Silo has done it again. After another suspenseful season packed with underground action, mystery, mayhem, and intrigue, Apple TV+‘s post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller delivered an intense finale that will leave fans on the edge of their seats begging for more.
Ahead of the Season 2 finale, Graham Yost’s series — based on books by Hugh Howey — dropped a major reveal at the end of Episode 209, “The Safeguard.”After exploring the down deep, Lukas Kyle (Avi Nash) descended a rope to the water at the bottom of the silo, discovered it was shallow enough to stand in, and explored the floor. After he found what he was searching for — a massive door — The Algorithm stopped him in his tracks, explaining that before he arrived, only three people had reached the door: Salvador Quinn, Mary Meadows, and George Wilkins. Though The Algorithm didn’t speak with Wilkins, Quinn and Meadows were both given the same directive Kyle received.
“If you speak to anyone about this conversation or what you have seen down here we will have no choice but to initiate The Safeguard,” The Algorithm explained. “Do you know what the Safeguard is, Mr. Kyle?” Lukas confirmed he did, but viewers at home were still in the dark until the finale offered some much-needed clarity.
As always, that clarity didn’t come without a fresh new slate of burning questions. So what is The Safeguard? How does Silo Season 2 end? Does Juliette go back outside? And does Silo 18 go full-on rebellion? Decider’s detailed recap of Silo Season 2, Episode 10, “Into the Fire” has all the answers. (As anticipated, major Silo Season 2 finale spoilers lie ahead.)
Silo Season 2 Ending Explained: Season 2, Episode 10 “Into the Fire” Recap
Before Lukas and Shirley (Remmie Milner) parted ways in the penultimate episode, he shared that when the camera in Juliette’s (Rebecca Ferguson) helmet stopped working, she was still alive. Season 2’s finale, “Into the Fire,” opens with Juliette’s dad Dr. Nichols (Iain Glen) taking in that very news from Shirley. With a renewed sense of hope that his daughter survived her trip outside, he agrees to help Mechanical with the “war” they’re planning. Before we learn the details, however, we check back in with Juliette, Jimmy (Steve Zahn), and the fresh faces over at Silo 17.
As Juliette and Jimmy set out with their suits, Jimmy explores his childhood home and has crucial flashbacks to his parents arguing over their work. He finds a note that reads “SAFEGUARD PROCEDURE,” which jogs a memory that proves essential to the survival of Juliette and her silo. “If you learn it, you can keep your silo from dying,” Jimmy tells Juliette about The Safeguard. “Whatever my parents did worked. All those people went outside — they didn’t die. Not at first.”
Did Walker Betray Mechanical?
The show spends most of the finale toggling back and forth between Silo 17 and 18, so in the spirit of silo-hopping, before we find out anything else about the Safeguard Procedure, we head back to 18, where Lukas races to reunite with Bernard (Tim Robbins). Meanwhile, Walker (Harriet Walter), Knox (Shane McRae), Billings (Chinaza Uche), and Shirley plot their next moves in full view of Bernard’s camera. “In one hour, I’m gonna lead a team to storm the barricade. Shirley will follow with a second wave. The goal isn’t so much as to win the barricade, but to hold off raiders for at least three hours — that’s how long it takes to rig the generator to explode,” Knox tells the group as Bernard looks on. “The timeline stays in this room. If someone from up top finds out, it will all be for nothing.” Uh oh.
Thrilled that he knows Mechanical’s plans, Bernard informs the raiders and sends them to the barricade to fight. The opposing groups go at it, and it doesn’t take long for Mechanical’s key members to wind up on custody. Billings is arrested for “dereliction of duty with seditious intent,” while Knox, Shirley, and Walker are marched up the stairwell to a cell. As Bernard exhales in relief, Sims (Common) and Camille (Alexandria Riley) look on in distress. “Did we choose the wrong side?” Sims asks, suggesting he and his wife put their support behind Mechanical to save the silo. “By delivering Billings’ message? Maybe,” Camille replies. She assures him the message could still pay off and goes to get their boy, while Sims sets out to snatch Bernard’s #18 key in hopes of getting into the vault.
