Silo S3E1-5

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[00:01:01] After her return, Juliette's survival was unwelcome. But the numbers indicated it was tolerable, perhaps even beneficial. The blue line represents the calming value in the silo of having Juliette Nichols as mayor. The red line is the risk she poses if the memory protocol is not successful. If those lines cross, Juliette Nichols will have outlived her usefulness.

[00:01:30] The problem, of course, is that a sudden removal of Juliette could be catastrophically destabilizing. We can only hope that the introduction of the vitamin compound into the water supply happens before that becomes necessary. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the podcast. I'm Jason Cabassi. And I'm Emily. And I'm Veronica. And this is Wax Episodic.

[00:02:01] And this episode, we are covering the first five episodes of season three of the Apple TV sci-fi dystopian mystery, Silo. Surprise! I didn't tell anybody we were going to be doing this, but we... So, we covered season one of this show in two parts on Walking Dead cast back in 2023. And then we did the same thing for season two in 2024. This was pre-Wax Episodic days.

[00:02:30] But this show is so much like the other shows on this podcast, like Fallout and Severance. It's a mystery and it's sci-fi and it really fits. So, I thought since we have this podcast for stuff like this now, we'll cover it here. I'll probably put it up as a bonus on Walking Dead cast too. But if you guys are interested in listening to our earlier coverage, I will put links in the show notes. Or you can just always go to podcastica.com and search on things.

[00:02:59] If you search up Silo, they'll come right up. And so, now we're doing season three in two parts, five episodes each. So, it's a little bit of a different format. And then the show, Silo, is going to wrap with season four. Which, I wonder if that'll come out next year because the whole thing is shot already. I think, yeah. I feel like I saw something saying it'll still not be until around this time next year. I hoped maybe it would be a little sooner.

[00:03:29] But sounds like maybe another year. Yeah, I mean, that's okay with me. I just watched ten hours of this over the last two days because I watched the whole thing twice. Anyway, I should also say welcome to the podcast, you guys. I'm really glad that you wanted to keep going with this show. So, welcome. Yep. Happy to be here. Yep.

[00:03:53] So, for people who haven't been watching this show, just really quickly, it's on Apple TV. It's science fiction, dystopian TV series. It's based on the Wool series of novels by author Hugh Howey. It's in this indeterminate time in the future where this whole community is in this big giant silo, hundreds of stories deep underground. So, it's massive. There's 10,000 people.

[00:04:23] They're in this. It's sort of a noir. It's all kind of the stony gray color. And it's beautiful but also kind of oppressive. And they live in this society full of regulations that they don't quite know why they have so many laws but they believe are meant to protect them. But some people are starting to wonder if they've been lied to about why the silo was created and why they're there. And we all really think the show is interesting.

[00:04:51] It sounds a little bit like Fallout but Fallout is a little bit more like crazy. And this is just more like a slow burn detective mystery kind of a thing. So, I would, I mean, absolutely recommend it to people who've liked the other shows on Wax Episodic. It's a good one. It's slow burn. So, if you don't like a slow burn, then don't watch it. So, yeah.

[00:05:15] So, anyway, for this podcast, we presume that you're all caught up through season three episode one through five, which is where the show is at right now. So, if you haven't watched the show and you're curious about it and don't want spoilers, then you should stop listening and go back and get caught up and then come back and listen to this podcast. Maybe check out the other two that we did or the other ones that we did that I mentioned. But from here on out, there will be like tons of spoilers about everything about the show so far.

[00:05:44] So, it's season three, episode one through five. We will go through each episode and say a few thoughts about each one. And we'll read the summaries first. So, for season three, episode one, who are you? Who wants to read first? Anybody? Okay. I'll go first. It says, three months after the rebellion, Silo 18 is peaceful.

[00:06:12] A new council has been established in a seemingly leading reform. Seemingly is the operative word there. Juliet has become the mayor but is being controlled by Camille, who's following the legacy's instructions to feed Juliet memory-suppressing drugs. In a flashback, it's revealed that Bernard didn't die from poisoning and burning, but that Sims killed him. Juliet receives a secret message offering to tell her the truth.

[00:06:40] Billings and Sims are searching for members of the Outsiders, a remaining group of rebels who believe that it's safe to go outside. In the past, Congressman Daniel Keene tries to get onto Senator Rosalind Thurman's committee for military action against Iran in retaliation for a supposed Iranian dirty bomb attack on Washington, D.C. after being urged to do so by his sister, Charlotte.

[00:07:04] Charlotte, a naval aviator, is part of the mission into Iran when her squadron's planes are downed by a cloud of mysterious technology. Senator Thurman has Charlotte admitted to the Heidi Stenson Clinic in Fairfax for her injuries, but when Daniel visits her, she does not recognize him. And feel free, by the way, to talk about future episodes. We don't need to keep the spoilers. Like, we had said that Bernard was killed by Sims.

[00:07:34] No, he wasn't. Stuff like that. Okay. Okay, cool. Okay, so I've talked enough. One of you guys. Jump in. I can start. Okay, cool.

[00:07:46] I think, so I read the books, but it's been a very long time, and I feel like at this point where we're at in the show, I know many things have changed from the books, but we're also bordering on this weird territory where, like, I don't remember much, but I'm sort of worried about making predictions because I don't know if I do remember a few things. You've been doing an amazing job. You've been doing an amazing job of not letting on with anything. I've been impressed. She's been thinking to forget drug, that's why.

[00:08:15] Yeah, exactly. I feel like the last two seasons, like, I was very intentional because I remembered almost all of that, so I could almost, like, play up some questions that I would be curious about your take.

[00:08:28] So we're at a point where I really don't remember the ins and outs of how things play out, but I did know that this storyline about Juliet losing her memory was not actually part of the books, and there was a bit of, like, fan pushback about it.

[00:08:46] And when I was working on getting ready for the podcast, I was listening to Pete Peppers, who does recap episodes on YouTube, and he had brought up this point and mentioned Hugh Howey had made a blog post sort of directly addressing this.

[00:09:04] And first of all, and I think now that we're at episode five, we all kind of see this first point, which is that, like, this isn't some long storyline they're gonna play out forever of Juliet not having her memory. Like, they're gonna get to a point. But then his other point was that he had worked really closely with the showrunners to go down this storyline, and it's because it stays on theme.

[00:09:32] So I'm just gonna read from his blog post because I think it's just easier to how he said it. So he says, the other thing you can't mess up is theme. What's the story about? Why will people be interested? Why does it need to be told? And so he said, in the original short story Wool and the novel it would become were largely inspired by a rather sad observation. History repeats itself. Every generation seems to need to make the same mistakes the previous generation made.

[00:10:01] War, market crashes, totalitarian populism, environmental disaster, investment bubbles, housing booms and busts, revolutionary uprisings. Each time there's a mantra that this time is different. But it rarely is. George Orwell wasn't prophetic. He was writing about history. We're just dumb enough to keep making him relevant. When I wrote the original short story, I had an idea that these revolutions occurred every 20 years.

[00:10:31] Long enough for people who weren't alive during the last fight to take up arms. This next part kind of blew my mind. About a year before I wrote Wool, I came across a well-known story about Albert Wilson, the last living veteran of the Civil War. Wilson was born in 1850. He died in 1956 at the age of 106. And he shares a picture in the blog of him sitting with his granddaughter, who today would be in her late 70s.

[00:11:01] So a picture of a woman who is possibly could be easily living today with her grandfather who was in the Civil War. Like, that's sort of hard to wrap my head around. And so he went on to say,

[00:11:28] In Wool, I put the uprising that changed the course of history within the silo about 150 years into the past. This was far enough that nothing about the time would survive. Wool, for me, was largely a story about repeating our mistakes because we're terrible at knowing their causes or remembering the lessons that others learned. And so I thought it was just interesting. And like, this theme is revisited a lot of times.

[00:11:53] But I thought, one, just this was a really cool reflection on our own sort of ability to forget the past. But also a defense of why Juliet having the memory issues fits really well into the overall theme of things. And then why he came up with these ideas of like, I don't know.

[00:12:16] I was struggling with thinking about this a lot this week of like, if we do have our past written down and we still repeat it, like, would forgetting it really help? And at least in the context of the silo in the story, whatever the leader of IT 140 years ago when they had the last big rebellion did to delete everyone's memory,

[00:12:42] did change that pattern of uprisings. But I was trying to decide if that would work the same in real life or not, right? Because I think about like your first reaction is, no, rebel. You know, we need transparency. We need to know everything. And I do lean towards that. But also just to think about it, it's like, well, we have national security secrets right now. Should all those just be laid bare to the public? I don't necessarily think so.

[00:13:12] You know, and it's sort of similar to that. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe all the national security secrets should be laid bare. That's what Edward Snowden seemed to think. So I don't know. But I think, yeah, this is so much about memory on many different levels. And even the word silo means to sort of cordon something off and separate it from everything else.

[00:13:34] And I think that's intentionally related to the collective memory of everyone in the silo being erased previous to 140 years and them being disconnected from their history. And then on a smaller level, like Juliet and also Charlotte losing their memory of what happened before. But then I didn't even think about what you were just saying, just sort of relating that to how we are in history where we forget the lessons of the past.

[00:14:01] And it's kind of as I'm getting older and younger people today are like flirting with some ideologies that I'm like, oh, I don't know, man. That's that didn't turn out so well. But people don't aren't connected to that feeling that are younger now, you know, things like that. Yeah. But I like the story of Juliet losing her memory.

[00:14:25] I think it's kind of interesting how the show keeps finding a way to keep her off the table because she's so fierce and smart and effective. And she wasn't even in the first two episodes of the series. Remember, we thought the main character was somebody else and then he got killed and we thought it was somebody else. She got killed. And then season two, she was in Silo 17 for most of it. So she wasn't even around where the might say the main action was.

[00:14:54] And now she doesn't remember who she is. And in some sense, that's sort of frustrating. But I actually think it's a good it's good narratively because we see her incapacitated and under someone else's control and power. And it's a little bit frustrating, but in a good like it creates tension that we that I want to see resolved. So as she's slowly coming back into herself, it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:15:17] It kind of reminds me of Rick Grimes in season seven of Walking Dead when he was under his thumb and he wasn't himself. It's not exactly the same, but it's just sort of you want your hero to come back into their power. And so once she does, it'll be awesome. You know, I'm not wishing that she was like that right now. I'm enjoying the process of seeing her get back to it. Well, we also see that the drug can erase the memories, but like the personality.

[00:15:47] Well, at first, like she's more of a shell of herself. But as time goes on, we see that the personality is still there. And like, you know, she's still stubborn and wants to know the truth. And so I think that's really interesting. And she's still heroic. She's like, her tendency is to want to help people and go into danger and stuff like that. One thing I like less was Shirley's reaction to it.

[00:16:13] And I mean, I understand that she's hurt, but I was like, come on, man. Like she doesn't remember anything. Like, don't be an asshole. And she even like refuses like to help her out when she sends a note. I think it's like episode three, maybe. Yeah. Well, she kind of went like, you know, like you, you're talking about when she went to Shirley and she's like, I got this note. Somebody said I should meet them in the marketplace. If I want to know the secrets, should I go?

