Review: Silo, “Memory” | Season 3, Episode 5

Last week, commenters rightfully pointed out a minor but important aspect of the episode I neglected to mention: the apparent growing split between Robert and Camille Sims. Ostensibly, they were still working together to track and kill Juliette, a way of averting the more drastic option of wiping the Silo’s memories (or the true nuclear option, seemingly known only to Camille, of provoking a Safeguard that kills everyone). But Sims didn’t seem fully on board—and during his aborted run-in with Juliette in the pump room, he made no moves to hurt her. At the time, I didn’t mention the heavy foreshadowing of some hero turn in Sims’s arc, because even last week, that’s all it felt like to me: more foreshadowing.

In “Memory,” though, the split is definitive. This is pretty easily the most I’ve ever been interested in Sims as a character. And that’s not necessarily a result of any major change in Common’s actual performance; it’s more about how the show is using him. Season two turned Sims from a villain into a wild card, but seeing him in this softer, more empathetic mode is actually even more refreshing. His shifting dynamic with Juliette has some texture to it, as does his old bond with Bernard that comes back to the forefront.

This is the best Sims episode of the whole series, but it’s also one of the best for Bernard, and it completes Juliette’s amnesia arc. And there’s so much to discuss even beyond those key characters. For one, the dull Orla Kent murder mystery finally starts to make sense this week after Sheriff Billings meets with Carla McLain, who introduces him (and the audience) to Critical Supply. The specifics of the “who’s stealing lightbulbs?” investigation don’t matter as much as the more pressing threat: without lightbulbs, the farms won’t be able to function, and the Silo will starve.