Review: Silo, “Farewell” | Season 3, Episode 9

Well, we’ve officially reached that point in the season where stuff is allowed to happen. That’s an oversimplification, of course; I said something similar in my review of “Memory,” when the amnesia storyline came to a merciful end and all the heroes got on the same page. But though the back half of the season has been an improvement, and though season three in general has provided a pretty invigorating break from the status quo, many of Silo’s same issues persist. You’re probably sick of hearing about them from me.

The good news is that “Farewell” has none of those issues, and I’m hopeful next week’s finale won’t, either. Silo always nails the final ramp-up and climax of a season, and there’s a lot of interesting material at play in every corner of the story right now. Season two’s rebellion had stakes, but it was always building to a minor status quo change at most. Yes, Bernard “died” and Camille took power as head of IT, which helpfully shook up the dynamics going into this year. But the Silo has still mostly functioned normally, with most of the usual age-old lies still firmly in place. Even introducing drugs to the water hasn’t had any effect on any character, major or minor, yet.

But real change seems far more attainable now than it did last season, when most of the more exciting elements came from tantalizing lore drops—like Lukas hearing the Algorithm’s voice in that tunnel at the bottom of the Silo. Here, we’re working with more information and can understand the stakes better. The goal for the new “rebels,” which could include almost every named Silo character besides Camille at this point, has been clear for several episodes now: cap or destroy the Safeguard pipe in order to gain some leverage over Silo 1 for the first time. And I feel fairly sure that the rebels will pull this off on some level in the finale, possibly with Camille’s help, rather than just being crushed into submission and brought into a Silo-wide memory wipe so that the system can continue functioning like it always has. I have no idea what an actual conversation with Silo 1 would look like, though, and that’s an exciting place to be at this point. What consequences would that conversation have? What will season four even look like on a week-to-week basis? It’s impossible to tell, and I’m really enjoying that ambiguity.