Silo Season 2 is a Major Disappointment

Sadly, Silo’s second season is a snoozer.

Season 1 surprised with some superb sci-fi.

Season 2 stumbles.

Super slow

Subpar story

Significantly sorrowful

Silo sad

Silo bad

Satisfaction not had.

In case you didn’t realize it, that was a poem. I decided to really switch things up with this post and start off with that little gem. It was mainly a free verse poem with some fun rhyming thrown in at the end to keep things exciting.

One great element of that poem is that it told you so much about the disappointing sophomore season of Silo. It’s hard to find quality science fiction programs to watch and I really enjoyed the first year of this show. In my review of those initial 10 episodes, I wrote, “Silo is one of those shows where the plot and trying to figure out what’s going on is what keeps viewers turning in even more so than its characters.” Well, for Season 2, the plot stinks. To say that our story moves along at a snail’s pace would be an insult to the pace of snails.

Season 2 follows on two main storylines. Storyline One focuses on Juliette. She’s reaches a (mostly) abandoned neighboring silo and realizes she needs to assemble a radiation-proof suit to return to her home silo. Storyline Two concentrates on a potential rebellion brewing with the working folks in mechanical facing off against Bernard, the head of IT. Both plotlines have enough going on to fill maybe two episodes of the show – here, they’re stretched out over the entire 10-episode season.

So much of this season feels like filler. We plod so slowly along. While with the first season I felt thoroughly wrapped up in the mystery of what was going on, with Season 2 those feelings of intrigue are completely gone. I mainly felt extreme boredom the entire time I watched this.

The storyline with Juliette is completely separate from what’s happening in the main silo and this is extremely to the show’s detriment. Juliette is by far the best and most interesting character on Silo and this season reduces her time to something that feels akin to a video game fetch quest. In Season 1, Juliette investigated an exciting sci-fi mystery. Now, she’s looking for parts of a suit, swimming around in the dark, and dealing with an obnoxious, cliché recluse character.

The other main storyline that focuses on the rebellion is just as bad. There are zero interesting things going on. The underlying question is whether people will rise up and open the hatch since they saw Juliette survive after being sent out to clean. There never feels like there’s a real possibility of this actually happening though and, as a result, there are absolutely no stakes. It’s a lot of hoopla that we know will ultimately lead to nothing.

The other major problem with Season 2 is the characters. Unlike with Season 1, there’s not an interesting story to hide the fact that the characters on Silo are really lacking.

With Juliette gone we don’t have an exciting character leading the group that opposes Bernard, who’s barely serviceable as an antagonist. Instead, we get a collection of personality-less mechanical people for him to face off against.

This group of characters, whose names I do not remember despite watching all 10 episodes, (they are just that not worth remembering) are awful. They basically feel like rejected belter characters from The Expanse. None of the actors on Silo deliver good performances, but they really don’t have much to work with.

Billings, the sheriff, and Rob, Bernard’s former right-hand man, probably had the most potential for character growth after Season 1. I think these both could’ve been interesting characters if the show chose to explore them more. Instead, we’re introduced more to their families. It gives us more characters to fill the TV screen, but not much else in the way of building actual depth.

Juliette as a character experiences no growth over the course of the season either. She ends Season 2 the exact same person she was at the end of Season 1. If you like stagnant characters, this might be for you.

Overall, this is the most disappointed I’ve been with a TV show in quite some time. Usually when I encounter a turd of a show, I didn’t have high expectations going in. For this season of Silo, I did, and what I got was a big, boring letdown. Needless to say, I won’t be watching the next two planned seasons of Silo. If you suffer through all of Season 2, there’s a good chance you won’t either.

Grade: 3.5/10