[00:16:41] And Shirley, I felt like was like, what the fuck are you talking about? You're fierce. Be your fierce self. That's the way I took it. And I think Julia sort of did after that. Like her advice to her was listen to your gut. That's what you always did before. And I think it actually helped her, even though I see where you're coming from, though. It seemed kind of rude. Wasn't it Walker who told her to trust your gut? Oh, we're talking about Shirley. Yeah, I'm sorry. I got it mixed up. Yeah, strike all that. Yeah, yeah.

[00:17:11] No, no, no. Yeah, Shirley was like afraid to talk to her because it just made her feel uncomfortable or whatever. I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that and also later on, Jules sends a note to Shirley asking her where she hid Lucas Kyle because she took him somewhere. And she just like crumbles. Yeah, she ignores it. Yeah, that's not cool. Like, why? And her boyfriend, what's his name? Knox. He's like, oh, yeah, when she's afraid, she armors up.

[00:17:39] But it's like, well, help your friend. Like, I wanted the explanation for that to be that Shirley was worried that Juliet was somehow like leaking information or something that was going to harm them to Camille. I wasn't satisfied with the reveal that it was just that she like emotionally couldn't handle it. It felt weird to me. I agree. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:18:08] So just to be clear, like, who knows about the forget drug? Because I was thinking about Gloria. Was it like season one or two? Like she was a member of the Flame Keepers. Oh, yeah. A friend of George's mother. Like she had the book at some point and they erased her memory. So, like, some people do know that there's, like, fishy stuff going on in the side. Probably, like, mostly judicial and IT. But did anybody else know about this?

[00:18:37] Because I thought it was weird that, like, nobody was more suspicious of seeing Juliet like that. Yeah. I feel like not many people know about it. Because they all just presume that she lost her memory because of this accident. So, I feel like they don't, not enough people know about the drug to think that that's what it's from.

[00:19:00] But it did seem a little strange to me that people would be like, yay, our mayor has amnesia. Like, shouldn't the mayor know, like, the history of the place they're in charge of and the workings of it? But I guess what outweighed that was just how much they admired her for having gone out and come back and protected them. And she was such a celebrity and a hero. But even with that, it seemed a little odd.

[00:19:31] Yep. Did you, so, Veronica, you knew she was going to become the mayor this whole time? I didn't. Like, I knew she came back and was important. But really, after the second book, it's very, like, hazy for me how the story plays out. So, I remember a couple of things that haven't happened yet. But I'm really not completely solid on how things will play out.

[00:20:00] I thought about rereading, but then I'm kind of enjoying not knowing. Yeah. So, I think I might wait until it's over. That sounds like a good idea. I would do that if I were you. So, I like, so, watching it twice in a row over two days. I loved how in episode five, they went back and showed right after she was in the combustion chamber and all the stuff we hadn't seen about filling in the blanks.

[00:20:26] And doing one thing that this show does so well, which is, oh, things that you thought were a certain way maybe weren't exactly how you thought. So, we found out that Sims had kind of broken with his wife and was actually working to help Juliet this whole time by, like, orchestrating it so that relics would be found to show her to help her regain her memory. And also, even just putting forward that she should be the mayor.

[00:20:53] That was his idea to try to protect her life, which totally worked. But she might have been killed if he hadn't done that. It's weird to see Sims just be a good guy. And Bernard, too. But I loved it. But then when you go back and watch episode one again, we see Regina, this relic trader, trading badges with all the Juliet fangirls for things of hers that they've probably stolen, I guess. And just watching that the second time, I'm like, oh, yeah, that's what Sims told her to do.

[00:21:21] So, there are a lot of little things like that that made more sense on second watch. I really liked the way in episode one, it just was immediately apparent again that you can't trust anyone's narrative or anything that's happening. And I liked what they did with what you just described. Because in that first episode, they gave us two different conflicting sort of narratives, but that both led to Bernard being dead.

[00:21:47] One was that he had just died, and the other was that Sims had actually actively killed him. And so, I think I still was expecting that Bernard was going to be alive. Not me, because I thought Tim Robbins is such a big actor that he probably left and went to do other things, but it was cool. I really didn't trust that he was dead, but then I also was like, why did they show us two false narratives?

[00:22:15] And so, I thought it was kind of cool that they did that. Yeah, I felt like it was more convincing than just the one saying, like, just that he's dead. Because first you thought, I think when, who did, I think Sims was telling Juliet that he, that Bernard was burned alive. And then we saw that. And then he was telling his wife that he suffocated him. And then we saw that. And then you find out he was lying to both of them. Yeah.

[00:22:41] And Amelie had texted us, oh my gosh, episode four, like a week ago. And so, as I was watching, I was like, what was she talking about? It's probably something at the very, very end. And it was like Bernard's live downstairs. Actually, that information leaked. I found out Apple released like an interview or a video. And it was like, I guess they meant to release a trailer.

[00:23:09] But this information was leaked like before the season came out. And they took it up like right away. But like some people knew. It was like out there that he was alive. Oh, that's a bad one. Yeah. All right. What about, I mean, what do you want to talk about next in this episode? I think we should talk about the before timeline. Yeah. I watched a recap today. And something caught my attention.

[00:23:40] The Senator Truman tells, like she thanks, what's his name, Daniel. Because in New Orleans, we don't know what happened. But in New Orleans, he invented a drill that did not disturb the soil above. She mentions that. And I think that will become like very relevant later. Especially considering like everything we found out in episode five. Well, it seems like that's the precursor to how they made the silos, right? Using that technology.

[00:24:11] Don't you think? Or at least how they're continuing the mines. Yeah. I guess it could just be the mines. I was thinking about the mines. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I only just thought about the mines as we're talking about. But I just presumed that had to do with the silos themselves. But maybe it was more about the mines. Because the mines, you're digging sideways. And you don't want them to collapse. So, yeah. And you wouldn't know if someone is digging necessarily?

[00:24:41] Right. So they could do like whatever they want in the mines? I think, you know what I gathered from what he did? They keep talking about how he saved New Orleans and that they replaced the levees with these tunnels. So it reminds me of Hurricane Katrina where a lot of New Orleans got flooded and the levees broke. So I guess, I don't know if this is supposed to be an alternate version of Katrina or some other hurricane or something like that. But it seems like that's what it was about.

[00:25:10] Like the water would go into these tunnels instead of flooding the city. That's what I thought. Who knows? But yeah. And it also like leads us to think that he has something to do with the silos or like how they were engineered or something like that. And maybe Helen too because she has the pez or maybe she gave it to someone. We don't know. But yeah. Yeah. It's all kind of not coming together.

[00:25:38] But it sort of is like this whole before time storyline. I am interested in it in and of itself, not just because of how it connects. But I'm, of course, always thinking about that too. We see, I love the whole memory drug part of it because that part seemed just kind of, I don't know, unlikely or harder to swallow before.

[00:26:06] But now the way they've presented it as part of this experimental Alzheimer's treatment, but actually, you know, also they're bringing in people whose memories they just want to erase. So they won't tell secrets or whatever. It just seems a little more, it's still kind of sci-fi, but a little easier to buy, I guess. So that's been good.

[00:26:29] But anyway, like it's still, there's so many questions about how their story actually connects to everything going on with the silos. And that's okay with me because I'm enjoying the mystery of it too and everything else. Like I find these two characters, like it feels like they're trying to put them in a slow burn romance where they keep sort of denying it, but it's going that direction. Except they seem like they don't like each other.

[00:26:59] And I wonder if the actors don't get along and they're trying to show a little flirty scenes, but they have like froed brows and just closed off energy with each other. That's what I'm picking up. I don't know. I feel like it's that like second grader, like I'm going to be mean to you because I like you and I'm trying to cover it up and overcompensate. That's what I think the writers want to do. But to me, the actors are like, I really actually don't like you.

[00:27:28] So I don't know. I mean, we'll see how it goes. They started off like the fake date, the non-date, like he thought they were on a date and like she was just there as a journalist. Yeah. So they started on the wrong foot. But as time goes on, like they realize they have chemistry and they're actually good partners. That's what I think is in the script, but not on the screen for me. It's like they don't have chemistry. Oh, really? You think? Yeah.

[00:27:53] And she's like saying like he goes to get donuts and she's like, you're an idiot. And then she starts eating the donut. And I'm like, you're an asshole. Like what? That's not cute. That's annoying. I think. Just call someone an idiot and then eat their donut anyway. So I don't know. Maybe I'm just not a romantic. Maybe.

[00:28:16] I like the stories where they start off sort of not, you know, like Princess Leia and Han Solo, you know. But to me, this just as the episodes go along, I'm just like, oh yeah, they should not date. They don't. They're not a good couple. So maybe I hope the show changed my mind about that. But I'm looking at Veronica's face. Yeah. I don't. I don't.

[00:28:43] I'm trying to decide like if I think they have chemistry or not. I think sometimes I'm not when I'm trying to take notes for podcasts. I'm not watching like faces as closely as I want to. And I was more rushed watching this. And so now I kind of want to go back. And I didn't. I didn't feel like they had zero chemistry. But. There was one exchange and I wish I'd written it down.

[00:29:08] But she said something snarky to him and then started to kind of smile as if it was fun. And then he just like looked like he was pissed off about it. And so I just want. I probably make this up and there's nothing to it. But I wondered if on set she was just sort of like, well, I was trying to make that flirty, but it didn't really feel flirty to me. It just felt like you hate me. Yeah.

[00:29:34] But there's also the scene where like when he goes to get the donuts and she thinks he's gone. And she goes, oh, he left me. Or whatever. And he says something like, oh, you missed me already? Like that was kind of flirty. Wasn't it? Yeah, it was. And then she called him an idiot in a way that really made me think she thought he was an idiot.

[00:29:57] But I, I, so I'm not really falling for the romantic part of this storyline, but I like the, just the story itself. I thought it was interesting that she actually, that his sister is the one that approached her about this story. Right. And, and, and just, okay. Is it this episode? Yeah. Where they show her mission, Charlotte, the Navy pilot.

[00:30:26] That's the Congressman's sister. And that part is so mysterious to me that apparently. Uh, I mean, first of all, there's this whole thing about. There was a dirty bomb that went off in DC from Iran, or at least that's the story that everyone's being told. But there's a suggestion that it's this conspiracy that it was actually, I think they call it a false flag operation that the U S did that themselves as a pre. So they could have a pretext to go to war with Iran.

[00:30:56] But then I think the idea is actually, that's also a pretext. And they're really just sort of investigating something like the, um, side mission that the sister was on was going to like steal this technology that they were attacked with or something like that. But what's interesting to me in a modern day point of view, in the real world point of view is that they make this story that the U S goes to all this trouble to create this false story.

[00:31:25] So they'll have a pretext to go to war with Iran. And meanwhile, our president doesn't bother with a story. He just bombs them right in the middle of a negotiation. It sort of takes the power away from the story a little bit. It's like, Oh, why'd you bother with that? Just go fly your planes in there, you know? Yeah. But the thing that's weird with that mission, well, first of all, like the black goo. Yeah. I wrote in my notes, like, looks like the Terminator, like the liquid.

[00:31:51] It reminded me of, um, Fern Gully, the pollution and Fern Gully. That's like all over everything. No. I don't know if I saw that. Oh, sorry. I was a nineties kid. It's like. It was a big deal for me. I think they're remaking it into a live action too, which is very exciting. But there was this like representation of pollution and it was this black goo that like. Thing. That's exactly what it reminded me of.

[00:32:20] I mean, one thing that I, so watching all five episodes, they keep referring, and I wish I would have gone back and watched this a third time, but that the planes were suddenly out of their pilots control. Yeah. I actually didn't catch that watching the scene because I guess I was focused on this goo that suddenly was seeping into the cabins and just corrode, corroding everything.

