Entertainment
8 Biggest Revelations in ‘Silo’ Season 3, Ranked
Spoiler Alert: This list contains spoilers for Silo Season 3.Apple TV series Silo is closing in on its end, so it makes sense that the penultimate season would have big reveals to set things up for the final season. Season 3 wrapped up in early September, and everything has come to a head with the two timelines following Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson) and Daniel (Ashley Zukerman) finally converging.
We have some major answers, including who created the silos and why (at least initially), how Daniel and Helen (Jessica Henwick) are involved, and who or what is behind the mysterious algorithm. So much has come into focus, preparing us for the ultimate end.
8
New Details About the Safeguard Procedure
The Safeguard Procedure was technically revealed in Season 2 of this addictive sci-fi show when Jimmy (Steve Zahn) recalled hearing his parents talk about it. He knows his mother left to block the pipe, which was located on the floor where she worked. But we learned more about what happened from there in Season 3. Mostly, it’s that Jimmy’s mother sacrificed her life to save everyone in Silo 17. Once she got to the pipe, she realized that some poison had already leaked out. So, she made the harrowing decision to seal herself inside the tunnel to prevent the toxic fumes from being released and killing others.
When Patrick (Rick Gomez) and Lukas (Avi Nash) made it to Silo 17 in present day, they discovered her bones inside, revealing the information. But this also confirmed what they already suspected: sealing the pipe would prevent the Safeguard Procedure. The few people who remained inside Silo 17, including Jimmy, did not perish after the rebellion.
7
The Origins of the Forgetting Drugs
Matt Craven is introduced in Season 3 as Victor Crnkovich, the creator of the forgetting drugs. A doctor, he began diving full force into his research after falling asleep at the wheel, getting into a major car accident, and losing his family. He felt that altering memories would be a good way to help people cope with grief and trauma, a plotline that is very similar to that of Severance. He experimented on Daniel’s sister Charlotte (Jessica Brown Findlay), at first making her forget everything. He then slowly brought back into focus good memories from her childhood, life, and relationship with her brother, but nothing of the mission that almost killed her.
Victor’s medication was not only pivotal to the events that occurred 300+ years ago, but they also play into the current timeline. As we know, leaders of Silo 18 have been using the forgetting drugs on people. They were first mentioned when Robert Sims (Common) tells Patrick he can give him something to forget about his wife and the pain he feels from her loss. Most notably in Season 3, Jules is being given the forgetting drugs to make her forget what happened when she left the silo, replacing those memories with fake ones. Then, of course, there’s Camille (Alexandria Riley) being ordered by The Algorithm to deliver the forgetting drugs to everyone using the water supply.
6
What Happened to the People of Silo 17
While we knew about the rebellion in Silo 17, which happened about 35 years prior, the assumption was that everyone who went outside died because of the toxic air. But we learned in the Season 3 finale that Daniel, now going by the name Troy, was awoken from a cryogenic sleep to handle the issue. He had drones fly in the sky and shoot down all the people, suggesting that humanity is doomed.
Jimmy mentioned when talking to Juliette in Season 3 that the people who went outside didn’t die immediately, which is what they have all been led to believe would happen if they weren’t wearing a suit. Now we know that those people were outright murdered, shot dead one by one in sadistic fashion to prevent exposure of the truth.
5
It May Actually Be Safe To Go Outside After All
Building from that reality, we can now infer that it might actually be safe to go outside. How each person who goes out with a suit dies may either be the result of being quietly shot, out of view of the screen while those in the silo watch, or toxic air being pushed outside only when someone is sent out to clean.
Further evidence of this is that when Patrick and Lukas go outside, they are shot at, and Lukas is hit. If Silo 1 was confident they would die anyway, since they likely did not have the same heat tape on their suit that Juliette did, they would have no reason to kill them. This raises serious questions about the purpose of the silo project to begin with. If Per Stensen (Colin Hanks) wanted to do this to save people, why is he having them killed? It may have been more about exerting control and rebuilding a world without personal autonomy and freedom, his own sick and twisted social experiment.
