When portraying a functionary in a dystopian regime, it helps to have resting scowl face. Actor Denise Gough, for example, made the most of what she has called her “downturny mouth” as the sneering Imperial officer Dedra Meero in Andor. Richard Burton’s hard-bitten hangdog looks made his O’Brien in the film version of 1984 seem possessed of some terrible wisdom that burns from within. 

To this list, we can add Alexandria Riley and her character, Camille Sims, on Silo. For a long time I struggled with Camille, wondering why she was so much less sympathetic even than archvillains like Bernard or her own husband, Robert Sims. Even when she was helping Juliette before the rebellion and her exile and return, something in her eyes just defies empathy. She has the face of someone who’s about to explain to you why they had to betray you, and will be irritated that you don’t understand.

This, of course, is all by design on the part of the writers, the filmmakers, and the actor. In fact, Camille’s fundamental dislikability is made canon in this episode, by no less an authority than the Algorithm itself. Why was she chosen by the AI that runs the Silo to become the new head of IT and guardian of the Silo’s terrible secrets? “Your ability to lie,” the program says placidly. Her manipulative nature, her willingness to play both sides of any given conflict, is ironically how the Algorithm knew she could be trusted.

To be fair, the Algorithm has placed Camille in an impossible position. It’s effectively forcing her to erase the memories of all 9,913 residents of the Silo, or it will take matters into its own hands with its ominously named “safeguard” procedure. It’s not hard to guess what will happen to the 9,913 residents of the Silo if that should occur, so I understand Camille’s predicament.

To be additionally fair, so does she. She isn’t eager to erase everyone’s memories at all! Robert is even less so: Suspecting what his wife is up to, he’s desperately trying to implant happy memories in their young son’s mind, so that when the time comes he won’t completely forget them the way Juliette has forgotten her own father. That man died for her friends, and she doesn’t even remember the feeling of being a daughter to anyone at all. So no, Camille is not looking forward to dosing everyone with “Vitamin D+.” 

As a result, she keeps looking for longshot workarounds for the problem. For example, in this episode, Juliette goes AWOL to hunt for Lukas Kyle, the man who mysteriously made the jump from criminally convicted miner to shadow of the head of IT and Mayor before disappearing completely. Camille tells the Algorithm she plans to track Juliette so that they can confirm Lukas’s status, and also perhaps draw out Outsider leader Patrick Kennedy. Theoretically, catching the leader of the resistance could end the threat to the Silo’s integrity and thus call off the “safeguard” measure.

But Juliette gets too close. Ignoring the warnings of an abrasive, disabled ex-con turned department head named Mark (George Robinson), Juliette gets all the way down into the mines below the Silo, hunting for Lukas and his insider info with the help of her old friend Knox. (Shirley may be Knox’s girlfriend now, but she does not share his affection for the new Juliette at all.) In the process, she loses the tail Camille had placed on her.

So Camille rush-orders the Silo’s rat exterminators to unleash poison gas in the mines, ostensibly to deal with a rodent infestation but really to stop Juliette’s progress and draw Lukas Kyle out of hiding. The Algorithm believes Lukas is digging his way to another Silo, and inter-Silo contact is punishable by “safeguard,” so Camille does what she feels needs to be done.

The action is a partial success. It stops Juliette’s progress alright, but she nearly dies when a miner with whom she is attempting to share a respirator steals it and runs away. (No good deed goes unpunished.) Lukas has to come out of hiding to save her, then flee from the Judicial raiders who are on site to mop up what was very nearly a wholesale massacre of the Silo’s imprisoned population.

Sheriff Paul Billings is there as well, just in time to find the dead body of missing Supply shadow Orla Kent being taken out of the mines. Clearly she knew something someone else didn’t want her to know — most likely her boyfriend, who dated the previous Supply shadow before he dated her. Meanwhile, on her way down to the mines, Juliette stops by the Billings’s place and tells the Sheriff’s wife Kat she knows she’s an Outsider…but doesn’t rat her out. That’s just as well, since the Outsiders are the ones who save Lukas from the raiders after his daring rescue of Juliette.

But she’s not out of the woods yet — in fact, she’s in more danger than ever. The Algorithm sees an opportunity here: Kill Juliette in the hospital where she’s recuperating, make it seem like she succumbed to gas inhalation, celebrate her as a miraculous savior who died protecting her people, unify and pacify the Silo without resorting to D+. Chastised for being Juliette-curious in the past, Camille voluntarily takes the assassination gig.

The paranoid style of the post-apocalyptic side of the story is echoed in the present-day material, starring Congressman Daniel Keene and reporter Helen Drew. Helen loses her job and sees some old rich white guy talking to her boss as she gets shown the door. Daniel sees the same man — also spotted at his sister’s rehab facility last week — at a memorial service for one of her fellow downed pilots. The two have no reason to compare notes on this yet, however.

What they’re more concerned about is the idea given to Daniel by the pilot’s father that the old-fashioned analog comms equipment the pilots were mysteriously given during their top-secret meeting may have been hard to hack, but they were easy to listen to and record. Helen tracks a twitchy, dishonest dark web dude (Ed Coleman), who’s got a 20-second snippet from Daniel’s sister Charlotte’s unit saved on cassette tape to prevent hacking. We don’t get to hear it, but whatever it is, it’s enough for not just Helen but even the dark web guy to warn Daniel not to listen to it. When he does, he cries.

“What could cause something that horrific to happen?” Helen asks as they drive away. “Four planes, four pilots — what could take control like that?” They’re on the trail of that black dust-goop, even if they don’t know it yet.

But when Daniel and Helen return to the dark-web guy’s place to try and get a copy of the recording, they find him missing and the whole place trashed. Someone wants to stop them from finding anything out, and doesn’t seem to mind all that much if they notice it. It’s never good when people in power feel they can commit their crimes in plain sight. 

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.