[00:32:45] And I wondered if that's like the environmental poison that's poisoned the world in the dystopian future times or, or maybe not. But, um, I didn't even catch that the planes were being controlled, but they kept referring to it over and over again. And then in the fifth episode, their van gets controlled. So it seems like there's some technology that can take over control of machines or something like that. Uh, but I didn't even see it in the scene itself.

[00:33:12] Do you guys think that her and their group, like it was a fake mission because, um, like her brother Daniel finds out from Sam later on that other groups like did a lot of the entrance sorties, um, which means I think like going and coming back, like on the limits and they only had like one trip, like mission to go to do. Um, yeah. Charlotte's group. And also like we see her being followed and like changing her clothes and like she's paranoid

[00:33:42] like she knows stuff. So what if they send them there knowing that they would probably die and that this was dangerous? Maybe so. I mean, yeah, I got the sense that the other missions were just cover and that her mission was the real mission and whatever they were doing was the real purpose for the whole thing. The dirty bomb fake out ends that I thought maybe they were going in, this is just me speculating,

[00:34:11] but to like try to either investigate or retrieve some special technology or maybe, yeah, it was just a test to see what this weapon that they know the Iranians have would do to their squadron or something. I don't know, but I also don't understand why they retrofitted the planes with retro comms technology because I had presumed that that was so that their communications wouldn't be

[00:34:39] intercepted by some kind of technology that the Iranians had. But then it turned out that it made their communications easier to be intercepted because this, what do you call it? Dark web guy ended up having a recording of something that happened. But, um, maybe then I wondered if, so, uh, Daniel and Helen are, end up in this van that

[00:35:05] they rented off of an ad on a light post where they had to give cash. And I wondered if that was supposed to be an old van. And that's one reason why it could be taken over. Like you can only take over machines that have older technology or something. I don't know, man. I feel like I'm totally missing the boat on all this stuff. Tell me what's really going on. It's hard. But then again, like one could say that they are like proactively being, um, followed,

[00:35:32] you know, and not just reactively. Yeah. Like maybe someone planted, like put the post on, you know. Yeah. That's what I was wondering. Did someone arrange for them to get that particular van? But it seems weird that you could arrange for someone to see a post on a, you know, telephone pole or whatever you said. I feel like there's two things.

[00:35:59] I don't know if this thing gives us any more information, but Daniel's friend said that the planes were carrying bunker breakers, which are from a quick Google. I know nothing about military equipment at all, but they're basically meant as they sound to go like break bunkers. And so they have some void sensing technology to detect an open space before they deliver like an explosive charge.

[00:36:28] So I guess you could imagine it like going through the ground until it finds a bunker and then it's floating. Um, so that was on those planes and Charlotte's mission, which still doesn't really help me understand anything about what they would have been doing. That's a good point. So it was, it was, if they were meant to use those bombs, then it was a destructive mission. Yeah. But then they ran into a cloud that shouldn't have been there 50,000 feet up that covered their plane with corrosive goo.

[00:36:58] Yeah. The other thing about their car being taken control of is that they had also just discussed something about some leader in AI per Stenson. And I just wondered if that has something to do with the ability to take over their car remotely. This dude who obviously has. That's what I thought. Yeah.

[00:37:26] And also if it's related to this computer in the silo, the legacy, the voice that tells them what to do, that's an AI. Yeah. It was per Stenson who was an advocate for AI control or something and also, uh, funded this clinic. The memory center, right? Yeah.

[00:37:48] So maybe this person has a lot of the silo stuff in mind already, a vision for this dystopian future or something, because then that person was also on, I guess, the aircraft carrier where the planes were launched from. So it's really fishy. So Graham Yost, who's the showrunner said that season four, the final season will have like

[00:38:16] the big bad of the series, the, the final boss, he called it. And maybe that'll be per Stenson or something, or maybe it'll, yeah, who knows? Well, anything else that stands out about the first episode or we move on? Um, I kind of liked how, um, so Sims is complaining to Juliet, you know, I hope you get your memory back.

[00:38:44] So you remember holding my wife and son hostage, which scarred my son for life basically. And I had to go back and look that up. But at the end of season one, uh, Juliet wanted to use his computer to access her boyfriend George's hard drive. So she took him hostage at gunpoint and handcuffed his wife, Camille to a pipe in the kitchen and their son saw part of it happen, but mom sent him to his room.

[00:39:08] And I just kind of liked that, uh, they kept hitting on this and not didn't forget about it because it would be traumatic for a kid to witness that. So that felt really real, but I, I thought it was kind of funny that Juliet has lost her memory and people keep sort of complaining about her to her. Like the outsiders are all like, you, you ruined my life. Yeah. You're in my life too. And then the woman who worked with her goes, you know, you didn't ruin my life, but I still didn't like you.

[00:39:38] And, and then the thing with, uh, Sims that I just mentioned, and then she goes to see Billings wife, the sheriff. And she's like, we never met. Like I never came to visit you when, uh, your husband was my deputy. No, but that's probably because she's trying to hide, um, that she's in the outsiders. Like she doesn't want to. I just think she didn't like her. That's what it seemed like. I don't know. Yeah, maybe.

[00:40:08] I mean, it seems like that conversation that Juliet, Juliet had with Sims that was pretty impactful for Sims. The rest of the episode, I mean, the rest of these episodes in talking to Camille about what the real repercussions would be of like their son, not knowing them if people's memories got erased. And I think it was Juliet saying like, I don't even remember my dad in that conversation she had with Sims.

[00:40:38] Yeah. I thought that was kind of petty. Like he's telling her, Hey, you just caused trauma for my son. I don't even remember my dad. It's like, what are you even saying that for? No, I think her responses were very like cold and empty, which maybe isn't completely out of character for Juliet. Yeah. But that was then an important piece for him, I think, to cling on to in the context of worrying

[00:41:07] about sort of losing his own son and the memories they have. Yeah. It was funny because he goes back to his wife and is like, I think we need to make more memories together. And she's like, oh, by the way, I'm thinking about dosing the whole silo with the forgetting drug. And we should also, they, they, um, introduced this mystery of, well, I guess it's not a mystery yet, but they introduced Orla Kent, who's now in charge of supply.

[00:41:38] And, um, she now on second watch, you can tell that she's investigating who's been stealing supplies. Cause she's like questioning, uh, someone, I forget who. And, uh, she actually, she straight up tells Juliet that things are going missing, but then Billings interrupts because these outsiders have attacked.

[00:42:01] And, um, so nothing really comes of it, but we see that this guy Harwood is not happy about Orla taking his daughter's job. So he's going to be a suspect. And then I think we see Mike, do we see Mike? Maybe that's later or less coworker and boyfriend who seems to, so I sort of missed this whole storyline on first watch cause it was kind of quiet and not quite as interesting, but I tried to focus more on it second time.

[00:42:30] And it just, uh, I feel like we're right in the middle of it, right? We don't know why, who killed her. We find out later that she was murdered. There's some like clear suspects at this time, but yeah. But Mike seems like too obvious to me cause he's the one that I suspect the most. I suspect his ex girlfriend, maybe even more most just than him, which means it can't be either of them. Yeah. Most medium suspect.

[00:42:58] I feel like those are the three, the, the, uh, father, the daughter, his daughter, who was her boyfriend's ex and her boyfriend. And then, um, maybe, so who was the woman that took Billings into the critical supply room later and told him, Oh, you know what? That's Walker's ex wife. Okay. Yeah. So she, maybe she did it.

[00:43:28] Cause she's the one I would least suspect. I don't think so, but. Well, no, she was in the down deep with Marta this whole time when the murder happened. Okay. So it wouldn't make sense. I think it was, um, Sims son. Definitely. It's that trauma from Julia. Yeah. Drove him crazy. The dog, maybe. Right. That's hilarious.

[00:43:56] Um, and then the last thing I have in my notes is, uh, so I love the whole thing with Camille talking to this voice throughout this whole thing. And it's like, are you sure you got this handle? Cause the easiest thing to do would just be to kill a few people and make everyone else forget and giving it, giving her all. And she's sort of like, Oh my God, do I have to really do that? And here she's like, you know, it's worried that Juliet's memories are going to come back

[00:44:26] and tells her to double her dosage of forgetting pills. And, um, then I loved how, when you start talking to Bernard in the fifth episode and he's, who has been so secretive, but now he's seems pretty much willing to say everything. He's telling all the secrets, which I think somebody should really interview him. Cause he's saying the things that we've all learned so far, but they should be asking him everything.

[00:44:54] If he's willing to talk everything he knows. But anyway, um, he's saying, you know, like he told Sims, uh, you I'm impressed with how you've been doing. And I'm actually glad I didn't make you my shadow, even though you would have made a good one because I wouldn't wish that job on anyone. It was a horrible job and I had to keep listening to what that voice was telling me.

[00:45:17] And so I think, I mean, kind of reframes everything we've seen from Bernard as, uh, he was being a shitty person, but he was just obeying this voice that he thought knew best how to keep the most people alive. I mean, I think that's the theme I'm walking away from is that everyone that I thought starting out the story was like this, the villain.

[00:45:45] None of them are like, they're all making impossible decisions. Um, and sometimes they're hurting people, but it seems pretty consistently it's because they think if they don't, that they're going to harm everyone. Mm hmm. Yeah. A lot of people that's been interesting. Yeah. And showing that the other silo did have a mass, uh, everybody ran out and died and it's like, well, you don't want that to happen.

[00:46:16] Yeah. And then I guess this whole, um, safeguard thing seems to be what you do if there's a danger of one silo talking to another one. Um, so like the algorithm or the legacy is trying to keep everyone in the silo, as many people in the silo alive as possible.

[00:46:39] But if they start to talk to another silo or there's danger of that, then it becomes more worthwhile to just kill them all so that they don't infect the other silos with their knowledge and potentially cause multiple deaths in other silos. And so then, yeah, like what you said, like, no, maybe no one that we've seen so far is actually the bad guy. But if you were going to pick any bad guy, maybe it would be this AI voice.

[00:47:04] But then too, like the AI voice is, is say, is just doing what it's learned is the best way to keep the most people alive. But then on the other side of that, it's like, okay, yeah, but how much is it considering that quality of that life and whether we still have connections with the things and the people that we love? And is it worth giving all that up? Is what kind of a life is that? So those are all the questions.

[00:47:28] It's also like all those probabilities are all still just based on known potential outcomes. And I just, it feels like there's infinite other possibilities and you can get, you know, to really close, you know, predictive algorithms. I'm sure more so than I even realized, but it's not everything. I don't know. Yeah. I don't think it is at least. That was a storyline.

[00:47:56] And did you guys watch World Beyond, Walking Dead, World Beyond? Where the CRM like killed a whole city because they thought that would save the other cities because of their predictive algorithms. All right, let's move on to number two. I mean, I feel like we're covering a lot of the whole five episodes, but let's just sort of chung along to number two. Amelie, you want to read that one? Sure. Season three, episode two, it's all good.

[00:48:26] Juliet follows the message instructions and meets outsiders, Sandy, Patrick, and Danny, who believe in a conspiracy to hide what Juliet saw outside and make her question what she's been told. Billing's wife, Kathleen, is also an outsider, which she is reluctantly keeping hidden. Knox tells Juliet about Lucas, who has been missing but might be able to answer her questions. Juliet stops taking her pills.

