Everyone’s off on a side quest in this episode of Silo. That’s not a bad thing! Ask any gamer worth their salt and they’ll tell you that the wooly, rambling parts of an open-world game are the best part. True video game happiness is when you could probably advance toward the final boss if you wanted but you’re having too much fun solving puzzles and braving dangers and helping farmers locate their lost chickens and what have you to stop playing anytime soon.
I don’t know if that was the remit for this week’s script, by writer Katherine DiSavino, but as a metaphor it works pretty neatly. Virtually across the board, all of our main and secondary characters are engaged in side quests this week. It might feel like treading water — literally so, in Juliette’s case — but it’s where a show can stretch its legs a bit.
Take the story of convict-turned-co-conspirator Lukas Kyle. Last week, Mayor Bernard Holland made Lukas his shadow out of the blue, specifically so he could do what he does this week: introduce Lukas to The Legacy, a library of pre-Silo knowledge that only one or two people a generation are privileged enough to visit. Bernard lets him loose in this sumptuous, golden library and hands him a tablet with, it seems, the full contents of the Internet on it. Beyond learning that the Silo was constructed 352 years ago, Bernard has never been able to find out why it was built or why they’re all down there, however.
But that’s not the task he puts before Lukas — rather, he wants him to use the Legacy’s library of cryptology info to crack the code of Silo founder Salvador Quinn. Lukas eventually puts together that the code refers to words on a certain page of a certain pre-Silo book…and Bernard suspects it’s his own copy of The Wizard of Oz. Seriously, this is like something out of Myst, especially because (as Lukas notes) it points to an even bigger threat to the Silo than the nascent rebellion in Mechanical.
Speaking of which, the Down Deepers have their own side quests to keep them busy. Knox and Shirley, who have not yet come to terms with whatever their feelings are for each other — they cutely spar over who kissed whom — build a gunpowder-fueled rocket to launch propaganda leaflets to the top of the Silo, papering every level with their message: What happened to Juliette? Who really killed Judge Meadows? And what is I.T. hiding? The Mechanicals then shut off the power…revealing that IT has an independent power source of its own, as the only part of the Silo still illuminated. The rebels remain one step ahead of old Bernard.
Sheriff Billings and Deputy Hank spend the episode hunting down the double agent who poisoned the Mechanicals’ food supply prior to their acquisition of their own farm last episode. They calm the mob that tracks the woman down before they can, coax out the truth — she was forced to do it out of fear for her mother’s life on a higher level — and give her over to Knox and Shirley for rehabilitative, not punitive, justice. It’s a new world in the Down Deep, baby.
But not for Walker. The eccentric technician is fixated on communicating with her captive ex-wife Carla McLain, who’s being held in “Judicial seclusion” and is unlikely to survive. Walker resorts to repairing and switching on her own surveillance camera for a second or two out of desperation before pulling the plug — but not before Bernard and his chief goon Amundsen look deeper into her relationship with Carla and realize they still have feelings for each other, feelings that can be exploited.
Even now, though, the pair are being undermined by Sims and his wife Camille, who pushes him to play hardball with Bernard. But that’s really a smokescreen: She just didn’t want the two of them talking, because then Bernard would reveal her role in Knox and Shirley’s escape. Sims is furious, as Bernard expected, but demands that from here on out, Camille keep him in the loop on all her schemes and vice versa, even if they feel it’s for their family’s greater good.
As for Juliette, she has the most side-questy side quest of all. For her, this week’s action consists solely of dummying up a diving device so she can swim eight levels underwater and switch on an outflow pump, then swimming back to the surface again. Easier said than done, of course: Something goes wrong with Solo, who’s MIA by the time she gets back, and she has to frantically race to the surface to survive her severed air line. The bloody remnants of a fight are all that greet her. So that’s not good.
How effective this episode is for you will depend on two things. First, your tolerance for side quests. Is it high? Then you’re in luck. Second, your screen. Simply put, this episode was all but unwatchably murky and dark on my big screen — but clear and dreamily lit on my laptop. So depending on your setup, Juliette’s watery descent and ascent are either gripping and haunting or completely illegible. I don’t know whose fault that is, but I know it’s not yours or mine.
Either way, this episode is classic Silo: a proprietary blend of simple, physical labor to solve a problem and incremental advancement of the central mystery of the Silos themselves. That’s it, that’s all there is to it. It’s not mind-bending, it’s not going to inspire dissertations, and it’s all the better for it.
Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.
The post ‘Silo’ Season 2 Episode 7 Recap: Waterworld appeared first on Decider.
