial, just wants to punish, and in doing so drives people away. (To underscore the point, we get a scene of Holland’s former right hand Sims, debating with his wife whether to switch sides.) Solo, like most of the other silo’s population, is too traumatized to trust anyone. And in the middle is Juliette, who manages to make all sides see reason. It’s a trick she’s going to have to pull again on a much larger scale once she’s able to make it back home.
Meanwhile, back in Silo 18, Lukas uncovers what, to him, is a major revelation — there are other silos besides theirs. But Holland isn’t impressed. He tells Lukas there are 51 in total, and he knows Juliette made it to one of the others. But he knows that one is “no longer functional,” and doubts Juliette is still alive.
So Lukas keeps digging and finds something bigger. We see mention of the tunnel at the bottom of the silo, which he previously found on a map. And mention of “the safeguard” of the episode title. But there’s something else. Something big enough for him to give Salvador Quinn’s book to his mother for safe keeping, after giving her a speech about how he was too cowardly to help Juliette, and this time he isn’t going to make the same mistake.
Whatever that is, it sends him into the down deep for answers. The early part of the season gave us a lot of machinations by Holland and erratic behavior from Solo that helped keep the tension going, but ultimately just circled back to the status quo. But the show can move when it wants to. Lukas has questions; five minutes later he’s through the barricade and below the lowest level talking to Shirl.
It’s another great use of the silo as a physical space. People cross metaphorical battle lines when they cross the barrier, and Lukas literally delves deeper into the silo’s secrets. What he finds in the episode’s final moments is something that hasn’t even been hinted at so far — an answer to a question that no one even asked, which, like most of the silo’s answers, just leads to many more questions.
Stray thoughts:
• Holland fires Sheriff Billings in absentia and now has all the deputies reporting to him directly, in a further attempt to crack down. He’s also blackmailing Walker into giving him information about the rebels, by threatening the life of her ex-wife.
• Patrick Kennedy now believes, as Rashida Jones said in the premiere, “the display is a lie.” and is trying to convince the Billingses. He’s of course correct about the residents being lied to, but if the idea that the outside is safe spreads far enough, Silo 18 could end up suffering 17’s fate. Next week’s the season finale, so we assume those will end up being the stakes.