[00:48:55] But a nurse finds a pill in the sink. Camille is frustrated that Juliet is resisting the memory suppressing drugs. But she and the legacy are preparing for a memory reset of the whole silo via the water supply. Billings investigates the disappearance of Orla Kent, shadow of the head of supply. In the past, Danielle meets Charlotte's doctor, Victor Khankovic. Sorry.

[00:49:25] Who has been doing controversial tests on human subjects, on memory suppression and recall. Journalist Ellen Drew is caught sneaking in to meet Charlotte, whom she had been meeting before the Iron Mission, to share her doubts on the government's intentions. And Ellen asks if Danielle will help her uncover the truth.

[00:49:49] I feel like they did a really valiant effort at trying to give sort of like a pro and con to the idea of developing these memory drugs. Because, like, in the context of the silo, I was really only seeing their utility for evil or control, I guess. Maybe that's not always evil. But for control against people's will.

[00:50:17] But a few of these examples, like Victor, the doctor who created it, they reveal that he did it because he was trying to get rid of, like, bad memories that were basically, like, PTSD keeping him from moving forward. Which reminds me a little bit of, like, have you guys watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind before? It's one of my favorite movies of all time. Same. Same. Same. But that's a very different scenario because it's choosing and choosing selectively.

[00:50:47] Yeah. You target memories to get rid of. Here you're getting rid of all of them and then targeting which ones to bring back in. Right. And that person consented to it. Yeah. And the consent of it all, I think, is the biggest thing. And it's like, there's so many memories. Like, can you really rebuild a person's whole self? It would take a lifetime. Yeah. That's how long it's taken us to build up these memories.

[00:51:15] Whereas if you could just pick out the trauma and get rid of it, then that would make more sense. Like Eternal Sunshine. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, then there's also the thing about how they use prison populations and they use vets who don't have any choice. And it was sort of like when he was talking about, the doctor was talking to Daniel about this whole process and everything. And I was feeling like if I was Daniel, I'd be like, can't she just get therapy like everyone else? Like, this seems really extreme.

[00:51:45] You know? Yeah. And I was surprised that he was like so passive about the whole thing. Like, I feel like if it was a member of my family, like I would have been questioning more like the treatment, you know? Yeah. It really took like Helen to get him to like wake up to it. And I don't know, like, is it like erasing someone? Like erasing someone's memory is like erasing them in a way.

[00:52:12] And yeah, like they choose like not her what to bring back. And it feels like the whole resetting of the silos, like erasing people's memory. It's like, are they trying to like reset the world or something? Like that's what I wrote in my notes. I don't know. It feels like over-engineered as a system, I feel. And I know that maybe he was trying to do good, but I don't know. I think it's fishy.

[00:52:41] I mean, when you said like, does it, I forget what word you use, but does it like erase the person's identity? And when the AI was trying to convince Camille to release the drug into the water, he was like, it was like, you fear that loss of memory means loss of self-consciousness, loss of identity, the end of personal existence. And then it didn't complete that thought. It was like, well, yeah, does it? Yes, it does actually. I mean, it does.

[00:53:11] But then I guess the point of that was it suggests that the alternative is, well, everyone could die. Like it said, the sooner you introduce vitamin D plus to the water supply, the better the probability of survival. In a time when your silo is dangerously close to a safeguard. So I think it was just like, you fear the loss of identity, but is that worth saving lives? I guess. But how would that work? Like, it doesn't make sense.

[00:53:37] Like you need at least one person who remembers, like who would be in charge because otherwise it's going to be chaos. Like there's going to be kids like not knowing who their parents are. Like everybody's going to be lost. Like no one knows what they're doing, where they're going, where they live. Like 10,000 people like completely lost together.

[00:53:55] They did say at one point that the process of the vitamin D plus in the water is a slower process that people don't even realize is happening versus what was the way it was with Juliet, where she just immediately forgot who she was. So maybe that would make a difference, but it still seems like, yes, I've had that thought too. Like wouldn't that just make everybody really bad at being able to continue on functioning?

[00:54:23] Unless maybe it's like a slow, slow loss of your long-term memory, but your short-term memory is staying more intact. You mean like life? Like that's how my life is. Yeah, but like a more like, I guess an accelerated version of that, right? Where the past gets more and more fuzzy and hard to focus in on. But if that happens slowly over time, I don't know. I had this same question. Yeah, I think that's probably right. Yeah.

[00:54:50] I mean, it's, I do feel like that's, you just described my life, but it would be even more, a little more intense than that. Like I can still remember like my mom and everything, but I wouldn't remember that. I wouldn't remember my mom. But yeah, that's actually a great way to put it. I think it is sort of like what naturally happens in your life, but just more extreme so that your memories are more, even more wiped than already.

[00:55:15] Because I noticed the older I get, the less memory I have of when I was younger, you know, details are gone. Another question I have about that reset process is the artifact use. Like when people first got into the silos, like they had their memories, right? Like they remembered the outside world. Why they went in there. So, like, did they drug them, all of them, right away? I don't think so.

[00:55:44] And I mean, it would, I don't think so. Well, then people remember like the world, how it used to be. And that's a big no-no. But I don't think it was. I think. No. Because in Silo 17, it wasn't just that Solo learned all of that in the vault. They were teaching it in the classrooms. There were a lot of things that were mainstream knowledge in Silo 17. Wait, am I mixing up the numbers? Yeah.

[00:56:13] In Solo, Silo, Silo 17. There were a lot of things that they were being exposed to that they weren't being, they weren't allowed to be exposed to in Silo 18. And presumably, that's because when Salvatore. Quinn, right? Quinn. Yeah.

[00:56:33] 140 years ago when that rebellion happened, I think one of the steps in the order is that you can do this vitamin D memory erasure. And they burned the books. And they got rid of every artifact and erased everyone's memory. Yeah, because rebellions were happening every 20 years. And so that's why they developed this thing about the memory.

[00:57:01] So when people first came into the silos, it wasn't like they weren't forgetting. And then they just kept rebelling. Okay. Okay. What about the Pezden? All the old artifacts got taken away, but people hid things. And so the Pez is one of those things that was hidden. And that's why it's like taboo for them to have it because they're not. No, I understand that.

[00:57:28] But how would it be dangerous for someone to have it now? Like the book with the pictures, I understand if they're trying to hide this reality. But that doesn't represent anything to anyone. They're just like, oh, this is a weird thing. Like, what does it do? Yeah, I mean, my guess for that is that it seems like something that isn't of their world. So that suggests the existence of another world. Yeah. I guess.

[00:57:55] Because they don't want them to think that there's anything outside or there's any history or anything. But I mean, I always thought like with Billing's wife, who's a part of this rebel outsider group, just because she saw that book that showed an outside that was all green and nice. And she's like, see, it could be nice out there.

[00:58:16] And I'm just like, no, I mean, my natural, I would think that I would at least entertain the idea that, oh, the reason we're in these silos is because it used to be nice outside and now it's not anymore. And that's why we had to come in here, you know, which is what happened. It seems like. Well, this is common knowledge, but I thought that some relics were more dangerous than others. And I didn't, I don't know, leave the peg alone. Not the peg, but the pez.

[00:58:43] I guess like at the time that that happened, they could have been like what, three generations into the silo if it had been about 150 to 200 years when that rebellion happened. So at that point in time, that pez dispenser may have had family stories tied to it handed down. And like, so maybe it's even things like that, right? That.

[00:59:13] And so maybe now that pez dispenser isn't actually a threat, but 140 years ago, maybe it was. And there's just sort of this blanket red labeling of artifacts. Yeah. I mean, they don't want anything from the old world. They're all illegal. I loved this chart or what would you call it? A chart that the AI shows Camille.

[00:59:39] The blue line represents the calming value in a silo of having Juliet Nichols as mayor. The red line is the risk she poses if the memory protocol is not successful. If those lines cross, Juliet Nichols will have outlived her usefulness. The problem, of course, is that a sudden removal of Juliet could be catastrophically destabilizing. We can only hope that the introduction of the vitamin compound into the water supply happens before that becomes necessary. So it's like a devil whispering in her ear all the time.

[01:00:08] Like, you need to be making everyone forget. And then when Juliet, what happens? She, oh yeah, they find out that Lucas is in the mines and they worry that he's trying to dig his way to another silo. So they release fumigation into the mines and Juliet's down there trying to save everybody and gets injured. And then the legacy is like, oh, this is the perfect scenario. Now we can have her die a hero and everybody will be placated.

[01:00:37] That solves the dilemma. I did want to comment in the, I don't know. Did you guys know that they changed Daniel's name from the book? Yeah. It had been Donald and they just felt like that name was a little too like inflammatory currently to utilize. Yeah, distracting. But they did have Charlotte accidentally call him Donald in episode two, which I thought was a fun like nod to the book.

[01:01:07] Yeah. I, when she said that, cause I had forgotten his name and she called him Donald. And so I just wrote down Donald and then everyone else was saying Daniel. Um, I'm ready to go to the next one unless you guys have more. Okay. Veronica. Same. You want to read the thing? Yeah. So episode three, a dark web. Juliet travels down the silo to investigate Lucas's movements.

[01:01:35] Camille is aware that Juliet has been spitting her pills into the sink, but allows it to continue as she hopes Juliet will enable them to find Lucas and outsiders, preventing the need for a full reset of the silo. Camille realizes that Lucas may be in the silo. He's digging toward another silo and orders the mines immediately fumigated. Juliet enters the poison mines and is saved by Lucas conveniently, who then flees and is found by Sandy and Danny.

[01:02:04] Billings identifies Orla as one of the dead in the mines. The legacy suggests to Camille that she allowed Juliet, who is unconscious and under medical care, to die and be made a martyr in order to preserve peace in the silo. In the past, Helen is fired because of her investigation into the Iran incident. She and Daniel meet a dark web hacker who made a recording of the mission's audio, as the pilots had been ordered to use old radios.

[01:02:31] When Daniel and Helen return to the hacker to get a copy of the recording, they find that the place has been ransacked. So, the whole thing about Juliet with the pills, I feel like there may have been some twists and turns there. Because first, we see her learn from the outsiders that, oh, you're taking forget pills. Stop taking those. And then we see her spit them out. And then you see the nurse find them.

[01:02:59] And then Camille says, she tells Camille, and Camille's like, double the dosage. And I thought, oh, I think that they're giving it to her in her food now. It's not actually in the pills. Because they mentioned some other form at some point in there. But then we find out in episode five, when we are seeing everything from like Sims perspective, that the nurse is actually on Juliet's side.

[01:03:27] And so, Sims gives this woman, Regina, who's a relic dealer, those fake sugar pills to give to the nurse. And so, then you know, okay, at some point, maybe she was subbing in those. But also, I think she said to Juliet that she didn't give her the other form either, unless I was reading into it. So, it just seems like that Juliet was getting the pills early on.

[01:03:57] But then, after a while, she stopped getting them. And that's why her memories are starting to come back. Yeah, that's what I got from it. Same. All right. What else? What stood out to you, Amelie, about this one? Well, just one small point, but about Juliet and Jerry, like the guard. Mm-hmm. Who finally tells her, like, oh, it feels like we're treating you like a prisoner.

[01:04:27] And, you know, if you need space, like, just let me know. And by the way, I'm married and wouldn't touch you or something like that. I thought that was sweet. And I think it's interesting because when he gives her space in a small moment, it has huge implications. And it shows that even the Silo's loyalists are, like, starting to question the system.

