Each week Joe and Terry discuss Apple TV’s Silo Season 3, alternating between our respective sites.

Spoilers follow for S03E08…

Catch up on Season 1: 1.01-1.02 / 1.03 / 1.04 / 1.05 / 1.06 / 1.07 / 1.08 / 1.09 / 1.10
Catch up on Season 2: 2.01 / 2.02 / 2.03 / 2.04 / 2.05 / 2.06 / 2.07 / 2.08 / 2.09 / 2.10
Catch up on Season 3: 3.01 / 3.02 / 3.03 / 3.04 / 3.05 / 3.06 / 3.07

Spoilers follow for Silo S03E08 “Gray Goo” “Knox’s father Gus comes clean about a secret. Charlotte makes a life-changing decision.

TERRY

Full disclosure. Last week, when I went to go watch the latest Silo I somehow missed episode 7 and started episode 8…imagine my confusion, Joe, when it opens en media res with Lukas shot and Patrick freaking out. It was only when Colin Hanks unceremoniously stepped out of a car and looks up at the digger that would eventually become the silo that I went, “wait a minute” and backtracked. There’s a lot going on in this episode – I would say too much – and boy did it throw me into complete bafflement.

Even knowing what happened in episode 7 to set up “Gray Goo”, I gotta say…I’m losing the plot, Joe.

Episode 8 is all about revelations, even as it fractures the storyline into even more pieces in an attempt to close out a number of storylines. We have Sheriff Billings (Chinaza Uche), Deputy Hank (Billy Postlethwaite), Knox (Shane McRae), and Carla Clare Perkins) dealing with Knox’s father Gus (William Hope), which ultimately ties into both the missing lightbulbs and the death of Orla Kent. We have Patrick (Rick Gomez) and Lukas (Avi Nash) trying to convince Jimmy (Steve Zahn) to move his dead mother from where she gave her life to save Silo 17, which provides Jimmy with the answer to why his mother died. We have a dinner with Daniel, Helen, Per Stensen, Congresswoman Thurman (Laura Innes) and her daughter Anna (Morven Christie), where we learn basically everything about “why the silos.”

Where is Jules (Rebecca Ferguson) in all of this, you ask? Well, she, Shirley (Remmie Milner) and Sandy (Chipo Chung) are still looking into capping the pipe coming in from Silo 1 to prevent the Safeguard from happening. Her big revelation is that Silo 17 is turned on the side, so the location of the Safeguard pipe is reversed. You complained last week that Jules has been sidelined in her own show and “Gray Goo” takes that idea a step further by having her arrested and thrown into prison with Sims (Common).

All of this, I’m sure, is the writer’s room and teleplay author Jenny DeArmitt-Stran’s attempt to bring closure to some of the story threads seeded from the very beginning while also upping the tension. Everyone is pretty much dealing with end of world shit from the death of the literal world to the death of Silo 18…but instead of upping the tension for me, it gave me whiplash as I tried to mentally balance all of the revelations (and their implications) as well as the plot that now has to careen towards the final two episodes.

A couple miscellaneous notes before we really dig in:

My manic recap of Episode 6 and my throwaway comment about how the ramp in the silo looks like a drill bit turns out to be true. Daniel (Ashley Zuckerman) confirms as much when he tells Per Stensen (Colin Hanks) that he doesn’t need ten drills. He needs 50. And they should leave the drill in the ground. Hence the drill turning into the ramps of the silos.

Per Stensen and co. want Helen (Jessica Henwick) to work in Atlanta for the Times but, really, she’s one of Stensen’s employees, hired to “beta test” the silos. Here’s my prediction Joe: The silos never have the chance to completely fulfill their mission. Something is going to happen without warning and without plans to fully finalize the silos. So those 5,000 paid beta testers (100 per silo) are the only ones who survive. And this is how Helen’s pez dispenser ends up in Silo 17. She’s going to end up stuck in the silo instead of getting turned into gray goo with the rest of America. Contrary to her wants, she’s going to end up an unwitting participant in the, as she calls it, “post-apocalyptic underground mole-people party.”

That’s my current theory.

But over to you, Joe. I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of this surprisingly dense (but somehow not?) episode. Were you happy with Orla Kent’s murder mystery…or did it end on a wet fart of a killer reveal? Are you glad that the Orla/lightbulb situation is solved…and did I miss what they were building with/for the stolen supplies? Are you side-eyeing the plot point of the “richest person in the world” whose focus is on preventing mass extinction, given the current climate? Are you worried about Martha’s proclamation that she’s planning on dying before forgetting Jules? And do you think the incredibly sexy statement “I want to turn to gray goo with you” warrants a first kiss moment?