Billings, Shirley, Knox, and Walker are thrown in the same cell as Carla (Clare Perkins), but before Walker heads in, she’s thanked for her cooperation in front of everyone. As she and Carla are set free, the group looks betrayed, and a disgusted Carla demands to remain in the cell with Mechanical, telling Walker, “Get the fuck away from me…I hope he sends you out to clean.” A distraught Walker demands to see Bernard, and as he sits with her awaiting confirmation that the generator is safe, she tells him a story. Turns out the generator is so loud that over the years Mechanical’s crews developed hand signals to communicate with each other over the noise. While Bernard was watching her and her friends through the security camera, they were using those hand signals to have an entirely different conversation. So no, Walker wasn’t a traitor after all, she secretly told Knox they were being watched, and the generator was never set to explode. Instead, the camera cuts to Dr. Nichols, who’s escorting a patient on a stretcher up the stairs.
In keeping with the plan, Nichols sends the raiders away and hangs back with the patient, Hank (Billy Postlethwaite), who springs up from the stretcher, revealing a hidden strip of explosives. Though Hank is willing to stay behind and ignite the big stairwell blast, Dr. Nichols insists he do it, but not before taking off George’s watch and telling Hank to give it to Juliette. “Tell her I love her. Tell her to never stop fighting, never stop being herself, because her whole life she’s been perfect just the way she is,” Dr. Nichols says.
After learning the generator is safe, Bernard smugly cackles in front of Walker, fully unaware that his law enforcement allies got Billings’ “message,” freed him and his pals, and gave their badges to Walker for proof that they abandoned loyalty to Bernard. Much to Walker’s delight, Bernard’s gloating is cut short by Dr. Nichols’ blast, which takes out out the stairs between levels 92 and 90, trapping all raiders below the explosion. In a desperate attempt to protect IT, Bernard calls on Sims for assistance, but before he arrives, Bernard and Lukas reunite, and Lukas quietly shares his devastating update. “If it hears this, we’re dead. I solved the code..it’s true,” Lukas says. “It’s why Meadows quit as your shadow. It’s why I quit.” After hearing Lukas’ message about The Safeguard, a defeated Bernard slowly walks upstairs, where he bumps into Sims. “You still wanna be my shadow? You got it. You’re now my shadow,” he tells Sims before sharing the vault code and handing over the key. “Good luck, Robert. You were very loyal, until you weren’t.”
What Is The Safeguard on Silo?
So what is The Safeguard that has Lukas and Bernard so rattled and hopeless? Back in Silo 17, Jimmy remembers that The Safeguard is a pipe. “They had to block it. They had to put a cap on it. But they were afraid something would go wrong. It had poison in it — enough to kill 10,000 people,” he explains, recalling a conversation his parents had before their death. Before Jimmy and Juliette can fully investigate, they hear the Silo 18 explosion and decide to rush Juliette’s trip back.
Before Juliette leaves, she gives Audrey a piece of her mind, telling her that Eater — whose real name is Hope — isn’t to blame for their situation; that they should be angry with each other, not at each other. After Juliette realizes her suit is covered in holes, she goes to get the backup suit, only to find it’s gone — along with Jimmy. Her fear kicks in and she races to find him, but he didn’t leave the silo or betray her, he simply submerged himself in water to make sure the suit was airtight and safe. (BRB crying!) Before Juliette leaves, she bids her new friends farewell. Though she can’t promise she’ll return, she does promise that nothing will stop her from trying. After an emotional hug from Jimmy, she heads back out into the world, but before her fate is revealed, chaos ensues in Silo 18.
After informing Bernard about The Safeguard, a troubled Lukas races to find his mom. A perplexed Sims follows and holds him at gunpoint, demanding he share what he told Bernard. Instead, Lukas comments on Sims’ newly aquired #18 key, which stopped lighting up. “The thing about that key is Bernard made the mistake of assuming everything is OK because it’s not lighting up. But he was wrong. It’s not lighting up because it’s over… You can kill me and my mother. It doesn’t matter. You should go go to vault, see The Legacy while there’s still time,” he says. Sims takes the advice and finally enters the vault, only for The Algorithm to order him and his son leave to leave, but ask Camille to stay.