[01:04:53] It feels like it's coming from a lot of different sides, like that people, you know, are questioning things and questioning the system and having doubts. So. It's true. Yeah. I thought that was an interesting. Yeah. Which is exciting and terrifying in this show, right? Because it's like the more people that start openly questioning, the more things tip towards drastic measures where they either lose their self or their lives.

[01:05:24] And so it's like a weird thing. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because now I see Camille and Bernard as, and even the algorithm as trying to do whatever it takes to create the most stability and security. And that means, can't you guys all just not worry about anything? You know, but.

[01:05:54] Yeah. But it's not human nature. So I feel like the system is counterproductive or counterintuitive because that's not how it works. It's sowing the seeds of rebellion almost by trying to prevent people from knowing things. Well, yeah. Yeah.

[01:06:12] The thing is, if you look throughout human history, like anytime we don't understand something and there's a mystery, if we don't have a way to explain it, then we create like stories that are often like worse or more fantastical than the actual truth. And so I do think like there's risk inherently in withholding this much information from people. I think you're right.

[01:06:40] Like inherently people are going to start questioning it. And this is too small and closed of a society. I feel like. Mm-hmm. I don't know if that's worse or better, but to me it seems like it's so quick that things could shift in this small of a society. Yeah. I mean, I keep thinking about our national secrets and how I'm not, they're so removed from me that I don't really think about it that much.

[01:07:09] But I feel like if I was living in a silo that I might wonder why the fuck I couldn't go outside. You know, like that would be more immediate. Like I need to know what's going on here. But you know what? Maybe not. Maybe if we were actually in that world, I mean, do fish wonder why they're in an aquarium? I don't know. But they don't have, I don't think that's a good. Yeah. Yeah. They don't have that same like self-awareness. That's true. They also don't have memory. So. Right. They take the forgetting pills. They're on the forget drug.

[01:07:39] Yeah. I think another point, an interesting point we could discuss is the, in the past timeline, the cassette and the cover up. Mm-hmm. The cassette is like the first tangible proof that we have that Charlotte's mission was a setup. And I mean, it's basically like the breadcrumb that confirms the conspiracy is military and political and global.

[01:08:10] Wait, how do you make those connections? Because I'm not sure I totally get it. All I thought was that it was just a recording of them in the planes. So I don't understand how it confirms anything else. Well, because we know they're being followed. And after they meet with Steve, was his name? Mm-hmm. After they leave.

[01:08:36] Well, we know that like one guy is in the military that has been following them. Yeah. The guy with the old guy with the white hair? Yeah. Yes, I forget his name. I don't think we ever find out. I don't think. Yeah, because he meets them later on. Yeah. And he offers a job at the times to... Helen. Helen. I don't think he ever said his name. I could be wrong. Yeah. But he sees them at the Pentagon, right?

[01:09:05] He's everywhere. He's like always... Everywhere they go. From the beginning, yeah. He's following them around. That's like the dude in the X-Files. Yeah. Cigarette. I forget his name. Yeah. So, okay. Well, maybe it's me, but I just assume it was a military person. I think so. No, I think you're right. Yeah. He's just trying to keep the secrets from getting out. So he's like either bribing or threatening anyone who's trying to investigate into stopping.

[01:09:35] So that's why to me it felt like a political and military conspiracy or cover up at least. I see what you're saying. Yeah. For sure. And they're trying to cover up something like obviously like this. Yeah. And when they... So it was weird to me that they go to this hacker who's like, you got to meet me in person and then refuses to give them what they're clearly there for. Or like, why do you bring someone right to you and then piss them off? You're endangering your life, dude.

[01:10:03] But anyways, they do let him listen when Daniel says it was his sister, which I also don't know if I believe like, oh, this is a hacker with a heart. When he finds out that it was the guy's sister, then he's like, okay, you can hear the tape. But then they don't let us hear the tape, which I thought was weird. Like, why can't we hear? Is there some secret that you just heard that we don't get to know yet? But later when they asked him what he heard, he just said something about they were in their planes and someone else took control of the planes.

[01:10:33] So I think that's like a big secret that this guy, cigarette smoking guy analog doesn't want to get out, you know, that's part of it anyway. Yeah. But I think also he wanted like to meet them in person because Daniel gives him something. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He asks for to be able to clone his congressional badge. Yeah. And it's like, Daniel's like, no, I don't do that.

[01:11:02] And he's like, all right, go ahead. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's he going to do with that? Like, you're going to you might have just caused a huge problem. Well, also, like directly traceable back to you, sir. Yeah. I guess he was desperate. But that seemed like that was pretty easy. And then the guy didn't even give him any. It wasn't even going to give him anything for it. But that does make it make more sense why he wanted them to come in person so he could get that clone that badge.

[01:11:31] So do you think that Steve guy really got a job as a hacker? I think he's on the forget drug somewhere. I think it's 50-50 because we had we did see that guy, the older guy whose name we don't know, bribe Jessica with a job at The New York Times. And he said that there was another guy. I guess it was the father of another pilot that he got enough money to pay off somebody's mortgage or something. I forget what it was.

[01:12:00] So it's the father of one of the pilots that died in the mission. Yeah. Yeah. So it seems like he was just going around bribing everyone and he offered Helen a job. So maybe he did give this hacker guy a cybersecurity job or you're right. Maybe he's dead. You can't really know whether you can trust this guy. But he did threaten Sam. I mean, Daniel. Daniel. Daniel. But why would the warehouse be ransacked if... Right.

[01:12:30] You know? I mean, they could have just said, hey, this is not your place anymore. We're going to comb it for secrets. You've got this other job. Be glad you're still alive and never come back here or something like that. I don't know. Yeah. Maybe. I don't think it really matters that much. I think we're supposed to wonder and doubt. I didn't see any blood. No. But yeah.

[01:12:58] No, I mean, like I said, 50-50. Yeah. It's just there seems to be like signs of violence and... Yeah, that's true. Like these people are not messing around kind of thing. Absolutely. Yeah. I don't think he's working for anything. Do you think he's dead? Or... Yeah, probably.

[01:13:19] I mean, or like you said, forget drug and not in a cushy manner the way Charlotte is, but, you know, in theme with Dr. Victor. Some dungeon or something. You know, experimenting on people who don't have a lot of willpower or power of will, I guess.

[01:13:41] I do think one thing that's a little hard for me with this show is like sort of the big brother element of it all in the silo, but that it's inconsistent. Like within the vault, it's so sensitive and powerful that it can measure the cortical cortisol in Camille's breath.

[01:14:07] But then in other parts of the silo, like the fact that we couldn't even figure out where Lucas had disappeared to. And I know there's not going to be like monitoring and cameras in the mines, but like there seem to be so many cameras in so many places and so much that it's aware of, but then also a lot of convenient blind spots. Mm-hmm. And I don't really understand all of that.

[01:14:36] I know there, like some of the video cameras have been removed as part of like people discovering it and reforms. And some of it had to do with things being damaged in the lower levels, I think. But I don't know. I just, it feels strange to me when it knows so, so much, but then still has what feel like some pretty significantly blind spots. Mm-hmm.

[01:15:03] I could believe that it had some really high tech monitoring capabilities in that room. I could also believe that it can lie too, and that it had no way to monitor the cortisol in her breath. Ah, fair. I like that. Well, I had the same in my notes, like how, okay, the lower levels were damaged or something. I think we heard about that. But what about medical? When Juliet escapes with the nurse? Right.

[01:15:32] Like you would think that of all places, like there would have been a camera there, especially on Juliet. Right. I hate this show. So stupid. It does, you know, an nitpick, but. No, I'm just kidding. It's true. Yeah, I didn't know how much, because in that first sort of town hall style meeting in the first episode, when they were trying to suggest that there were a lot of reforms, because the rebellion won,

[01:16:02] it seemed like a lot of things to placate people. I forgot exactly what they said, but if you watch Severance, it reminded me of Severance season two. And when he said, the only one thing I do remember is he said that they've taken out most of the cameras, except for in like some security critical spots or something. Okay. It made you wonder if, how true that really was, you know, but maybe there's some truth to it. Nah, I don't buy it.

[01:16:33] All right. Should we go into four? Yeah, I don't think I have anything else. Number four, whatever you do, don't go home. The summary says, Camille tells Sims her decision to kill Juliet, but Juliet's nurse helps her escape. Camille and Sims lead the hunt for Juliet, but she evades them and is found by Shirley, who agrees to take her to the void underneath the silo. In the void, Juliet finds Bernard still alive.

[01:17:00] Lucas tells the outsiders that the outside isn't safe, which Patrick refuses to believe. Billings learns that Orla was murdered. In the past, Helen and Daniel are approached by a man who threatens them to stop their investigation. Daniel asks for help from his friend, Sam Ramsey, who works in the Pentagon and has his own suspicions about the Iran mission. So do you think that Sam told Daniel everything he knew or was it selective?

[01:17:31] I wasn't, I mean, I didn't think they didn't introduce the character for nothing, but I was surprised at how quickly he offered up information, considering the risks that he outlined for himself. We don't really hear what Sam told Daniel, but Daniel's telling Helen in the van that, that we, what we already said about, I forgot the name, but the,

[01:17:57] what was the name of the person that was an AI control advocates? Per Stenson. Per Stenson. Yeah. And that that's also the person that funded this clinic and that they were on the ship with the, where the aircraft took off from, I guess. And that that ship is now in Norway, even though it's usually parked in San Diego. And that Sam has a contact that's on the base, I think in Norway that will speak to them off the record.

[01:18:24] So I think that's about everything that Sam told them. And now they're trying to go meet this contact to get more information. But then the van suddenly has a mind of its own. Yeah. That's actually at five, but yeah, that's a five. It just came to mind, but it like, yeah, because Daniel says, Oh, I've never heard him like, or seen him like being so scared. And I mean, it is scary stuff, but it feels to me like there, well, there's obviously more to it.

[01:18:53] And I think maybe Sam knows more about it, but didn't see. He said he was looking into it and went down a rabbit hole. So my sense is he didn't know anything at all at first, but then it got him thinking about it. And I don't, if he found out more than he told Daniel, I don't, I don't understand why he wouldn't just tell him everything, you know, why just tell him a little bit. Because he didn't have a lot of time on the call. He said like, okay, don't talk. Just let me talk. We don't have a lot of time. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's a good point.

[01:19:23] Cause like the call was cryptid or something. Yeah. He said he had a burner phone or something like that. Yeah. Something like that. Uh, let's see that this nurse really showed that she's on Juliet side. And I think has been the whole time. This is where she says someone asked her to replace the Doug's drugs, but she only said she did. She said, she said someone, but it's Camille asked her to replace the drugs. I think like put it. No, no Sims.

[01:19:53] Sims. When she, but she only said she did. Oh, Sims told her. Yeah. Well, Sims got that lady to give her the drugs, but I think that's what Sims was behind. Robert Sims was behind. So she, did she not replace the drugs then? She. Yeah. Well, like, okay. Camille asked her to double them. Yeah. She did it. Sims had her replacing them with fake pills,

[01:20:21] even longer than Julia had been spitting them out. Sims had been replacing them with sugar pills and the nurses who had been delivering those. Right. Yes. But it took a while before she was actually able to swap the medication. With the sugar pills. Oh, I see. Okay. I see what's going on now. So she says to Julia, I took you off the forgetting drugs. No, I spit them out. She goes, okay.

