‘Silo’ Season 2 finale review: What a mind-blowing finale!

A still from ‘Silo’ Season 2
| Photo Credit: Apple TV

Fire and rain mark the end of season 2 of Silo. No, it does not rain in the silo, and that is the gob-smacker ending I am still coming to terms with. Based on the novel series by Hugh Howey, this Graham Yost creation is a masterpiece of dread and the tenacity of the human spirit.

The premiere of Season 2 saw Juliette or Jules (Rebecca Ferguson), the engineer with the enquiring mind, who had stepped out of her silo “to clean” finding her way into the IT section of the neighbouring Silo 17 only to be stopped by a disembodied voice promising to kill her if she tries to enter.

Back in Jules’ silo, number 18, a rebellion is brewing, with people convinced she survived the cleaning. The editing is taut keeping the tension ramped up as the show follows the different threads. There is Jules forming a tentative bond with the mysterious stranger in Silo 17, Solo (Steve Zahn) as well as her increasingly desperate measures to return to her silo, with reluctant help from Solo.

Sheriff Billings (Chinaza Uche) tries to follow procedure even as he questions the half truths he is being told. Bernard (Tim Robbins), the all powerful IT head of Silo 18, is putting out multiple fires with a mixture of deceit and fear mongering. Bernard seeks help from Lukas Kyle (Avi Nash), the analyst who had conversations with Jules in the cafeteria on the “moving lights in the sky,” and was sent down to the mines for his curiosity.

Lukas seems to be the only one who can solve Salvatore Quinn’s code. Quinn, incidentally, could have been the person who almost destroyed the silo those many years ago or probably saved it. The mechanical section (a Shakespearean echo of the rude mechanicals from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, like Jules’ name from Romeo and Juliet?) is led by Knox (Shane McRae) and a fiery Shirley (Remmie Milner).

Walker (Harriet Walter), Jules’ mentor and the slightly eccentric mother figure for the Down Deep has to take a tough decision, to save her ex-wife, Carla (Clare Perkins), the head of Supplies. Up top, there are questions brewing in the minds of the great and good as well as the regular people.

The highly ambitious head of security, Sims (Common) begins to question Bernard’s choices, while his wife, Camille (Alexandria Riley) advices caution. Former smuggler and reluctant revolutionary, Kennedy (Rick Gomez), continues to throw spanners in the works.  

A still from ‘Silo’ Season 2
| Photo Credit:
Apple TV

The production design and world building remain awe-inspiring with the winding series of steps and the water logged lower levels. Lukas climbing up in the grey gloom to the literal and metaphoric truth is just one of the many striking frames in the series. There is a breathless beauty in the sum total of human endeavour stored in the Vault from art and music to scientific knowledge and ice cream.

Sharp writing and brilliant acting led by Ferguson’s resolute Jules, Zahn’s fragile Solo, who recreates the horror of being the only survivor in a violent uprising in the slightest quaver of his voice, and Robbins’ morally ambiguous Bernard, ensure we are invested in the happenings of these silos that time forgot. Incidentally, Common continues to strike a jarring note.

In a discussion at The Hindu Lit for Life 2025, author Abraham Verghese spoke of the subjectivity involved in reading. The same applies to any form of content. Silo can be looked at as a parable of a faceless authoritarian government handing out rules, or of a people living out their lives in ignorance of their puppet masters, or of the absolute power wielded by AI, or can be enjoyed as ripping good sci fi thriller, a love story, a survival adventure or a mystery. Either way, we, the audience come out satiated winners. Oh, and that epilogue!

Silo is currently streaming on Apple TV+