Review: Silo, “It’s All Good” | Season 3, Episode 2

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Amnesia storylines can be annoying. Especially in a plot-driven series like Silo, they’re often a way of stalling the story, a random contrivance designed to keep a character arc in stasis until the writers are really ready to move forward, usually close to the end of a season. And there’s already precedent for that tactic in this show: Juliette, the main character, spent most of season two in her own Silo completely isolated from every other character we knew, struggling to make her way back while helping out her new friends. It was fascinating to watch at times—I quite like the character of Solo and look forward to seeing him again eventually—but often frustrating, because it was pretty clear what needed to happen for Juliette to come home and save the day. We just had to wait for it to happen.

In one sense, Silo is creating the same feeling with the amnesia story, delaying direct progress in the Silo storyline by focusing Juliette’s attentions on refamiliarizing herself with her own life. Much of “It’s All Good” is spent on various characters updating Juliette on basic parts of the plot, recapping the origin of their friendships and struggling to contain their frustration that she can’t remember more. (Same!) It’s reasonable to assume Juliette will start unlocking larger pieces of her memory in the near future, rather than just blips, but it is slightly frustrating to see flash after flash without the full memory reset we might crave. Like previous seasons of Silo, I suspect this one might play better as a binge.

On the other hand, the fact that Juliette doesn’t immediately gain back every memory helps sell the persistent power of these memory-altering drugs. And much of the Juliette material in this episode would’ve made sense for this stage of the story anyway, even without the amnesia plot. It fits that Juliette would be covertly resisting Camille while connecting with a splinter group of rebels who have already been working to expose IT’s lies. She might even keep the news of other Silos under wraps at first, rather than broadcasting it to the entire Silo without a plan or solid proof.