From a major character death and a surprise Peter Gabriel performance to a nuclear blast and one of the most devastating scenes on television, Silo Season 3’s penultimate episode took viewers on an emotional roller coaster of epic proportions. So it should come as no surprise that Season 3’s finale packed a heck of a punch.

Silo Season 3, Episode 10 spoilers ahead.

While viewers likely hoped Silo would show the immediate aftermath of the suspicious, conveniently timed end-of-world event that forced parents-to-be Daniel (Ashley Zukerman) and Helen (Jessica Henwick) to seek shelter in different places — Silo 1 and Silo 18, respectively — the series takes a major leap into the future. But for the first 24 minutes of Season 3, Episode 10, we do check in with Daniel. He’s just not the man he once was — and not just because he goes by the name Troy…

So how does Silo Season 3 end? Who is Troy? What happened to Daniel? Does Silo 18 successfully cap the pipe and avoid The Safeguard? And what does that final scene mean for Silo Season 4? Decider’s Silo Season 3, Episode 10 recap has answers.

Silo Season 3 Ending Explained: Silo Season 3, Episode 10 Recap “Troy”

Silo‘s Season 3 finale opens on Daniel — or rather, the man we once knew as Daniel — lying in a cryopod. Memories of Helen swirl through his head, but when he finally opens his eyes, Victor Crnkovich (Matt Craven) says, “Keep breathing, Troy.” Though Daniel and Victor seemingly haven’t aged a day, we learn a lot of time has passed since the explosive events of Episode 9. It’s the day of Silo 17’s rebellion, and Victor wakes Troy from his latest seven-year cryo slumber because he needs his expertise to manage the urgent situation.

Once Troy recovers from the agony of rapid sequencing and a thermal flush, he’s led through the high-tech futuristic Silo 1 in an elevator. Considering we were told in Episode 9 that silos don’t have elevators, the small detail offers further confirmation that Per Stensen (Colin Hanks) and his group of elites knowingly kept Daniel and the rest of the world in the dark about the true purpose and capabilities of Silo 1. As Daniel is ushered to a control room, he’s briefed on the dire situation at hand: Silo 17’s rebellion started with a failed cleaning, the residents capped the delivery pipe to prevent The Safeguard, the sheriff safely led nearly 10,000 people outside, and a young boy named Jimmy is locked alone in the vault. As Troy ponders the attack plan, a senior commander drone pilot named Susan arrives to assist — she’s none other than his sister, Charlotte. Despite earlier flashes of Helen, the memory-forgetting drugs are so strong that the siblings fail to recognize one another. In Silo 1, Troy is simply the man advising Susan to prep poisonous drone drops for a brutal, agonizing “external Safeguard.”

Susan follows orders, but after seeing families hug, lovers kiss, and thousands of newly freed Silo 17 residents experience pure joy outside, she suggests they solely target the sheriff and his family, whose deaths will surely encourage the rest of the “fugitives” to return inside. When Troy denies the request and pushes for 9,832 deaths, Susan’s conscience takes over, and she refuses. He calmly dismisses her and coldly carries out the airstrikes himself, releasing lethal gas and bullets; switching the massive display screen to thermal view and cutting the sound only after clocking Victor’s visible discomfort. In Troy’s altered mind, this is simply the job he was trained to carry out to honor “The Directive” and the wishes of Madam Director, aka Senator Thurman (Laura Innes), who awards him a Certificate of Merit for the impressive mass exodus. Though Troy fails to remember his sister to the point of being on board for her “neutralization” after her insubordination, Thurman says Susan’s skills play a critical role at the end of their project — plus, she’s important to her daughter, who (like Per) we don’t lay eyes on in the finale. Hmm…

Just when it seems like the Daniel we know has been fully wiped, Troy notices a scar on his hand and flashes back to the night he got it in the car with Helen. In a session with Victor, he presses him for answers about the mystery woman in his head. Victor assures Troy he’ll “try to find a pretext” to look into his inquiry, then writes a note that reads “WHO IS SHE?” and slips it into Troy’s file, which is overflowing with scraps of paper that bear the same question. It’s clear Victor’s memories remain intact, but rather than sharing his knowledge of Helen, he puts Daniel back to cryo sleep. And we check back in with Silo 18, where Camille and Co. are Going Through It.

