I have been waiting for season 3 to drop for a while, this is one of those shows that got me inlove with AppleTV content, season three of Silo threw me right back into that dark, underground world, but they mix things up right away, swapping the old opening biology symbols and fresh apples for heavy gears, a solar system model, and a rotten apple falling from the tree, setting a kind of very toxic mood for everything, its signaling that things are going to get very twisted. Then we get a flashback set centuries in the past in Washington during the Before Times, where Congressman Daniel Keene and his sister Charlotte who is a naval pilot are introduced right before a massive strike against Iran although its a secret mission that is not part of what the world is watching, its crazy and some may say a bold move to relate a show to recent real War events, or is it just coincidence?l. Watching Charlotte and her squadron climb to fifty thousand feet and fly into a strange cloud that knocks out their instruments while a black, oily substance eats away at the rest of their F-35 planes, breaking apart around her before her own goes down, a very creative scene although the CGI was not good in my opinion because you can tell how the plans and her face look fake, its probably because Im just too familiar with the tech but it does not look natural. Lucky her, Charlotte survive the crash and wake up with a traumatic brain injury that seem like got her memory wipe out, either entirely or partial because when her brother arrive to the hospital she didnt recognize or recal who is he, from the story line perspective I think is a smart choice, mirroring the present day, Charlotte pushing Daniel onto the Iran committee run by Senator Paula Thurman, later letting him know Charlotte has actually been sent on the Iran operation, its the entire thread of conspiration and secret mission package in one. I was worried the Before Times stuff would be a distraction, but getting in the mix the cloud and the conspiracy together grabs your attention and leaves you desperate to know how it connects to the toxic air outside of the Silo, there has to be connection.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14688458/
- Platform: PRIME VIDEO
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Jumping to the present day inside Silo eighteen, the story gets depressing fast, because it has been three months since the rebellion and Juliette is now the mayor, but completely stripped of her memories, latter the show itself tells you it is intentional. The opening scene where the nurse casually hands her the suppression vitamins is sick as she is again been play out, the moment she look at the mirror is all very creepy giving you that feeling that someone is looking at you from the other side. Juliet is suppose to be this fierce woman who survived the outside now a confused puppet who accepts whatever she is told. Rebecca Ferguson is doing something great here, this washed out version of Juliette who barely reacts to anything and the construction site scene got me good, she just asks if that is where her dad died like she is asking about the weather, no feeling in it at all. Hank sits her down and tries to walk her through the real story of what happened with her father, that he did not throw his life away for the rebellion like she thinks or been told and she just looks through him and cuts him off asking who he even is, I was like are we seriously playing this game? because it resets everything, the only satisfaction will come when her memory kicks in plus the juicy context we might get from the flashbacks from Charlotte and her brother Daniel. Shirley is pissed and hurt that her friend does not even know her anymore after everything they went through together and seeing that gap between the woman who marched over the hill and this hollowed person that is Juliet now, that no body recognize anymore, it even looks like the entire Silo is full of people who forgot who she really was and not saying anything about it. Part of me kept waiting for something to snap her out of it, but I know they wont make it that easy for use, the vitamins are doing their job, she stays foggy and easy to control the whole time. It is rough to watch but you have to give the show credit for sticking with this amnesia plot instead of rushing her back to normal to shake things up more than it was before she left and the whole Silo feels like it is one spark away from exploding again, with everyone bowing down to a hero who could not even tell you her own name.
