Certain episodes of Silo inch perilously close to impending doom. Episode 7 “Radio” smashes through the metaphorical door, makes its very own explosive noise and says “Did we get away with that?” more than once. With a surprise attack that puts the lives of two fan-favorite characters on thin ice and a major revelation regarding the origin of the silos, this is the episode that transforms “final leg of the season” into “fasten your seatbelt, no stopping for snacks.”
For those who need a quick reminder before diving in, here is the condensed rundown of episodes 1-6. For those ready to roll, feel free to jump ahead to the Episode 7 breakdown but don’t forget the codenames, it seems like everyone in Silo 18 speaks like James Bond lately.
Silo Season 3 Episodes 1 To 6 Recap
In Episode 1 titled “Who Are You?” Juliette and Bernard were still suffering from the burns they suffered in the airlock explosion when the two of them started being secretly fed the Vitamin D+ memory-suppression pills by Camille Sims and the IT crew while recovering in Medical in order for Juliette to forget about the Outside world and Silo 17. The “Before Times” plotline focused on journalist Helen Drew and her lover Daniel Keene who had piqued the interest of someone high up because of their investigations of an unsuccessful military operation in Iran.
In the second episode, titled “It’s All Good,” Camille had finally taken control of the IT department, taking her orders from the Algorithm all the while telling everyone that everything was “fine.” Daniel and Helen continued to follow the clue about Steven Price.
“A Dark Web,” Episode 3, saw Juliette venture into the mines searching for Lukas Kyle, an adventure that almost spelled her demise. Going back to the Before Times, Daniel and Helen were closing in on a recording that would reveal the whole truth just moments after they lost it.
The fourth episode, “Whatever You Do, Don’t Go Home,” saw the pressure really start to mount. As Juliette became more and more suspicious of her lost memories, Camille decided to have her killed to avoid the possibility of Juliette discovering the truth. Robert Sims offered to take care of it personally, which was always bad news. The nurse Amy, secretly defying the memory suppression project, sedated the wrong person and ended up helping Juliette escape instead. The shock ending? Juliette discovered Bernard Holland alive but severely burned in the sealed off Digger Void.
In episode 5 (“Memory”), we got all the Bernard secrets as Robert had been defending him from the beginning, acting against his own wife without her knowing. We got to know The Order, the network of 50 silos and The Safeguard, the doomsday gas protocol that could erase the entire population at will. Not surprisingly, it was not some old sentimental reminder that gave back Juliette her memories, but rather George’s old Pez dispenser.
In episode 6 (“The Drive”), Juliette approached the Algorithm directly to request a rescue operation to Silo 17 to save Solo and the children, as well as obtain the blueprints of the silo to trace the gas line of the Safeguard. However, the Algorithm, having granted the permission for the operation at the surface level, warned Camille that neither of the two men who were sent on the mission would survive and that Camille had already put Vitamin D+ in the water reservoirs prior to the meeting. Moreover, Daniel and Helen had crashed in a self-driving van sent by Senator Thurman.
Silo Season 3 Episode 7 Recap
The Mission Begins And Robert Makes His Move
Robert takes matters into his own hands and runs out despite Camille’s clear directive not to continue aiding Juliette and the Outsiders. Meanwhile, at Holding 3, Juliette instructs Lukas and Patrick Kennedy on their task, which involves getting to Silo 17, saving the children and obtaining blueprints that will allow them to trace the gas pipeline that powers the Safeguard. For the character who talks all season about the truth being out there, Kennedy is hesitant to actually go outside. It seems “wanting to go outside” and “wanting to go into a second eerie abandoned silo” aren’t quite the same thing after all. Compromise is reached and Kennedy agrees to drive while Lukas goes alone.
But just as they’re about to take off, Juliette learns from Robert that the worst has come to pass and Vitamin D+ is now in the water. Robert also informs her that he is being tracked, so he is about to go dark on her.
Radio Silence
Martha, Juliette, Lukas and Kennedy go through the entire mission using their code names. Martha goes by ‘Dispatch’, Lukas goes by ‘Deputy Turley,’ Juliette goes by ‘Crane’ and Kennedy, god love him, panics over remembering his codename (‘Calso’). Calmed down once he realizes he just has to drive, Lukas and Kennedy head outside, one of them amazed at the sight of the stars while the other one keeps complaining. Once they get near Silo 17, the radio is pierced by buzzing noises followed by gunshots.
Back at Holding 3, there’s panic. Juliette is afraid she’ll be accused of sending two men to be ambushed when she was the only one who had gone there before and nothing bad had happened. Meanwhile, back at the Vault, the Algorithm informs Camille that Lukas and Kennedy have been “neutralized.” It’s the sort of language you’d expect out of a middle manager telling you that you’ve been laid off, not out of an AI that just killed two people.
