In episode nine (“The Getaway”) of AppleTV’s Silo, everyone seems to be on a mission, but what they learn is beyond what they expected. This is a recap and a review of the episode.
Spoilers to follow!
We begin the penultimate episode with Jules. After having jumped over the rail to escape Sims, she lands on the level below. By some miracle, she doesn’t shatter her legs on the concrete and escapes.
Sims and Bernard debate where Jules is hiding. They are interrupted when a fob on Bernard’s desk, labelled 18, begins to pulse. Bernard kicks Sims out to find Jules.
At home, Billings’ wife argues that he should return to Judicial so he won’t be sent to clean like the other sheriffs. Billings is conflicted about it, sharing with her a story about how, when he was a child, he violently extorted another kid to keep his Syndrome under wraps. He resents that the Syndrome can hold him back in his career, as his disability is perceived as a weakness. Sticking true to his convictions, he heads out to catch Jules.
Sims has decided to check every nook and cranny for Jules. As such, Hank heads to Marty’s house with raiders to search her room while Pete is taken from the nursery by Judicial. Sims tells Pete that Jules said she wanted to clean. Pete essentially tells him to screw off.
Sim’s wife, Camile (Alexandria Riley), and kid are approached by raiders who want to make sure they’re okay. Camile, like Pete, also tells them to screw off.
Sensing something is wrong, Camile closes her son in his room and pulls out a handgun. She begins clearing the house. She is distracted by the hard drive on a side table, which allows Jules to sneak up behind her with a knife and take the gun.
At this point, the episode begins to jump back and forth quite quickly between storylines, all happening concurrently. To make it easier to follow, I’ll go through Jules, Sims/Bernard, and Billings’ plots one after the other.
Juliette
Jules has Camile handcuff herself in the kitchen. She removes any objects around her that could be used as a weapon and logs into their computer. I loved how she was doing this from inside Sim’s own house!
Jules uses George and Allison’s notes to learn how to use the computer. Meanwhile, Camile uses an extra set of keys to unlock the handcuffs.
Jules finds a video from George that is interrupted by Camile, who has escaped. Rather than attack or detain Jules, Camile tells her to run, as the agents are on the way, or keep watching and be killed. How much does Camile know? She doesn’t seem surprised by what is on the screen.
A nervous red-headed guy, Danny (Will Merrick), gets through a raider checkpoint and heads to Patrick’s house (I love how this seemingly inconsequential character keeps popping back up). Jules is with Patrick and wants to use Danny’s hacker skills.
Danny looks at the plans and explains how Geoge and Allison worked together to decipher the code. Danny hacks the system to make it seem like the hard drive is being used in another terminal, giving them some time. They watch the video in which George admits he did love her. He explains he found a 15-foot door in the pool. He says the water is nothing to worry about, which raises a whole lot of questions (Is the water shallow? Is it not water at all?), and which file to look for: the Jane Carmody Cleaning. He then says he loves her.
Bernard and Sims
Bernard has brought Lukas into his office. Lukas likely thinks it’s a job promotion, so he plays up his skills. Bernard lets him go on for awhile, then asks Lukas what he thinks the lights in the sky are. When Lukas doesn’t extrapolate, Bernard regales him with all the details of his meeting with Juliette. Bernard goes right for the jugular with the threats, then demands answers to what the hard drive looked like. Lukas struggles but eventually recalls it had the number 18 on it.
In response to this, Bernard barges into the IT room and demands the techs find the hard drive in the system.
As they search, Bernard tells Sims he needs to hire a shadow, but it won’t be Sims. Rob’s act of sending raiders to protect his wife and child goes against the idea that the silo is the most important thing, not individual concerns like family.
They find out that Jules is using the computer in Sim’s room, and he races there. As he does so, the cameras go dark. At this point, Jules is with Danny and Patrick, so perhaps the hard drive had sent a virus into the system? The answer isn’t revealed.
Sims enters his house to find Camile and his child safe in the room but alone. Sims and Camile argue about her letting Jules go. She reminds him of their goal, which seems to be getting him to shadow Bernard. Sims has to break the bad news that Bernard doesn’t think he’s a good fit.
Billings
As Jules is gaining answers, Billings learns from a former cop student that there’s no evidence of Jules wanting to clean. This inspires him to sneak into Jules’ apartment. He notices the hole where the camera had been behind the now broken mirror. On the floor, he finds a shard and realizes it’s two-way glass. Recalling the original investigation into Holsten, he goes to the medicine cabinet. He removes it from the wall and finds the book behind it.
After reading the book, Billings puts it in the oven. He rips a page out first, though. He turns the oven on (presumably to 451 degrees; you know, Fahrenheit 451? I’ll keep my nerdy jokes to book reviews) and destroys it.
At his desk, Billings looks at the piece he stole, his world rocked even more than it already has been.
The episode ends with Jules watching the Jane Carmody Cleaning. It shows the outside world as green and lush, revealing that the display the residents are shown from inside the Silo is fake.
Overall Thoughts
As usual, the pacing and twisting plot are spot-on in this episode. Despite the layers of the conspiracy and the unknown reasons for some of the characters’ deceptions, the story is both easy to follow and also hard to guess what’s coming next. This episode suggests the finale next week will be explosive. Will Jules be caught and sent to clean? Will Billings side with her or Judicial? What is Bernard’s deal? Given we have a second season in the works, it’s possible not all answers will be given, though given the brilliance of the show so far, I’m guessing we’ll get enough answers to be satisfied but not enough that we won’t be eagerly awaiting season two.
The finale is airing on Friday, June 30 on AppleTV+.
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