[01:20:51] Even before that, someone asked me to replace them. And then we find out later that was Sims who gave, had gave her the sugar pills. Yeah. I'd read that wrong, but yeah. So still, it just shows that the nurse was on her side, which is pretty cool. Like everybody is, it just shows Julia. So when people seem very like ready to follow. Motivated to help. Like across the board. Yeah. I don't,

[01:21:17] I can't think of anyone who is just a nasty bad guy, except the guard that told Knox that they should have burned him and his friends alive or something like that. And then Knox punched him out. That was a fun moment. I forgot about that. And then Shirley pretends to be mad at him. Yeah. So they let her go. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:21:46] It's fun seeing them as just having a little bit of a period of just being a couple without any drama. They're supportive of each other. I like it. Yeah. I like them together a lot. He seems like a good partner. Supportive. Yeah. And we learned, like we learned with the nurse, Amy, that there's about other hidden passages that she's known about her whole life. And that's where she escapes with,

[01:22:16] with Juliet. Juliet. And then Juliet, like she, like Sims finds her, right? It's in this episode. And the first thing he says to her is like, listen to me or something like that. And that's when I started to be suspicious that he was not there to like put her in jail or kill her, that there was something more to that storyline. Uh,

[01:22:46] but then obviously like she escapes, um, she doesn't believe him and I don't blame her. But yeah, like that was the point when I started to think that something else was up. Did you, I think I'm jumping ahead a little bit, but did you like finding out that Sims was working against his wife the whole time? I think it's complicated. And I don't think he's working really against her because like both their purpose is to protect people and protect the silos, except they have different information.

[01:23:19] And because he's trying to protect the silo by protecting Juliet, because she knows how to stop the safeguard. And she's trying to protect the silo by not having a rebellion. Yeah. So she wants to kill Juliet, but she doesn't know what he knows. I mean, like, you know, with the logic that you're using, you could say that about any two characters on the show. They're doing the best they can with the information that they have. But, and, and often that's pits them against each other.

[01:23:49] Right. And so they're like Camille is trying to kill Juliet and Sims is protecting Juliet. And, and Camille gives him a glare at the end of the final number five. I see. Yeah. It makes me fear for his life. But yeah, I mean, I understand what you're saying. And it's interesting. That was actually one of my points. Um, they started out like, you know,

[01:24:15] at the beginning of the series as like a solid couple that were like telling each, like each other, everything. And, um, that were like on the same page. And now they're kind of like in enforced positions to lie to each other. I feel like she's lied to him before, which is sort of why I was, when I found out that Sims was working against her, I almost felt proud of him, even though I, you do get the feeling that they love and care about each other.

[01:24:44] And I don't want to see their marriage broken up or anything, but I was like, I feel like he's doing the right thing by doing all this. Yeah. And like, I think, I guess her argument, uh, and season two was, okay, well we're going to play both sides. Yeah. So whoever wins, like we save our family. So it was more like from a selfish perspective. Yeah. And I feel like in Robert Sims case, like, of course he's thinking about his family, but it's also about the whole silo. And she wants to save the whole silo,

[01:25:13] but I mean, lying is never good really, but I feel like he's lying for good reasons to his wife. It was interesting when the legacy said, I picked you because you're a liar. Yeah. Liar. Yeah. And maybe by not telling her what he knows, he's protecting her. So she doesn't have to cover up for him in front of the voice. The algorithm. Yeah. I think you're right. I don't think he's like, I don't like my wife anymore,

[01:25:41] but I think there's a rift between them now, you know? Yeah. Because they're keeping things from each other. And he, I think he like, it's the funny thing with him is he's always second fiddle, at least sometimes third, even though he wants, he has clearly wanted to be like top dog and be promoted and be praised and everything. And like the legacy will be like, Oh, so you're going to have to leave. Cause I just need to talk to your wife and stuff like that. You know? And it's like, Oh,

[01:26:09] and then I think the real key moment here was after she came back from that first meeting with the legacy and, and she couldn't tell him what it said, then he's like, all right, you're keeping secrets for me. Then I'm going to be keeping some secrets from you now and do what I think is right. You know, cause we're not fully in this together anymore or something like that. But I think that decision was made more when Bernard told him like, they can kill us whenever,

[01:26:38] like that really pushed him to act this way. I mean, why do I can't remember if he and his wife have had open conversations about the safeguard? I don't know. No, it's been mentioned. No, because wait, it's been mentioned about the vitamin D, like a race in the memory. But I don't think they're like kill everyone. And safeguard has been mentioned. Although I think Bernard said,

[01:27:05] like when Bernard told everybody about it, I think he said something about Camille is probably burning with this knowledge right now. Yeah. That was interesting. He feels sympathy for her, which made me feel more sympathy for her too. Yeah. Yeah. I think that it's been nice to finally see Sims do something intelligent because up until now, it was like, how is he in these positions of power when his wife seems like the one who's really making all the moves?

[01:27:34] And so it was good to see him making some moves that I really do think Camille would honestly almost be proud of. Um, because I, I don't like, he's going against her, but he is still doing like, she didn't want to kill Juliet. She's trying to do everything she can for an outcome where she doesn't have to kill Juliet. And I think she's been pushed until she decides to do it. Yeah. And I think it's because she's been pushed to the point where it's like, if you don't do this, like,

[01:28:04] you know, we can go down another path. And so I think as long as things, like if things work out from these decisions Sims has made, I could see her being like proud of him. But if things go wrong, she's going to be like, how dare that you like double across to me. So I could see it going either way. Yeah. I hope they end up. Okay. I want them to, but I'm more on his side right now than hers.

[01:28:34] Yeah. And it's so nice to see like episode five, like the Alliance that is starting to form with a lots of different characters, you know, like mechanical and the outsiders and Sims and. Yeah. And Bernard. And it was so fun to see him sitting there telling him all the secrets. And you're like, okay, good. I like Tim Robbins. So I want to like his character. And now I'm liking his character. That felt good. Well,

[01:29:03] that's two redemption arcs we have there, like Robert Sims and Bernard, I think. Absolutely. Anything else about this episode or should we just go to the final one? Well, the Arla can't twist that she was murdered in that gas. Yeah. That's when we find out because Paul Billings, like he goes to the morgue and he's told like that Arla's lungs were clean and she didn't die from the fumigation. So we know it's a murder. Yep.

[01:29:33] And even she wasn't, she didn't die in the mines cause there would have been dust in her lungs. So someone killed her and dragged her to a spot. They thought no one would find her. Which links the plot to the mines again. Um, I think this is the first time we've actually been in the mines, right? These, this season we've heard about them before. Cause we knew that, uh, Lucas was sentenced there for a while, but we never seen them. Yeah. And I mean,

[01:30:02] it would make sense that there are no cameras there because they've been mining for like the silos been there for like 350 years. So that's a lot of mining. That's a lot of different spots where people could be. Mm-hmm. So it's pretty much the only place like besides like the digger voids where people can hide and conspire, conspire to do things. I don't know.

[01:30:26] Would you think it was odd that Helen and Daniel go to her ex-boyfriend's swanky apartment where there's a big giant picture of her? Is that supposed to be something to do with the rom-com-iness of all of this? Or is there some other reason why? I'm guessing so. Cause I think it gave opportunity to show Daniel being a little bit jealous, but I also thought it was a pretty reasonable question.

[01:30:53] Like I think even in completely platonic scenario where someone says, okay, we're going to have to stay at my ex's place. And you walk in and there's a giant portrait of them. Like I think it's a typical question to ask and for her to just be like, well, he's not petty. Like that's not being petty to take down a paint, a giant painting of your ex. Like it's actually like probably kind of reasonable. Yeah.

[01:31:22] If you painted like a big circle and a line through it, then it would be petty. Yeah. Um, also in this episode, we, um, Daniel and Helen in the hideout, they decode, uh, Steve's chess game. Yeah. And they're trying to track his opponent. Do they find him? No, they don't because they went to Sam for that. And instead he found some contact. Yeah.

[01:31:52] So, but we know that at least like, uh, Steve, the hacker was in contact with someone else and trying to say like the King is falling, like something's up. I guess so. They, yeah, maybe it's someone that we will. Yeah. Hear about. Uh, also Lucas is done hiding and he's with the outsiders. Why was he hiding? Anyway, it's like, was he digging to another silo actually? I think so.

[01:32:21] Cause okay. Here's, I mean, okay. Yeah. I just, I think I said this when we podcasted about this before, but it doesn't really make sense to me that just because they find out that there's this safeguard and whatever, I don't know if it's another person or an AI can just end their lives at any time. And then Bernard decides, Oh, that everything I've done has been for nothing. And I'm just going to go outside and get killed by the poison. And Lucas is just like walking around, like he's already dead. And I'm like,

[01:32:50] but the silos been there for 350 years. So it makes me feel sort of like, yeah, we know that there's a possibility for nuclear war, but we don't all just give up on our lives. We just hope it will never happen, you know? So it's weird. It's weird to me. And so I don't, anyway, Lucas found that out at the end of last season. And then we have, now we're just seeing him again. Is it different to you? Like we know there's nuclear war, but like in my head,

[01:33:18] nuclear war means some other country makes a decision to send something over here. And there's a chance that our government tries to defend us versus if we suddenly had this knowledge that our, you know, government leaders had a button where they could just be like at any point, it's best if we just reset the U S and like, I know that's still a possibility on the table, but what if you had intimate knowledge of sort of the circumstances under which

[01:33:47] they would utilize it? Like, I think that's different than just knowing that imminent death is a possibility versus this is like a laid out clear plan that the people in charge have. And they've used it before. I think that's different. Yeah. I just don't see that being a situation where I would be like, okay, well, I guess I'll kill myself.

[01:34:13] But if you'd worked your whole life as like a Senator or something and you'd been promoting this government that you then find out actually isn't just about safeguarding the people. It's also about often just wiping them out. I don't know. I mean, Bernard worked his whole life listening to this voice and trying to do what it said in order to keep the secrets of the silo secret. And then he finds out, Oh,

[01:34:42] there's this safeguard where if the secrets aren't kept secret, then everybody will die. Well, that's aligned with what he's been doing already. It seems like it's not unless I'm, unless I'm missing something. It's like, yeah, it's just another way. It's just a punishment. If you don't do your job, right. Then you'll get, you think the voice knew that he had been like trying to decode the, um,

[01:35:07] the book of Quinn and that he had seen the hard drive. Cause if there are cameras there, then maybe he thought, Oh, it's a done deal. It's going to happen now. Like the safeguard is going to happen now. Maybe. That would make more sense. Him and Lucas kind of like both knew that they knew too much. And that's why they were hiding that. That's what I got. If they both either, or both of them thought, Oh crap. It's not only is this a thing that can happen,

[01:35:37] but it's going to happen soon. Then I could see them being like, Oh, I might as well just kill myself. You know, it's going to happen soon because of something we did or something like that. But now we know that Juliet has to plug the pipe. It's funny that that's the thing she can't remember that she was supposed to do. Put a cap on a pipe somewhere. But what were you saying? I'm sorry. And I was going to say that also Lucas had been in the mines before.