Taking The Safeguard news extra hard, Bernard grabs a backpack, a suit, and a gun and walks through the silo, isolating himself from the crowds. Just as it seems he might take his own life, he hears cheers coming from outside. Why? A suited-up Juliette appears outside the display window, cleans the camera, and holds a note to the screen that reads: NOT SAFE DO NOT COME OUTSIDE. Just like that, her silo is safe. For a moment, she fears she’ll never be able to get back inside, but the large metal door opens, revealing a suited-up Bernard who holds his gun to her until she assures him she wants to help save everyone.
So why is Bernard leaving? “I just want to go outside — feel free for one fucking moment of my life,” he says, telling Juliette the gun is “for the end, if the pain is too much.” When Juliette encourages him to keep fighting, he says, “There’s no point. What you’re trying to do — save them — it’s out of your hands. It was never in your hands. In my hands. Everyone’s hands.” Though he learned The Algorithm can poison the silo at any time, Juliette says she may have figured out a way to disable the Safeguard Procedure. Before she can share what she knows, she sees the door to the silo closing behind him, lunges inside to ensure they’re not locked out, and Bernard follows, screaming, “You can’t go in there, you’ll burn to death!” Seconds after the incinerator door closes, Bernard and Juliette drop to the ground as flames shoot from the walls. Did they survive? We’ll have to wait to Season 3 to find out. While Bernard’s fate is up in the air, there’s no way Silo is losing its main character with two seasons remaining. But Season 2 isn’t over just yet…
Unpacking Silo Season 2’s Final Six Minutes: What In The Washington D.C.?!
In Season 2’s final jaw-dropping six minutes, Silo takes viewers out of the fire and into the rain. We leave the silo behind and head to familiar looking, above-ground, pre-apocalyptic Washington, D.C. on a rainy night, where a congressman (Ashley Zukerman) meets a woman named Helen (Jessica Henwick) for a date at a bar — or so we initially think…
“Let’s get it out of the way. Where were you when it happened?” Helen asks the congressman shortly after he arrives. “I was in session that day, serving the good people of Georgia’s 15th,” he replies. Helen thoroughly Googled him before she arrived, so she knows he’s a freshman congressman representing 15th district of Georgia with a Masters in Engineering at the University of Georgia and experience in the Army Corps of Engineers. When she shares her findings, he says, “I’d better change the subject before I start bragging about what we did in New Orleans” and asks if she knew anyone who was affected by “the dirty bomb.”
Helen gets straight to the point and admits that she’s there to talk about the dirty bomb. “I’m here because I think the people you work for — and by that I mean the citizens of this country, not the shadowy creeps who pay for campaigns — I think the people need to know if there are plans to strike back against Iran, whether or not there really was a radiological weapon attack on the US,” she says. “How about you? What do you think?”
Seemingly unsurprised by her ulterior motive, the congressman puts his jacket back on and says “I think I’d better go.” Before he leaves, he hands her a gift he “panic bought” at a convenience store around the corner from his apartment: a Pez dispenser, the same Relic that George gave Juliette in the silo.
While we’ll have to wait for Season 3 to learn more about the pre-silo era, this closing scene suggests that the U.S. government developed the silos with help from the Georgia congressman and engineer, and that the silos were created to protect humanity from a nuclear explosion that would render the outside world uninhabitable.
If you’ve read Howey’s second novel, Shift, you know that Silo Season 3 will likely dive deeper into the questions at the heart of Season 1: Who built the silo? Why are people living in the silos? Why is everything outside the silo as it is? When — if ever — will it be safe to go outside? While we wait for answers, read on for everything we know about Silo Season 3 (and 4) and be sure to check out Howey’s books for more intel.
Silo Season 1 and Season 2 are now streaming on Apple TV+.