4
The Creation of the Silos
Speaking of Per Stensen, he’s introduced in the Apple TV show with no weak seasons as a new character this season and revealed to be the architect of the silos. Fearing a nanobot attack from another country, billionaire Stensen sets out to build these silos as a safe place for people to go in the event of one. The idea, as he explained it, was to leak the information about the silos once the build was done in hopes that this would thwart an attack. Why would a country attack knowing citizens could go safely underground and the efforts would be futile?
The character diverts from the story in the Hugh Howey novels on which the show is based, which features several influential figures behind the silos instead of one. Stensen was working alongside others, including Victor as well as Senator Rosalind Thurman (Laura Innes). His introduction answered the main overarching question: who created the silos? We also have the why. But as Bernard (Tim Robbins) posed to Juliette before his death, what she needs to find out is the real reason they were created. Because it’s either not what Stensen noted in the beginning, or has become something very different since.
3
The Big Blast and Questions Around It
In the finale, Daniel and Helen are invited with others to tour the silos, which have officially been built. He seemingly goes only to support his sister since she works with the team there. While offered years earlier, Daniel turned down the chance to help with the engineering. Daniel is taken to Silo 1 while Helen is taken to Silo 18, the very same silo where Juliette resides hundreds of years later.
As Daniel and Helen emerge from their respective silos, they look at one another from across a hill, talking on the phone. But suddenly, a blast happens, and they are both thrown from their feet. It ends there, and while we know what happens to Daniel, Helen’s future hangs in the balance. But at least now we know how the world effectively ended, and that it was likely orchestrated by Stensen, timed perfectly when he had a captive (literally) audience.
2
The Algorithm Is Driven by a Human
The biggest revelation for Bernard, even bigger than learning about the Safeguard Procedure, is that there is a human behind The Algorithm. After pleading with the supposedly AI voice to allow him to take the heat for all the controversy, which would dub Camille a hero and allow Bernard to live out his remaining days in quiet solitude, he recognizes that the “machine” seems to be frustrated with him. If there’s one thing that separates humans from AI, it’s emotion. It’s at this moment that Bernard realizes it’s likely a person, or series of people, behind the voice.
We now know that the person behind The Algorithm who was talking to Bernard, and probably the person who has always been behind it, was Victor. It’s a huge revelation since The Algorithm has guided every decision that has happened in the silo, including telling Bernard to kill Judge Mary Meadows (Tanya Moodie), having Camille begin the Safeguard Procedure, and even ordering Juliette’s death. While there is some computational power behind it, Victor is the one using this information and communicating it to the Head of IT, a harrowing thought. This shakes Bernard to his core, learning that he did horrendous things at the order of someone who is flesh and blood just like him, not a higher being. It’s a shame we won’t get to see Bernard and Victor come face-to-face.
1
Daniel Has Become Troy Without Even Knowing It
Seeing Daniel in a different light in this most perfect sci-fi show was jarring, especially when he so coldly orders the murders of people from Silo 17, including innocent women and children. He comes across as ruthless, a shell of his former self. It’s clear Victor has dosed him with the forgetting drugs, awakening “Troy” only when he is needed to perform horrible acts and help keep everything status quo. It’s Daniel doing these awful things, but it’s not really Daniel.
Seeing Victor accept defeat in the end, realizing he was duped, and finally relenting to giving Daniel a chance to get his memories back by revealing Helen’s name, was heartbreaking. As was Victor’s death by suicide. Daniel, starting to remember who he is, will undoubtedly play a huge role in Season 4. But Season 3 finally explained how the mysterious congressman with the Pez dispenser plays into the silos.
Silo
- Release Date
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May 5, 2023
- Network
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Apple TV
- Showrunner
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Graham Yost
- Directors
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Morten Tyldum, David Semel, Michael Dinner, Aric Avelino
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