After the explosion following Bernard’s cleaning, Camille has Sims and Juliette detained in the cafeteria while she races to the vault to beg The Algorithm not to carry out The Safeguard as a literal countdown clock ticks away. Sims reunites with his son and returns the Pez dispenser to comfort him. And Camille buys five more minutes by promising The Algorithm — who we learn on this particular shift is Victor using voice-changing tech from Silo 1 — she’s sending poisonous gas into the mines to kill Knox, Shirley, and the other rebels searching for the pipe. When Victor realizes the gas she’s pumping into the mines is simply oxygen, he initiates The Safeguard, but nothing happens, confirming the pipe-capping plan was a success.

Camille tells The Algorithm she switched sides to deceive it because she couldn’t answer Juliette’s simple question: “Why do you have the power to kill us?” Victor explains, “The human species was in a terminal cycle of self-annihilation. The silo was the last best hope to ensure the survival of the species.” And Camille — who also stopped the D3 from entering the water supply — asks, “How do you ensure survival by murdering thousands of people at a time?” Instead of replying, Victor cuts contact with Silo 18 and sits silently, processing her words and his own reprehensible actions. Silo 18’s residents look out at Bernard, slumped against the tree, and thank him for helping secure their freedom. Knowing what happened to Lukas Kyle and Patrick Kennedy, Juliette knows better than to send her people outside. But after making contact with Lukas and reporting the good news, she realizes she needs to head to the door he found down in the digger void.

When Victor finally returns to his room, he sends a confidential file on his computer, tearfully turns framed photos of his late family face down, and grabs a gun. Next thing we know, Troy is awakened again, 35 years after his last assignment: Silo 17. As he’s led through Silo 1, he’s briefed on Juliette Nichols and Silo 18’s rebellion. But before he arrives in the control room, Henry (Reed Birney) — also awakened from cryo-sleep — leads him inside Victor’s room, where he learns the founder died by suicide. “Last thing he ordered was you be woken up,” Henry said. “So I thought you might have some insight into what was troubling him.” Troy has no revelatory information to share, aside from the sense that he knew Victor from before his memory was wiped somehow. Then, he resumes business as usual, just in time to see Juliette and pals arrive at the digger void vault door.

“Juliette Nichols, do not attempt any further investigation. Return above the digger barrier,” Troy, disguised as The Algorithm, orders, threatening to kill everyone in 18 if she attempts to make contact with another silo. Juliette clearly calls his bluff, asking what they have to lose. In an unexpected twist, after Troy promises there will be no Safeguard if she stands down, Juliette calls her team off. But don’t worry. She knows what she’s doing.

As an intrigued Troy gazes into an image of Juliette’s eyes on the screen before him, she lets her team in on her plan. “We know they can’t Safeguard us,” she explains. “They’re expecting us to [focus on our survival.] They’re expecting us to prepare to defend ourselves. Which means they won’t be prepared to defend themselves against us. If we get to them first, we can protect everyone. We need to take out Silo 1.” And that, folks, is our Season 4 mission.

In the final moments of Silo‘s Season 3 finale, we find Troy researching Silo 18’s blueprints on a computer when he receives an encrypted message, the same one Victor sent before his death. A video of Victor appears on screen, and he says, “Hello, Troy. By now you’re aware that I’ve taken myself off shift. Permanently. You don’t need to know all the reasons. I’ll just say that when our attempted Safeguard of Silo 18 failed, I realized more than anything I was relieved. The last time we talked, you asked me about a woman, and I made you a promise. Her name is Helen Drew.”

Before the end credits roll, Silo shows a teary-eyed Troy returning to Daniel. Remembering. His brow furrows, he blinks back tears, he exhales, drops his jaw, and shakily says, “Helen Drew.”

While we’ll have to wait until Silo Season 4 to see how the final chapter unfolds, it seems the Before Times love story met an end even more tragic than we thought. Because of the Pez dispenser, we know that Helen likely made it into Silo 18 safely after the blast. But we also know that Silo 18 doesn’t have cryotechnology, so while Daniel was kept alive as Troy for 300-something years — presumably many, if not all, without his memories — Helen almost certainly lived a normal human lifespan with memories of Daniel intact and died long, long ago.

As for how much of Daniel’s memory the sheer mention of Helen’s name unlocked, we don’t know, but Zukerman’s superb performance and crushing facial journey suggests he remembers it… all too well. I never want Silo to end, yet I also need Season 4 ASAP. Who’s with me?

Stay tuned for more Silo Season 3 coverage from Decider.