It’s time to talk about the past. Or, rather, the present. It’s time to have a tough conversation about the pre-apocalyptic flashbacks, is what I’m saying. 

On some levels, they have a lot going for it. This is the storyline that will ostensibly answer the big question, Why are they down there?, and as such it has undoubtedly held my interest. It’s charmingly acted by Jessica Henwick as investigative journalist Helen Drew and Ashley Zukerman as idealistic freshman congressman Daniel Keene. (They’re very good-looking people.) But man, the material is like styrofoam packing peanuts, designed to transport you safely from point A to point B, nothing more. I hate those things.

For starters, Apple TV‘s Silo is obviously at least feinting in the direction of a romance between the two, in the most thuddingly obvious ways possible. Every time they flirt or share a moment of emotional intimacy, you can feel the characters being forcibly marched towards their destination by the writing, which feels inorganic and forced despite the actors’ easy chemistry. Dialogue that should feel fluid and sexy comes out clunky and clichéd.

The same is true of their whole mystery/disappearing dark-web guy storyline, which culminates in the emissary of their enemies (that guy played by Reed Birney) trying to buy them off before Daniel digs up information that strengthens his resolve to keep going. The writing can hang a lampshade on it by referencing Nancy Drew as a joke, but their amateur-sleuth routine makes the girl detective look like Hercule Poirot. It’s a series of logical leaps that they treat as sure things and shots in the dark that invariably pay off. 

Without going into it much, a Monty Pythonesque “If she weighs the same as a duck, she’s made of wood, and therefore…a witch!” level chain of inference and conjecture about an online chess game and terrorists playing World of Warcraft or something leading directly to Sam (Elijah Cook), Daniel’s Army buddy at the Pentagon, calling him on a burner to tell him “I found something you’re not gonna believe.” For god’s sake, he even refers to going “down a rabbit hole.” This is Conspiracy Thriller 101 dialogue. This show is better than that.

I’m not saying the subterranean material is fully immune from some of the surface storyline’s weaknesses — like the suddenly sympathetic Nurse Amy telling Juliette “We don’t have time for that!” when the mayor asks her who told her to stop giving her the real memory-loss meds. In the time it took her to mouth placeholder dialogue like that, she could have just said the damn name. Later, while leading the hunt for Juliette, Robert Sims spells out all the details right where Juliette’s repentant best friend Shirley can hear them, like an NPC in a video game spilling info for the player’s benefit.

But the setting is a million times more compelling than the umpteenth outdated Washington DC political thriller you’ve watched, and the close quarters lend a sort of physical rationale to all of the random encounters and right-place right-time meetings that characterize Juliette’s adventures. Of course she finds who and what she’s looking for. There are only so many places they can be!

Amy and Juliette bcome the most wanted people in the Silo — more hunted by the Sims and their raiders even than the scapegoat figures Lukas Kyle and Patrick Kennedy, who finally meet and argue about whether or not the surface world is a poison wasteland or a verdant paradise. Lukas is right, it’s a hellhole, but try telling a true believer in paradise that he’s wrong. Lukas eventually persuades Kennedy to come with him to where he believes the missing mayor must be headed and ask her to settle the matter.

Juliette gets there with plenty of help. Amy sacrifices herself, getting arrested so that Juliette can escape a Raider sweep. Juliette heads to the saferoom Amy tipped her off to, only to find Robert Sims waiting for her. Even though he makes no move to seize or harm her, indicating he’s the mystery figure who told Amy to stop dosing her, Juliette is not about to take any chances. She flees, right into the arms of Shirley, who snuck into the medical bay and found out what was going on after her bf Knox caused a distraction and got himself arrested. (There’s a lot of that going around.)

Shirley takes her down deep to the so-called digger void, which Juliette’s mentor Walker supposedly sealed off. But people have their own secret ways in the Silo — Amy and Juliette were only able to escape because some long-ago medic go tired of taking the stairs to get from one level of the med bay to the next and dug a hole through the floor — and Walker did no such thing. Juliette discovers an entire makeshift home behind the bogus barrier…containing a badly burned Bernard Holland, still very much alive, and not displeased to see her. It’s a heck of a revelation to end the episode on.

Meanwhile, Sheriff Paul continues his own investigation. When he learns that Orla Kent was murdered and dumped in the mines to be forgotten, he questions her professional rival, Glenda Harwood (Gemma Acosta), who is hostile but seemingly innocent, of murder at least. Orla’s boyfriend Mike (Chris Fulton), who was also once Glenda’s boyfriend Mike, is a much more suspicious character, who may have to do with their boss Carla McLain’s disappearance as well. On the other hand, Carla may be living in the void with Bernard and Walker and Lukas and whoever else is around down there.

Despite the episode’s deficiencies, I’m still excited to find out, about that and a lot of other things besides. I’ll never not appreciate Silo’s tight focus, even if that means it sometimes feels like we’re being frogmarched from beat to beat. I still find these characters endearing and Rebecca Ferguson’s performance as the dazed but dogged Juliette mesmerizing to watch. I still want to know why they’re down there, and I’m staying down there with them till we get our answer.

Sean T. Collins (@seantcollins.com on Bluesky and theseantcollins on Patreon) has written about television for The New York Times, Vulture, Rolling Stone, and elsewhere. He is the author of Pain Don’t Hurt: Meditations on Road House. He lives with his family on Long Island.