The Algorithm Plays Chess With Bodies
But it turns out that it wasn’t an accident but the plan from the start. The Algorithm shows unedited helmet-cam footage of Camille Juliette’s previous journey to Silo 17, full of dead people, which means that the Safeguard at that silo had already been set off and just deactivated. As the Algorithm says, the deaths of Lukas and Kennedy were supposed to show one thing – deactivating the Safeguard doesn’t make the silo secure, because a backup security system can still be triggered, and the whole attack looks like an attack of armed drones.
Camille goes to visit Juliette, ready to shoot her with the gun if necessary. Juliette, who is clearly not an idiot, is also armed. She swears that she never tried to harm anyone, and when Camille asks for the truth about what really happened, she replies that she had a suit malfunction.
Teddy’s Big, Terrible Idea
At Martha’s house, the Outsiders get back together, and Engineer Teddy thinks up a plan to blow up the walls of Judicial, thus destroying the gas pipes of the Safeguard. Juliette identifies an extremely glaring weakness in their plan: if they do that, then they will let the poison out into the environment rather than keeping it in. Teddy says that they should just put on suits and survive the gas, to which Shirley, very dedicated to playing the part, is quite okay with dying for the greater good.
Bernard then tells Regina to fetch the “Mission diary” and later takes Juliette to meet Gloria, the Flamekeeper whose memories have been intentionally erased; Juliette met (and doesn’t remember meeting) Gloria in Season 1 when she was investigating George’s murder. Gloria recites from the diary of Mission, the porter who set off an explosion in a staircase 140 years ago during a rebellion. Mission’s diary recounts the effects of memory erasure on individuals in the previous rebellion and gives Juliette an idea of what will happen if the citizens of Silo 18 lose their memories. The lesson Bernard conveys sinks in deeply for Juliette: Losing their memories isn’t the only thing that can happen to people – it makes them go crazy and kill themselves or others, which will result in more deaths than the bomb Teddy set off.
A Voice on the Radio
It is just when things seem to be getting back to their old routine (reluctantly, Juliette grants permission as explosives are smuggled in Judicial through a complicated jacket switch trick played by Camille and her son Anthony) that the radio signals are interrupted by Kennedy’s voice. He is still alive and says that the children in Silo 17 are safe while he does not give any information about Lukas’ whereabouts. The real question is not who exactly was on the other side of the radio but what had really happened during the attack and whether or not Kennedy’s transmission contained all the facts. There have been speculations made by some fans that the Algorithm had something to do with the frequency being hacked or altered in some way, but there is no official confirmation either way.
Camille, on the other hand, takes Robert into Judicial Seclusion and threatens to shoot nurse Amy unless Robert explains to her what he has been up to. Robert, in his defense, convinces his wife not to do so by telling her that their son does not have two killers for parents. This is the most productive thing that has happened in their relationship all season long.
The Silo Dig Site
The other storyline in the episode involves Helen and Daniel, who are made to sign NDAs by Senator Thurman and the mysterious billionaire Per Stensen prior to boarding the private aircraft. Upon arrival at the plane, they find Daniel’s sister, Charlotte, alive but with the memories of the Iran mission intentionally suppressed by someone named Victor, who goes through the same procedure as a way of dealing with his own personal trauma. Following their flight into Atlanta and the helicopter ride to Stensen’s vast land, Helen and Daniel get a glimpse of what they had suspected before: an extensive drilling process. They see the silos being constructed themselves. It is known from the series that the entire system consists of some 50 silos, but the massive size of the construction site clearly shows that the whole thing was being built way before Silo 18 came into existence.
Silo Season 3 Episode 8 Predictions
“Radio” leaves us with even more open questions than when we started watching, so there’s no doubt that Episode 8 will deal with lots of wreckage to clean up.
- Lukas’ fate is finally revealed. His destiny has been shrouded in mystery by the show until now; expect an answer, and it’s going to sting.
- The Algorithm turns the screws on Juliette. After having shown its willingness to take people’s lives, don’t think it’ll stop using this technique.
- Robert and Camille’s marriage hits rock bottom. Trying to calm Camille down by holding a gun to her will only buy some time, but it’s almost as if Robert’s secret is about to come out.
- Watch out for the Orla Kent storyline and how it ties into Ed and Glenda. While Ed being difficult and Knox finding out that his dad pretended he was dead is telling, there’s not enough revealed yet on the show to say this theory has been proven true.
- Charlotte’s repressed memories will be used against her. Since it’s now clear that memory wiping is possible in both universes, expect someone to try to leverage those forgotten memories somehow.
- The size of the silo project changes everything for this season. While episode 7 didn’t introduce the concept of silos existing beyond just one, once the construction site has been seen in its entirety it’s hard to imagine the show won’t link it back to Stensen and Thurman’s bigger conspiracy.
The episode “Radio” showed that Silo doesn’t hesitate to use its main characters’ expendability to prove its point, and that the truth behind the silos always outweighs each of them. Episode 8 left Lukas’s future uncertain, the marriage teetering on the brink of collapse, and the real extent of the silos project revealed – nowhere for this episode to go but up in terms of intensity. New episodes of Silo air Friday on Apple TV+, so maybe avoid the tap water until then.
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