The spiral staircase inside the Silo is a really interesting visual metaphor. It’s like a spinning top. It keeps on rotating until perfect balance is achieved around it. That’s the principle a “Silo” works on. But what happens when this balance is disrupted? Obviously, it leads to utter chaos, lies, misinformation, death, and destruction. The same harmonious staircase that once connected lives turns into a malevolent tornado that destroys everything the inhabitants once held dear. This is the exact same thing that we saw at the beginning of episode 1. As Juliette Nichols crossed the hill and left the boundary of Silo 18, she witnessed a graveyard of decaying bodies spread across a kilometer or so. They all belonged to Silo 17, where a group of rebels, headed by the “Sheriff,” had revolted against the tyranny and lies of IT and Judicial and therefore took matters into their own hands and opened the entrance door, leading to the deaths of hundreds. Here, in the uprising, you can see a pattern. It underlines the fact that all silos are doomed to meet a similar fate if IT fails to maintain peace and order and keep the residents enveloped in the dark fog of lies and misinformation. It even foreshadows the fact that Silo 18 might meet with a similar end if Juliette doesn’t assuage the uprising and save her people from falling prey to lies and deceit.
Spoiler Alert
Who Is The Man In Silo 17?
The first episode didn’t reveal what exactly happened in Silo 17, but based on the events of Silo 18, it could be assumed that residents lost their trust in IT and Judicial after the “visor footage” was leaked. Everyone started to believe that IT had been lying to them all along and had been keeping them prisoners inside a metallic structure when, in reality, the outside world was a hellscape. It could be assumed that these rebels belonged to Mechanical (or Engineering), who flooded the generator room before leaving, therefore rendering the silo uninhabitable. No one really survived except for one person, who ironically called himself “Solo.” Throughout the episode, he had been keeping an eye on Juliette and her actions. I guess he was the one who cut off the extra ropes from the bridge so Juliette couldn’t use them to reach the lower levels where he had been hiding, as he feared Juliette would kill him if she found him.
Book Spoiler Alert
At the end of episode 1, Juliette came across a long-haired man with heterochromia, who had locked himself inside a vault for his own safety. As per the book, he is the last remaining survivor of Silo 17 (if you don’t count the rats). Originally named Jimmy, he had been living inside the metallic structure for the past 34 years. And the reason why he was acting so strange or weird was because he had stunted mental growth. He had the mind of a teenager, as the book points out. At the beginning of the first episode, in a flashback sequence, we came across a young lad named “Timmy” who, I guess, grew up to be “Solo” in the Apple series. So yes, his father was a Sheriff and a rebel leader, which implies that he will understand Juliette’s plight and the things that she is trying to achieve. It can be assumed that Solo will be the only ally Juliette is going to have for a very long time, with whose help she is gonna continue her mission and save the people of Silo 18, who are still alive and have a chance to avoid the fate of the residents of Silo 17.
What Will Juliette Do Next?
I guess there’s a reason why the present timeline was intercut with a flashback where we saw a teenage Juliette bonding with young Shirley. For those who don’t remember how Juliette ended up in the Deep Down and joined Mechanical, she left the Mids and her father after her brother and mother’s deaths and arrived in Mechanical because she wanted to “fix” things in her life and didn’t want to feel “helpless” again. I’ll come to that later. So, speaking of the flashback sequence with Shirley, she once took a young Juliette to the prohibited area where the drills were left. Shirley told her about an incident where her friends left her alone in that dark and grim space, and she had to find her way out all alone. It is quite evident that Juliette is going to take her best friend’s advice and find the light at the end of the tunnel by “walking very slowly.”
As much as we know from the first episode, the rebels had flooded the generator room, and Juliette could not power up the Silo 17 without accessing it. Yes, I know you saw a table fan running, but that’s not from the generator. It’s from the backup power supply that had already been mentioned in the third episode of the previous season. Even in the event of total power failure, the residents of the silo can use backup power to run a few gadgets for emergencies. So, at this juncture, Juliette can do one of two things. She could contact other silos for help, but would anyone reply to the SOS? Or she could use her expertise and experience from Mechanical to “fix” the generator. I believe that was the reason why we were getting so many flashbacks about Juliette’s life, as the show wanted to underline the fact that she had the means and talent to survive on her own, which many from IT or Judicial lacked.
However, currently, the generator room is flooded, and Juliette has a fear of water, which has already been established in the previous season when she tried to go underwater after George’s death to find the tunnel he had been talking about before his murder. The first episode of season 2 again visited Juliette’s fear and made it quite clear that she cannot swim, so how is she going to fix the generator? And even if such a tunnel exists, which connects all the silos in the world, then again, Juliette needs to get rid of the flood water to reach “home.” I am sure the upcoming episodes will explore how she is going to overcome the obstacles on her way back to her friends, but if you have read the book, you already know the answers.
