Silo: The Engineer

November 18, 2024 4:55 AM - Season 2, Episode 1

Apple TV's adaption of Hugh Howey's "Silo" is back for a second season. It picks up with Juliette leaving her Silo, declining to clean the camera, and walking over the hill to discover a landscape filled with Silos.
posted by autopilot (13 comments total)

As an experienced video game player, I was glad to see her pick up increasingly large crowbars, although I'm disappointed she left the hand-crank lantern outside the door. You always want to GET LAMP when starting a new adventure.

Also, I am a little worried about her structural engineering skills. Tying the two pieces of pipe together at a single point using plastic wrap, instead of a longer lashing with strands from the rope seems like a recipe for it to scissor and fold once there was any weight on it.

(I can't remember if I completely read this book all the way through. I definitely remember starting it, but can't recall any details other than her fall into the water...)
posted by autopilot at 5:07 AM on November 18 [2 favorites]

Are we doing show only or books included?
posted by nathan_teske at 7:36 AM on November 18 [1 favorite]

So, the generator in this new silo is flooded, but there is clearly still some power available. Where is that coming from? Is that a hand-wave-it-away issue? I'm definitely willing to do that, but just wondered if we'd find out that the silos are linked in some way (my guess is they are).

I agree that Juliette's shear lashing approach made me clutch my Eagle Scout badge, but I also accept that she pursued a MVP approach to get to the other side of the gap. As always, it's fun to watch her problem solve.
posted by rocketman at 9:22 AM on November 18 [1 favorite]

I'm pretty sure the power in the flooded silo has a valid explanation that is laid out in the story.
posted by supermedusa at 9:41 AM on November 18

Did the show pick up in pace and quality? I wanted to like the first season as I love Ferguson and the premise was so intriguing. But it turned into a slow, clunky murder mystery and I dipped out after 4 or so episodes. And though Common may be a talented guy, acting is not his strong suit. He was the most wooden actor in any mainstream show or movie I have ever seen.
posted by SoberHighland at 12:42 PM on November 18

In the first season, they said when they needed to shut down the generator that backup power is barely enough to run life support. So there’s an alternative power source somewhere in the silo. With the lack of inhabitants in Silo 17, they aren’t going to need much power to run much of anything.

I’ve read the books so I don’t want to give out spoilers. They said that the show will be diverging enough from the books to be a separate story. However, the opening of this episode was pretty spot on and I liked how they pulled off the gruesome spectacle of everyone who had tried to escape the silo, it’s perfectly done for book readers. I’m really looking forward to the season.
posted by azpenguin at 7:06 PM on November 18 [1 favorite]

I found S2E1 kind of annoying. 10 minutes with of plot in 50 minutes. Even the flashbacks seemed like filler.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 7:54 PM on November 18

I don't remember a ton of detail from the first season, why was she so hell-bent on getting across that one gap? I mean sure, the weird man turned out to be over there, but she didn't know that. And yeah, her first attempt at a bridge made me side-eye her "engineer" title. She can fix toys with broken springs and also the giant mechanical heart of the silo, but machines in between those two levels of complexity somehow confound her?

Agreed that it felt like a lot of filler, but I'm willing to stick with it since I did like S1.
posted by axiom at 9:04 PM on November 18

Pace needs to pick the heck up and soon.
posted by billsaysthis at 9:09 PM on November 18

I watched the pilot and was underwhelmed, but am intrigued. Should I give it another shot? How good is this show?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:37 AM on November 19

Teal and orange and teal and orange and teeeeeeal and ooooorange oh god whyyyyy doesn’t anyone ever use the rest of the spectrum anymore
posted by FallibleHuman at 9:16 AM on November 19 [2 favorites]

How good is this show?

It's definitely not mind-blowing. Especially in this genre, there's a lot of schlocky bad low-budget stuff, so when some mostly competent folks come along and back up an armored car full of cash driven by Rebecca Ferguson to produce something, it's already a head start. It's got some mystery elements, some fairly novel "what if people lived in a big silo, what would that be like?" elements, and some decent-to-good acting. I'd say if you like the vibe, and are a general sci-fi genre fan, give it another ep or two and see how you feel.
posted by axiom at 11:38 AM on November 19

How good is this show?

I almost bailed a couple episodes into S1. At first the concept hooked me, but the writing was pretty meh, then it picked up so I stayed with it, but it's always been borderline.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 2:48 PM on November 19 [1 favorite]