[01:36:06] So he knew the place and probably like made friends when he was there. So it makes sense that, you know, he would think of going there to hide. Yeah. And maybe do other things like digging. Because the people that know too much are Bernard, Lucas and Juliet, if she gets her memory back. And so that's why they're all together. Lucas did see like the plans,

[01:36:32] the drawings of the silo when he was looking at the hard drive. Yeah. And I think we need to go back, but I think he was like, what's this? Like, was it a pipe or like a tunnel or something? I remember like him questioning something about that. So maybe he can figure it out. Yeah. Yeah. Cause we know the pipe is one of the few things that comes from like completely outside the silo from what solo said.

[01:37:02] Are you guys, I didn't ask this, but how do you like this season compared to the other two? I'm loving it. I like it. I think last season so far has been my favorite. Like I really loved the solo storyline and her discovering that sort of like, it was like post-apocalyptic in the post-apocalypse. You know, it was like layered like this silo, which is already this like bunker,

[01:37:31] but then post a secondary like disaster. Something about that whole set felt cool. And solo was just such an endearing character. Yeah. Steve's on. We have that same. I don't have that same feeling about most of the characters in our main silo. I like them. I think they're interesting and fun to watch, but there's no one. I like adore the way I adored solo. Um,

[01:37:59] there's no one who's really like captured who captures me on screen. Whereas when solo was on, like I was watching closely the whole time. Yeah. I feel similar. I thought last season was a great balance between all the sort of mystery, mind bending detective, uh, stuff that went on in the silo. And then Juliet story, which was more of an adventure and some really strikingly cool scenes and some stunts and things like that in the water and everything.

[01:38:29] And it was a nice balance. And now, especially watching it all in such a short period of time, it was like my brain hurts afterwards. I need a little bit of more variation or something. I'm loving it still, but it's, I think I like season two a little bit better too, because of that. I'm also, I think I'm very much looking forward to the second half of this season because it feels like we really have like Juliet back back now. Right. That's good. And that thing, like I need to see Juliet back in like her sweaty,

[01:38:59] casual clothes and not this like buttoned up blouse. And like, it just felt so, it felt so outside of character that maybe that was bothering me too. I mean, it fit perfectly with the storyline. Like, of course she was outside of character. She was outside of herself a bit, but I'm excited to kind of get the payoff of her being back. Yeah, me too. For sure. And I hope we see more of Billings. I really like him. Yeah. Yeah. He's,

[01:39:29] he's acting so put off this whole season. He just doesn't seem happy in his job at all. He's not happy with his wife. Well, cause he's stuck like in between. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting that he was the one that was so devoted to the pact and now he's been disillusioned and he's the one that's tasked with revising it. It's kind of ironic. He's also,

[01:39:56] I feel like every other character is doing these sort of like deep investigations of the deeper things going on. And like, he is still investigating a mystery, but it's a much more like, I don't want to say day to day. Cause I don't think murders happen day to day, especially in this small society. But like his mystery that he was looking at felt so small in terms of like the broader narrative that was going on.

[01:40:24] I think in pursuit of that mystery, the uncovering of what's happening in critical supply is pretty big and is opening up like his storyline for that bigger impact. But it just felt like he was on this little like side mission that was very isolated from everybody else. Yeah. The scene when he's with, what'd you say your name was? Carla McLean. Carla McLean.

[01:40:50] Where he finds out that they only have two years worth of lights, which is crucial for growing food. And then they'll be starving in the dark. That suddenly, that was a big momentous moment. And it was like, okay, that changes everything. It seems like that means that they're going to have to figure out. I mean, maybe they'll find a bunch of lights hold up in the thieves room or something. That's what I just want to know. Like where are the lights and what are people doing with the lights?

[01:41:18] Like I could see so many other things being stolen and like, I could understand lights being a commodity, but that many lights. It's true. You wouldn't be able to fit that in your apartment. That's why I'm seeing the mines because also if you're digging, you need lights in there. Well, my hope is that this means that they have two years actually, that they're not going to get those lights back. And that by the end of this series, they will be forced to figure something else out, you know,

[01:41:46] go up to the surface somehow or go to another silo. I don't know. And like, I mean, why would someone, since we're on the subject, I was keeping that for later, but why would someone from the silo steal the lights knowing that it would kill the silo if it wasn't for a good reason, like digging or trying to, you know, to come up with a solution to prevent them from dying from the safeguard or something like that?

[01:42:14] Because most people don't think broader, like big picture. Yeah. But it's still like 50 years worth of lights. Yeah. So you think they're digging tunnels and they're lighting the tunnels? That's what I think, but maybe I'm wrong. To another silo or something. I think that's the only thing that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. And now I'm looking at the episode title for next episode. I'm wondering if that really makes sense. You put it in the agenda.

[01:42:42] It's called an introduction to lanterns. No, no. Is that from another show? That's the show lanterns from HBO. I really, I was like, Oh my gosh, that's like Christ. It's totally going to be about the lights. It'll be a different light. Green light. All right. So we move on to the final one. Sure. Emily. In a flashback,

[01:43:09] Juliet and Bernard are rescued from the incinerator by Knox, Shirley, Billings, and other working and others working together. Camille, newly head of IT tells Sims that Juliet, Bernard and Lucas need to be killed. Bernard tells Sims about the safeguard, which he learned from Lucas. Sims works with Walker and Carla to fake Bernard's death and plants seeds for Juliet's veneration among the silos inhabitants.

[01:43:39] So Camille cannot kill her without reigniting rebellion. Bernard tells Walker about the other silos, how to contact them via radio, and that silo one has the power to activate the safeguard in all other silos. When Juliet finds Bernard, he and Sim tell her they had the nurse switch out the memory suppression pills because Juliet needs to remember how to stop the safeguard. Sims, Walker,

[01:44:06] and others give Juliet relics of her past in the hopes of triggering her memory, with the relic George once gave her succeeding. Billings questions Carla about Orla, and she tells him that the silos critical supplies, which they cannot manufacture, are running out because they are being stolen, and that Orla had been investigating the thefts. In the past, Daniel tells Helen that Sam contacted him about Pierce Stanson,

[01:44:35] an advocate for AI control who was involved in the Iron mission. Before they can meet, an informant, control of the car in which they are driving is taken over by an unknown force. Aliens. Some people think it's aliens. I've read that online. That was like my favorite episode of the season so far. It was really bad. Yes, me too. Like, yeah, shit is happening.

[01:45:04] I liked four and five a whole lot. And I mean, I think it was really fun to save the revelations about exactly what happens right after the last season finale to this one. That made it even more cool to have to wait for it a little bit and then get it. It may, it like forced us to kind of go a little bit on Juliet's journey of like confusion. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Like, why am I the mayor? I thought.

[01:45:34] I don't know. I did like this reveal that Sims orchestrated that because I was also having a hard time understanding how we elected a mayor with amnesia. I still don't, I still have a hard time believing it would have played out, but I think there was just so much hero worship of her and expectation that she would regain her memory, I guess. And I guess they're so isolated,

[01:46:02] like in the silo that not a lot of people like really knew her personally. Yeah. Cause it's like, she's so venerated. And I really liked the scene where they're lowering her down on her stretcher and people start singing to her. Like, she's just this hero, but when she meets people that she knew, and especially the people down that she worked with, they kind of treat her like shit sometimes.

[01:46:29] It's so funny how like that can be in our own lives to the people who are the closest to you know what you really like, but other people might think you're better or something like that. Yep. And she was sort of an outsider everywhere. Right. Because of the way her life played out, like she was, you know, eventually obviously accepted by the people in the down deep, but she wasn't from the down deep. Um, and then in the up top,

[01:46:58] she was obviously like established and began to be respected there, but she wasn't from there. She was sort of always an outsider. Yeah. She's like a loner, like a loner. And really George was the only person she seemed to feel completely comfortable with. And he's gone. I loved seeing, we've already talked a lot about it, but just seeing Sims story through all this and how he,

[01:47:23] it turned out that he was being intelligent and making plans and making things happen. Yeah. I really like reframes and rewrites his story and Bernard's too. Um, yes. I like that. Him too. He, he, it was interesting that he was talking to Walker about the other silos and how, um, she's like, why haven't we been able to hear their radio transmissions? And he said they're on different frequencies.

[01:47:53] And she didn't even understand the concept of different radio channels. Cause I guess the radios didn't have that or something, but now you wonder if you can start tuning the radio and hear what's going on in the other silos, you know? It seemed like it. And feels to me like it's going to play a big role that it's going to come into play at least, uh, in the future. Yeah. Yeah. I hope next season. Why would they put that in there otherwise? Yeah.

[01:48:20] I want to see more people in other silos before the show's over. We've already seen 17, but there's 49 more that we haven't seen. Yeah. Maybe they have like flamboyant decor. They're like circus people. Super different. Right. Maybe everybody's naked in one of them all the time. Nudist silo. Yeah. In the archery, like eating apples. Right. Bunch of hippies. Um, but yeah, the radio,

[01:48:50] I think it's pretty cool. And, um, like communication is such a forbidden thing in a way. Um, that's like, that could really like tear shit up. Oh yeah. If people start talking and it's interesting too, that, that we learned that silo one is in control. Right. Yeah. That seems important. I mean, if it's a silo, there has to be people in it. Why would they,

[01:49:20] or unless it's a tiny silo with AI. AI. Just the AI on the song. But, um, I keep thinking there, there are like people in charge. Yeah. There was a lot of like, it's not just the AI. There was wizard of Oz parallels before. So I wonder if it's, they're going to go there again and have some guy in control or something. Do you remember? No, definitely.

[01:49:50] So, sorry, I'm not saying anything. It seems like such a risk to use the radio because you're not just risking your own silo. You're going to trigger the safeguard. You might trick, like, even if, let's say Julia can like, just can't cap the thing. And we know 17, I mean, we know 18 is safe. If you try to contact another silo, they're not safe.

[01:50:19] You haven't kept their safeguard. And the second that they find out and contact another silo, aren't you risking the safeguard just going off? What about this? What if you could figure out how to broadcast a signal to all the silos at once? And you found out the top three to five things that the AI thinks is most dangerous for people to know. And you broadcasted all of that out to every silo at once.

[01:50:48] Then if the AI is trying to save the most people possible and everybody has suddenly learned all the secrets, then would it make sense to trigger the safeguard? No, because you just kill all the humans. That's not what it's trying to do. It's trying to save the most people possible. That would be my plan. Tell all the secrets at once to everyone. But that's betting that there are really only 50 silos full stop.

[01:51:13] And that there aren't 50 sets of 50 silos across wherever we are or across the world. And so maybe it's okay to lose the 50 of 50. Maybe Bernard only knows about them. Oh, that's the Twilight Zone ending where you think you're saving everyone. And they're like, Oh, 50. No problem. You're all gone. There's actually 5 million. Um, I liked that,

[01:51:43] you know, they got all these relics in front of Juliet. She was looking at them and remembering her childhood. And the whole thing with the watch where deputy to Hank, who remember was with her father, right before he blew himself, sacrificed himself. And I think he did say those words. Like if you get a chance to tell my daughter. And so then we get to see Hank tell her, her father's last words. He told me to tell you, he loved you.

[01:52:11] He wanted you to keep fighting and never stopping yourself because she's perfect. Exactly as she is. And I like how, um, Rebecca Ferguson played that. Like, Oh, I don't know if I can handle this, but it was a nice moment. And then, you know, the watch, uh, did trigger some memories, but I love that it was the Pez dispenser that really put her over the top. Cause that seems to be the sort of iconic relic of the show. We love the Pez. I thought that the deputy was going to tell her like, Oh,

[01:52:40] I'm the one who dropped like the controller for the bottom or something like that. And apologize. Cause he's the one who dropped it. Right. Like whatever, like the, I killed your father. Yeah. He said they lost it. That's a good point. He didn't, he didn't write totally spell out what happened. I don't know if I would either. Honestly, I don't know.

