REVIEW: ‘SILO’ Season 2 Episode 3 — “The Order of Things”

It was clear in the last episode that Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson) lit the fires of rebellion within the lower levels of Silo 18. With the official directive from The Founders in their book ‘The Order’ being “prepare for war,” the audience can see where everything is going from a mile away. Silo Season 2 Episode 3, “The Order of Things,” bridges the story so far, taking us into Juliette’s decrepit Silo and watching the war rumble in Silo 18 as Judge Mary Meadows (Tanya Moodie) begins to question everything and yearn for the outside.

With Juliette, she’s having to deal with the fact that home is something she may not be able to return to. More importantly, if she’s stuck in this new silo, she will have to make friends with the aggressive and isolated Solo. Skiddish toward Juliette, Solo marks actor Steve Zahn‘s entrance to the AppleTV+ series. Locked in the IT vault with power and his music streaming out into the main area, Solo is a mystery.

He is well-read, and the music he chooses is simple, but his distrust of others speaks more largely to how long he has been alone after a revolution in his silo left everyone around him dead. As the two begin to bond, Juliette realizes that if she doesn’t return to Silo 18, then those she left will be left to see the world above them as something beautiful to run to, not the poisonous terrain that will kill them the moment they step outside.

Solo is a lifeline for Juliette. While he questions if she is real, he feeds her, keeps her company, and provides a wealth of information, including the fact that this silo and Silo 18 are just two of 50 silos in the area. Their relationship has to develop briskly for the sake of pacing. That said, Silo Season 2 Episode 3 invests in it by highlighting just how good Juliette is with other people. She talks to Solo, endears herself to him, and ultimately asks for her help.

Solo takes the spotlight in Silo Season 2 Episode 3.

As a character, Juliette has been all grit, but in Silo Season 2 Episode 3, there is a deep kindness to how she treats her new comrade that goes far. She needs to build a new suit, which requires taking Solo’s suggestion to repurpose firefighter suits. She would only have to enter lower levels flooded in the rebellion. To make the descent, she needs a respirator, and more importantly, she needs someone to help her.

Juliette must work hard to get Solo out of the vault or make the dive alone. The series has continually evolved characters along the big story beats. Their growth never happens in a vacuum, and all of it feels pertinent to driving Silo forward as a series. That continues in Silo Season 2 Season 3 as Juliette pushes her reservations about Solo aside and she tries to make it back home. She may not want to trust the neurotic Solo, but she must.

As Silo Season 2 Episode 3 focuses on Juliette and Solo and the former’s quest to return home, Silo 18 is also shown as the tinder box it has become. Juliette has become a martyr for a cause she didn’t mean to spark. In Mechanical, the grief for losing her is large, but the urge to follow her is becoming larger. Some believe she is still alive, and others are just deeply against the Upper Levels and the ways that they feel they are being lied to, and with good reason.

Sheriff Paul Billings (Chinaza Uche) attempts to find the truth, but Common‘s Sims resists. The Judiciary can’t be seen as a farce, and if Bernard is to be kept in power, preparing for war must be essential. However, moving Hank (Billy Postlethwaite) to Mechanical to keep the peace does nothing, and Judge Meadows has started questioning everything.

Juliette isn’t the only one who wants out of “The Order of Things.”

Judge Meadows demands she be made a suit and let out. She wants to follow Juliette but not because of some deep love for her or because Mechanical’s cause inspires her. No. Judge Meadows wants to leave and find something bigger than the life she has been resigned to. Mayor Bernard’s former Shadow, Meadows, trusts the Mayor to help her.

But central to the intrigue of the Judiciary is Meadows’ unrelenting questioning as to whether Juliette requested to go out. Which, we know, she didn’t. Sims is covering for Bernard, and yet, Bernard is open to Judge Meadows, informing her of the reality and the need to push Juliette out before she lights the fuse that has been growing within Silo 18 and what started with sending Sheriff Holston (David Oyelowo) out to Clean.

The intimacy in the politicking that we see between Meadows and Bernard indicates the life they could have had. Their closeness to each other, their openness, all of it alludes to a history between them. More importantly, a love between them that they didn’t look to foster as their roles took them in different ways in Silo 18. The ominous nature of the tenderness that Bernard shows Meadows makes a gasp get caught in your throat. We can see a betrayal incoming; we can see Bernard’s dedication to The Order, and yet, Judge Meadows can’t, or at least she doesn’t want to.

Then, there is Deep Down, where Shirley (Remmie Milner), Knox (Shane McRae), and Martha (Harriet Walter) are all trying to fill the void Juliette left. Shirley stokes the rebellion, Knox tries to squash it and preserve the lives of Mechanical, who will face the brunt of the violence, and then there is Martha, who, in her older age, wants the Deep Down to remain alive. Even if Sims and his lackeys are agitating, the situation is well past a boiling point with a fire bomb that causes the death of an innocent person at the hands of Silo 18’s police.

Silo Season 2 Episode 3 lights the fuse for more than just Mechanical.

This only proves Knox’s theory that every rebellion, every choice to move for rights, has been blamed on Mechanical. The people who keep Silo 18 functioning, but also the people who have been kept on the lowest rungs of society. Break them down, keep them in the Deep Down, and rebellion will be staved off. Only Shirley and Knox know their power with the memorial scribbled on the wall.

And in all of this, the best element of the revolution in Silo Season 2 Episode 3 belongs to Dr. Pete Nichols (Iain Glen), Juliette’s father. Established last season, his role as a doctor is to trick women into believing that their birth control devices have been removed. For his career, he has lied to them and followed the order of things to stay in line until he has to do it again, now that his daughter is gone.

It’s not that Juliette inspired rebellion in him because he believes in making it outside—instead, Dr. Nichols’ choice to go against what he has done his entire life is more to honor a memory than to make a statement. It’s a personal decision that speaks loudly in its silent protest in a way that hits a bit harder than the situation in Mechanical.

Silo Season 2 Episode 3 continues to not only show an abstract rebellion forming but also dig into the character’s moves to fight. Packed with moments of growth, dissent, and relationship development, “The Order of Things” lays out a roadmap for the season’s narrative in large points and character moments that build into something larger.

Silo Season 2 Episode 3 is streaming now on AppleTV Plus, with new episodes every Friday.