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The real puppet masters behind all of this misery are Camille and Robert Sims, funny enough how Camille went up through the ranks and the shift in their power dynamic is easily the most fascinating part of the season, not rooting for them but got to respect the craft. Camille now wears a maroon robe of authority and the scene where she enters the secret vault to speak with the artificial voice is tense since she is completely alone with it. Robert is clearly frustrated about being kept out of that kind of access but he is still doing plenty of dirty work behind the scenes and there is sick flashback finally shows what really happened in the airlock chamber. Sims told Juliette that Bernard died from poison that got into his suit once the fire burn it and make some holes in it, but the flashback shows he actually survived and it was Robert who wrap a plastic bag around his face and smother him to death, shifting all the blame for the Silo problems onto a dead man who can say or defend himself. Camille is also feeding Juliette fake computer images of a refuge hut, telling her she stayed there until she was strong enough to return, like she spending days on that other Silo never happen, exactly where she got the fire proof suit and it makes you sick just watching them construct that lie to keep the peace. The algorithm even orders Camille to double the dosage of the memory vitamins because Juliette is starting to have small flashes of the truth, proving whoever or whatever, is running the show is terrified of what happens if the residents learn it. I got this though about who the writers are setting up Camille as the ultimate villain, taking orders from a glowing screen while keeping up this illusion of a fair government, with a new mayor that is really just a farce to distract the population, this is exactly the kind of manipulation that makes this universe so engaging.
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The illusion of peace in the Silo keeps getting threatened by smaller factions fighting for control, also there is this new rebel group called the Outsiders, that at first I thought where people actually from outside the Silo but its just a name. This group of masked rebels breaks into the IT department to steal a cleaning helmet and drops a massive banner telling everyone the display is a lie, injecting some much needed chaos into the environment and its there were Juliet memories start to kick in and doubt what is real. Security footage shows a raider possibly breaking the wrist of one of the female rebels with a baton and security starts searching for a woman with a bandaged right arm, this create this very real risk for anyone who just casually met this description to get arrested and I bet the first person they get is the wrong one. It is crazy to watch how Sheriff Paul Billings is also acting so docile while he sits around rewriting amendments to the pact, like why the all participating of this or is it that Camille somehow got everyone on her pocket, like a man who has completely lost his soul, makes me think if they got some leverage on him. On top of the rebel action there is a bitter feud brewing between Ed Harwood, who runs the mines and Orla, the new supply shadow, and their arguments add some spice to what seem to be a very stable Silo for now. Harwood points out the tunnels prove the Silo has been there for at least three hundred years, which makes you rethink the timeline of the disaster, while Orla notices items like computers and bulbs going missing from critical supply and arranges for two heavy barrels of vitamins to be sent to water filtration, a move that needs sleds and can only happen at night, not sure where is this going but I bet its going to be important. I like how the episode keeps cutting between these small department squabbles and the bigger mystery of the memory drugs, it is a good reminder that life just keeps grinding on down there even with a massive conspiracy sitting right above their heads, and it gave me that same tense feeling those early season one episodes had.
Then right at the end everything shifts when Juliette gets a secret message that finally breaks her out of just going on auto pilot. She is sitting alone in her apartment trying to force down a bowl of salmon chowder, she gags on it and dumps the whole thing in the sink, then finds a note hidden inside the bowl, it was this ridiculous huge metal container like a pill with the note inside, so how did nobody saw it?. The note tells her to flip the bowl over and meet at the marketplace at two oclock, then burn the paper right after reading it and you can actually see her come alive a little when she watches it burn, she wants to remember at least thats certain but what will she do when she face the reality thats the question, the obvious thing is that she will remain on her old version stand against the "Founders" but there is going to be some conflict there, doubt its going to be that easy though. I am really hoping this message came from Lukas or someone connected to the Outsiders because Juliette needs an ally to break through the fog of those double dosed vitamins. This first episode was very very slow, it was not bad but IF you havent seen the series its going to feel very meh so for me it gets a solid 7.5/10, because it manages to balance the intense historical flashbacks of the plane crash with the slow psychological horror of losing your own identity in the present, by present I mean Juliet but also in the past with Charlotte. Even though the pacing feels a bit slow while they set up the new department heads and political structures, the payoff of that secret message makes you want to watch the next episode. I love how they are expanding the universe beyond the concrete walls with political secrecy in Washington that is a step into the direction at the origins of the Silo world, even though the show still has not confirmed what caused the toxic wasteland outside. The mystery of that strange cloud is going to keep thinking about it until the next episode and I just pray Juliette gets her mind back before Camille and the algorithm manage to bury the truth for another three hundred years.
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