[01:53:03] I think the main reason why the writers didn't have him do that is because they didn't want the scene to be about that. You know what I mean? They wanted it to be a touching moment where she had some connection with her father cause she hasn't had that yet. And that would have just sort of overwhelmed it. Like, Oh, what you, you are the cause of it. And it was more respectful for her. I think just not to mention that at that moment, but I kind of forgot that it was his fault. I did too.

[01:53:33] Until you just said that. Well, Um, so with the investigation into this young woman's death, Orla, are we, we're sort of, we think that they're on the right track that someone killed her because she was investigating who was stealing from them. Oh, and that all makes sense. If it's the people that are closely tied, it was the leader of the minds.

[01:54:01] And if they're stealing light bulbs to go down into the minds, like that does all super connect. Amelie, I think you solved that mystery. And they're criminals down there too. Totally. Always. Oh, but they really are, right? Yeah. It's not just that they say that because they're talking like down. Well, cause so often the people on the top levels just like talk down about the people in the lower levels. I forgot that they actually, they legitimately send criminals to the minds.

[01:54:32] But I thought the minds were like on level 70 or something. I read. It's not like at the bottom, bottom, very bottom. Oh, okay. The entrance anyway, like the minds could be, but also the fact that the former shadow of supply is the daughter of the head of the minds. Yeah. And I mean, she probably doesn't have the code anymore to enter critical supplies, but she's been in there before.

[01:55:01] So it's possible that she would have figured out a way to get in there and steal stuff. Yeah. Or tell someone, or maybe if they're digging, like did they dig in there? It's another possibility. Or maybe it's just too obvious that it's going to be something completely different, but yeah, that's like the obvious scenario to me right now. It's actually mole people. It's solo. He's dug his way over. Yeah. I'm never good at figuring out murder mysteries,

[01:55:31] so I'll just wait and find out when I see it on the screen. But then again, like if, uh, Lucas is involved with the digging because he was in the mine, I don't see him being involved with the murder at all. I hope not. That's really not him. So I feel like someone is on with that plan of digging, but the person who actually murdered Orla fucked up. Like that wasn't part of the plan.

[01:56:01] And like the others that are part of that plan of digging are probably like, obviously don't agree with that. Um, so it will be interesting to see how it unfolds. Right. There'll be some twists with this show, but yeah, I don't want it to be, Lucas. Cause I was really glad that Avi Nash is still in the show. Cause I just love seeing him on screen. Oh, and one thing about the critical supply investigation, like, okay.

[01:56:29] Carla has no problem telling Billings about like the missing supplies and everything that's going on. And she's like, I couldn't talk about it before because if people are afraid, like they go crazy. And I was like, dude, you could have told like the sheriff or like some deputies are like, you know, hire people not tell everyone, but people who could help you with the investigation. Like it's something really serious. Like you're going to die in two years. Otherwise, like,

[01:56:59] why didn't she say anything? It's, isn't it weird to you guys? Yeah. Yeah. They don't want people to panic is what she said. Yeah. But she could tell one person that could help like Billings. Yeah. Don't just set your apprentice on figuring it out. Like that seems pretty irresponsible to have just told Orla. I wondered what the AI would say if you're like, Oh, we only have two years of lights. What do we do? All powerful voice, activate,

[01:57:29] safeguard protocol. I mean, probably that would be what it would do because the risk of them running out and contacting another silo would be a risk. Yeah. Cause they're desperate. But you're telling me that that means that the AI isn't monitoring critical supply itself. Like that also feels weird. Another place with no cameras.

[01:57:57] It's like a highly important place for cameras. I mean, the interesting thing, one interesting thing about the AI is it does seem like it's confined to this room and that they let Bernard and all the heads of it before him. And now Camille are just the only power it seems to have over them is it's reasoning because it's been around for so long and seems to know the best way to save everyone. But it has to convince her like it's giving her arguments.

[01:58:26] Like it has to convince her. It can't force her to do, to put the vitamin D plus in the water or whatever else. I don't know if it can actually trigger the safeguard. We don't really know, but it seems like it's all about just, you know, what it can convince them versus what it can force them to do. But I think it can force the, like, I don't think you need a human to have the final, like kill everybody option.

[01:58:56] We don't know where that's coming from. And the only way it could be running all those like, Oh, critical detections of the status of the silo, depending on Juliet's role. Like the only way it's running those is if it has intimate knowledge of the overall sentiments of the silo. I mean, I don't know. Maybe I'm thinking about it. Camille's telling it all this stuff. And we've never been explicitly told that the legacy, the AI is what can trigger the safeguard protocol. We're just assuming that.

[01:59:27] Or not assuming it. Cause I don't know. And there's probably like other people in silo one monitoring. Cause it seems like it's kind of like the function of silo one. Like if they monitor radios, like they must monitor cameras too. Like maybe the AI is not overseeing everything, but other people are watching or I'm just speculating, but I think it is, it, whatever it is, whether it's like a computer or a person behind it.

[01:59:56] I do think they're working with more intimate information than just what the head of it is telling them about the silo. The reason why I think it might just be what the head of it is telling it is because we saw several scenes where it was asking her what was happening. So it seems like, I think so anyway. That's a good point. Maybe. Huh.

[02:00:26] Or she would go to it and ask its advice. Like if it doesn't even need her, why does it even have her there? To execute the orders. That's what I'm saying. It has to convince her to execute the orders. Yeah. Anything else that we didn't talk about? The first thing in my note, my notes is, but the goo with like exclamation points. We already talked about that. What is the goo? Yeah.

[02:00:56] That still feels like such a mystery to me that I don't have any guesses on the whole Charlotte scenario of why they were there and what they were doing and whether the goo was from someone else. Yeah. I have no idea. Because it seems like, you know, the reason we're watching all this stuff in the past is because it somehow leads to this dystopia and, and how they handle it. There's the memory thing.

[02:01:26] There's the digging and presumably the conflict with Iran and the reason why the U S is there and this weird tech, whatever it is that's controlling the planes and the van. And also this goo or somehow are all wrapped up in how we get dystopia, but it's so feels still so far removed.

[02:01:51] The world that we're seeing in the past and what we see in the silo world. Yeah. And also like the past story line, if it triggered the need to build silos, like it will be a while before the silos are actually there. Like it probably took years to build. A long time. Right. So a lot can happen. Yeah.

[02:02:15] It would seem like it would be hard to imagine building 50 silos that are how many stories, 170 or something that can hold 10,000 people as a response to the environment being unlivable. You wouldn't have time for that. So you either, either the environmental collapse took a long time and it wasn't so immediate or they were building those silos anticipating that they were going to trigger it or something like that, you know?

[02:02:45] Yeah. Maybe there are already building the silos. Yeah. In the past timeline. Yeah. Maybe we have silos already in our current world. There's some silos of some sort or another somewhere. I have one in my backyard. Okay. I'll admit it. The podcastica bunker. That's right. I got my podcast rig down there. Yeah. No food, but like podcast stuff.

[02:03:15] I got snacks. I got snacks. I got snacks from the apocalypse. I have a warehouse full of Doritos. All right. That is our show. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. I hope that silo fans felt like you got a fix of geeking out over the show.

[02:03:45] Um, we're going to do another one. So if you feel like we missed anything or you had any questions or you can fill in any of the details that we missed, uh, we would love for you guys to write in. We didn't really get any feedback for this one. We, um, got people asking us to do it, but we'd love to have some back and forth with you guys, theorizing and explaining and things like that. So if you want to send that in, just send it to, uh, talk at podcast.com.

[02:04:16] Next episode of this podcast, we're going to be covering the show lanterns coming out on HBO in a few weeks. And so, uh, me and Kirk and James are going to be podcasting on that. It'll be here on wax episodic. And also as its own separate podcast called casting light and lanterns podcast. Cool. Your name in the mines. And if you want to write in or leave us a message,

[02:04:45] you can find all our contact information at podcast.com. While you're there, be sure to check out our other shows. Yeah. Our big show right now is dragon cast, which is covering house of the dragon season three. And I hear that's going really well, right? Oh, it's been such a fun season to cover. Really loving it. Yeah. I mean, I am behind. I haven't even started watching yet,

[02:05:11] but I know that we were waiting for a huge battle that was supposed to be at the end of season two. And they pushed it off to season three. Did it turn out to be worth the wait? It was quite impactful. That's cool. Well, worth the wait. I think I've enjoyed this season and I think we are gearing up for many more battles to finalize this season and next season. So it should be good. And that's it, right? There's going to be four seasons. Yep.

[02:05:41] Which is also just really, I'm really enjoying these shows that have a nice, tidy storyline that they're going to get through. And like a set amount of seasons, it makes really, I think it's making for really nice like story arcs. It's cool. And I freaking loved a night of the seven kingdoms. The other game of Thrones spinoff. Yeah. Earlier this year. So good. I would say it's been really hard to go back to house of dragon after that,

[02:06:06] because it's definitely a much darker and more depressing show that is going nowhere happy. And night of the seven kingdoms was such a beautiful, like breath of fresh air. At least there's more seasons of that coming out too, to sort of counteract. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there's that, that's kind of the main things. Oh no, actually I should mention that walking dead dead cities out right now. And I'm hearing good. Thanks. Like I'm real surprised. I'm behind on that too.

[02:06:36] But I'm about to go back to it. Well, Seth Hoffman is, he took over a showrunner. He was a writer on the walking dead during seasons four, five and six. So at the, like the peak. And it sounds like his influence has really improved dead city. And I'm excited to jump into that. I I'm behind on that too. But if you're hearing me, you probably already know that Ben and Alex are covering that show and, and they're great. So, yeah. Are you still doing the rewatch with Lucy? Yeah.

[02:07:05] We always take a break whenever the spinoffs come out. So I'm on a break right now and then we'll jump back into it. But it was kind of fun because we just covered a walking dead season seven, episode one, where Negan bashed Glenn's brains in. And now we get the dead, dead city season where Negan and Maggie are friends. Right after. Quite the juxtaposition. Yeah. Yeah.

[02:07:35] I, I, I hearing density is good. I can't imagine myself watching a show where Maggie and Negan decided to be friends and liking it, but I am going to start watching it and see what it's like. Uh, I want to mention this episode is made possible by Patreon supporters like Jen Jacobs, who pledged their support at patrion.com slash Jason Cabassi. So thank you so much to Jen. Who's been around pretty much since the start, 16 years ago. And, uh, she, she also did a podcast for us for a little while called they did what that

[02:08:05] was about crazy documentaries about people doing crazy and fucked up things. And that's available at podcast.com. But if you sign up to Patreon, you get to help keep the podcasting going and you get perks like ad free episodes of every podcast I'm on. Plus some Patreon exclusive stuff tomorrow, Ben and Daphne and I are recording one of those Patreon exclusive podcasts about the announcements that came out of comic-con last weekend.

[02:08:34] So we're just going to geek out about what everything that was announced and talk about some of our favorites. And that'll be on the Zed head show. Patreon.com slash Jason Cabassi. All right. That is our show. Thanks for listening. Who are you guys, by the way?

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