Are you telling me that AppleTV+ has really good shows? Stuff like Severance, which has got to be the best show I’ve seen in literal years? And this Silo dealie is supposed to be good too? Sign me up, buttfuckers!

The Premise

Set in some not-entirely-too-far-off-but-maybe dystopian future, 10,000 people live in a giant 144-floor underground silo. It must be long enough in the future that nobody is old enough to know how it’s like on the outside, nor do they have relatives who were able to tell stories about how it’s like on the outside. All they know (or all they’re told) is that it royally sucks on the outside. Poison air, everything’s dead, a giant wasteland. A civilization full of people living their lives without fresh air or real sunlight. No wonder everyone in this show is so white! Ha! Just kidding. One of the show’s stars is Common! He’s the all around Bad Guy in charge of the Judicial department, aka the department that fucks with everyone all the time constantly. Other stars include Rebecca Ferguson as Juliette Nichols, the show’s main protagonist and former engineer of the Mechanical department, Tim Robbins, the head of the IT department / acting Mayor of the Silo, and… a few others that may or may not show up in every episode. This show keeps you guessing a little bit.

Now with 100% more Swedish women with their chins on their fists.

ANYWAY, sci-fi dystopian murder mystery espionage conspiracy show with a bunch of people who look like they rolled through dirt for an hour! There’s your premise.

My Half-Baked Thoughts

This is apparently based on a book series by Hugh Howey? First of all, I’m not reading any book series by a guy named “Hugh Howey”. Second of all, I Googled his face and he looks like a slightly less- and/or equally-deranged Seth Meyers. Is this what we’re exposing our children to?

This was an enjoyable season of television! I wasn’t sold on Episode 1, mainly because everything seemed to be rushing by quickly in typical Pilot fashion, especially in the second half. It also didn’t become the show I wanted it to be, considering that the first episode was dealing with infertility and the question of what lies outside the Silo and then it mostly turned into a sophisticated murder mystery. Personally, I would have greatly enjoyed a character study of many characters with their different roles and stories as it relates to their miserable lives inside the Silo, and how they may intertwine with one another. I guess what I’m saying is I wanted the SILO ITSELF to be the main character of the story, if you catch my drift. No? Maybe you don’t. Maybe I’m crazybones.

Why, Tim Robbins, you’re almost as tall as the Silo itself, sir!

I quickly got over all that, though, and while it wasn’t the show I really wanted, it certainly was solid. Most of the initial intrigue comes from what’s outside the Silo and whether or not the air is actually so toxic as to kill anyone within two minutes of being outside. Rashida Jones is the first to die, if you can believe that shit. Episode One and she’s gone. We see her getting read her last rites, putting on a big ol’ astronaut suit, entering a degassing chamber (or a gassing chamber, as the theory holds), and exiting the Silo via some very well-kept stairs! All because she wanted to do it. This is the price to pay for saying that you want to leave. You get kicked the fuck out.

Next comes her husband, David Oyelowo as the Silo sheriff, who meets Juliette and works on uncovering the many SECRETS OF THE SILO. After about two years he has enough and then rides on out of that Silo as well. He dies right next to Rashida Jones. Together again.

Leslie Knope? Leslie NOPE.

From that point forward it’s all on Juliette to uncover the many SECRETS OF THE SILO and how it relates to the obvious murder of her boyfriend George (Ferdinand Kingsley), who was getting a little too close to uncovering the many SECRETS OF THE SILO. Yada yada yada.

Juliette’s a good, strong character. And I like her crazy, scribbly tattoos. I was completely distracted by her accent, though. I can’t tell if this really how Rebecca Ferguson speaks, or if she’s attempting a typical American accent but her Swedish keeps getting in the way. Common also plays a good jerkass authority figure, and I liked Harriet Walter as Martha, Juliette’s mother figure who hasn’t left her workshop in about 400 years.

Everyone else was either underwhelming or not pivotal to the plot. The 9’5″ Tim Robbins rubbed me the wrong way, and not only because he was a jerkass authority figure, but because his calculated disposition seemed more like wooden acting. Plus, he doesn’t look like a guy that could head an IT department in the first place. He looks like a fuckin’ psychology professor. Geraldine James as the Silo mayor? Who cares, she dies pretty quickly. Avi Nash as Lukas Kyle? Some creep drawing up constellations alone in the common area, creepin’ on Juliette? Not today. Jorah Mormont as Juliette’s father? Weird casting! He should be slaying enemies with Daenerys.

WITH SPECIAL GUEST JORAH MORMONT!

I spent much my time watching Silo trying to imagine myself as a resident. No sunlight or windows, that sounds like the life to me! I can exercise and maintain my stunningly buff and impossibly lean physique by running up and down 144 flights of stairs over and over again until I regurgitate my pancreas. What could my job possibly be? Should I work with all the other greasemonkeys on the lower floors? Or should I hole myself up in my quarters and write some hot and sweaty Harlequin romance novels about sexy Silo pirates who pillage the native Silo women of their clothes and undergarments. Perhaps I’ll be relegated to flipping burgers in the Silo McDonald’s because I flunked out of Silo college. And what about meeting women? Will I need to join a Silo book club? Does the Silo have a bowling alley? Maybe I can work for the Silo Times, the #1 prestigious newspaper of the Silo! Boooooo Silo Herald, boooooo!! You don’t even have the good Sunday funnies with all the relatable Silo jokes.

OK, I’m done.

The lowest COMMON denominator!! HA HA HA HA!!

Worth the Watch?

Yes, but I wouldn’t buy an AppleTV+ for it alone. The pacing is a little slow in the middle, and there’s a lot of potential that seems to be underutilized. Overall, though, the unpredictability of the story kept me going.

Maybe I will check out those books. Hugh Howey, you’ve certainly done it again!