Welcome back to the world of Silo. The premiere picks up right where we left off, with Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson) stepping outside her underground home and discovering a barren wasteland, scarred by craters and other silo entrances similar to the one she just left.
In the first season of the sci-fi series, adapted from Hugh Howey's dystopian novels, we meet the last 10,000 survivors on Earth, living in a vast underground silo after an apocalyptic event made the surface unlivable. Anyone who ventured outside—or was forced out—would die within minutes, with their demise broadcast for everyone in the silo to witness.
However, as time went on, the inhabitants began to question whether the footage they were shown of the outside world was real or fabricated. If it was fake, what else were the authorities hiding? The truth was revealed in the season finale, when Juliette, an engineer turned sheriff, was exiled. It turned out that while the surface was indeed a toxic wasteland, the silo wasn’t the only one—there were others. Thanks to some resourceful thinking and a bit of tape, Juliette managed to survive outside.
The first episode follows Juliette as she approaches a nearby silo entrance which is strewn with corpses and the door is wide open. Inside, the space appears to be abandoned. It appears to be free of the environmental toxins that Juliette had been shielded from by her suit and helmet. Juliette investigates this new environment, interspersed with brief flashbacks to her childhood in the silo’s Down Deep. It was there that she met Shirley and was set on a path to become the chief engineer of Mechanical.
Juliette is surprised to learn she's not alone in her new silo. The only other person living there is Solo (Steve Zahn) who has locked himself in a room for safety. It’s there that Juliette finds out her silo is just one of many similar ones, most of which have fallen into chaos and ended with their inhabitants wiped out.
Back in her home silo, things are starting to spiral in a similar direction. The unpredictable mayor, Bernard, is working with the ambitious Judge Meadows and the strict security boss, Robert, to try and stamp out a growing rebellion. Meanwhile, Juliette is being turned into a symbol of hope by the people, a hero who shows that maybe, just maybe, it’s possible to leave the silo and start rebuilding the Earth.
For most of the season, Juliette spends her time lingering in the abandoned silo with only the eccentric Solo for company. Her isolation from the other characters and their storylines—along with the claustrophobic setting and the stagnation of her situation—turns out to be a major narrative misstep. Though the series depends on her as its central figure, keeping her on the sidelines for such a long stretch saps the show of the energy it needs to remain captivating.
Silo adds an intriguing layer to its inventive sci-fi by offering a thought-provoking reflection on how dangerous ideas can spread through a population like a deadly virus. It quickly becomes clear that the silos aren’t just survival havens designed to protect humanity from a ruined, uninhabitable world—they’re also elaborate psychological experiments. At least, in our ever-more dystopian world, we still have the freedom to step outside.