JOE

First off: everyone needs to chill on saying the words “gray goo” in this. I like it as a flirtatious bit between Daniel and Helen, which - hey, we finally act on here! - but this is not something anyone says in regular conversation. THIS is the writer’s room tossing ideas around and deciding the miniature alliteration is worth keeping.

I’m torn about this episode, Terry. You’re right that there’s a ton of things happening, but also…not? Like the reveal that Orla’s boyfriend killed her feels like an afterthought (I’ll confess, I still think that it was Glenda and this is part of a cover-up. And yeah, he’s been stealing from Supply since the last rebellion because he’s secretly a good guy? Again, I don’t buy it. Everything about that guy is super shady. And no, we still don’t know what machine or thing they were building with Knox’s dad, so that’s clearly still in play (and likely to upend expectations).

So that side of the plot is (at best) fine. Jules’ getting locked up by Camille (Alexandria Riley) in a cell with Sims (Common) feels like every other episode (how funny/weird would it be if the married couple is secretly just auditioning Jules for a role in their weird passive-aggressive marriage throuple?). I legit can’t get excited by anything about those two anymore.

And while it’s nice to see Steve Zahn and the kids of Silo 17 again, they’re trying to wring blood from a stone if they think the audience cares about Jimmy’s mom. Is it sad that she died capping the poisoned pipe to prevent her silo’s mass execution? Sure, but that along with Jules’ realization about the changed configuration felt like non-starters. Everything is just feeling like a shrug at this point because the show still has too many balls in the air.

Which brings us to the Before Times stuff. After two episodes of travel, I was happy to force all of these characters to sit and get their shit on the table! And it mostly works: Charlotte and Anna are definitely flirting now; Helen’s morality superiority nearly gets her murdered (I seriously wondered if they would have blown up the helicopter if Daniel hadn’t joined her at the end), and we get the “reveal” about the construction of the silos…which is pretty much exactly what we could have guessed.

I will say I wouldn’t have gone with ‘nanotechnology from Iran’ is the threat to all human life, but sure, Silo. And yes, the implication that an altruistic billionaire is willing to spend all of his money to save the human race rather than cure cancer or solve hunger feels like some “drink the kool-aid” for the 1% doesn’t it (is there where we remind ourselves that Apple is one of the largest companies in the world, whose current CEO Tim Cook is worth an estimated $2.9B?)

It’s fine, Terry. It’s fine.

But yes, I do agree with your hypothesis about Helen winding up in the silo. Either that or it’s a bait and switch and it’ll be Charlotte (Jessica Findlay) or Daniel who were gifted it by Helen and they’re the ones who unexpectedly get caught up in the emergency. So long as they’re not revealed to be the long lost relative of Jules or something stupid like that!

But back to you, Terry: what do you think the mystery machine is? Do you think Orla’s case is too cut and dry now? And if Martha truly does die (as predicted), has the show done enough of a character rehab on her this season to make us feel bad if/when she dies? (My answer is: mostly).

TERRY

I’ll answer two of those questions rapid fire: Orla’s case is absolutely too cut and dry. I’m actually a bit annoyed that so much time was spent on this storyline when the only real reason it seems to exist is to get Knox and co from point A to whatever it is that Gus and co have been working on. She’s basically become a MacGuffin.

As for Martha, I don’t know if the show’s done enough character rehab, but if so it’s only because Harriet Walter just imbues the character with such pathos.

To the more weighty question that is sitting in the periphery and is somewhat tied to the above questions…Joe, I have no clue what the mystery machine could possibly be. We know they’ve been stealing lightbulbs and that it was built by Gus who, aside from behind an alcoholic and probably an abusive father, is apparently a brilliant engineer. The writers are definitely keeping it very quiet and mysterious, so I would hazard a guess that it has something that can save them or…as I’m writing this a thought occurred to me. So this is happening in real time:

What if it’s a vehicle?

Whether to drive on the surface and use the lights to see or if it has to do with the mines and digging horizontally vice vertically, who knows…but the only thing I can think of that would 1) be a plot device that could save people and/or allow people to survive/get to somewhere safe and 2) would require lightbulbs…well, the mines are dark. They’d need something to illuminate their paths should they try to drill…where? To Silo 1?

I’ve been wondering what the end game would look like for Silo. We’re getting so close to the end and to real answers, but what would be a satisfactory ending? What does life look like in a post Silo/silo world? That’s a lot to balance, but starting with something to get people moving would be one way of figuring it out.

The mines have been such a specter this entire series. It’s only been recently that we’ve even seen them. Up until this season, it’s only been a cautionary tale. And now it’s taking on its own character and what if that character is to help overthrow whatever fascist government has been running the silos for hundreds of years.

I don’t know, Joe. But with only 11 episodes left in the entire series, I have a feeling we’ll be finding out sooner rather than later.

Maybe next week when we go back to Queer.Horror.Movies for episode 9, which is ominously entitled “Farewell.”