Episode Six (“The Relic”) of AppleTV’s Silo changes everything. This is a recap and a review of the episode.
Spoilers to follow!
Silo Episode Six Recap and Review
We begin with Jules’ thoughts of George as she’s waiting to enter Trumbull’s room. She breaks protocol again and barges in. In the search, Billings finds the Pez dispenser in the medicine cabinet.
This sends Jules on another trip down memory lane, where we learn she stole the heat tape from Bernard’s team to save lives in Mechanical. She explains such to George, saying her risk was altruistic, but his risks, to find relics, aren’t worth it because they are merely self-serving.
He argues back, asking why is it so illegal to own relics that it’s a risk to their lives. He talks about deconstructing the objects to figure out what they were for and what they did. He’s essentially an archeologist of our culture (which is one of my favourite tropes in wasteland stories).
He shows her his watch and offers it to her as a declaration of his love, as it’s his most prized item.
In the present, Jules searches for the dispenser in the database but it has insufficient information. Billings approaches, and they argue about how the power structure works in the silo and what a nerd for policy Billings is. It turns out that Judicial has a great deal of extra power and sway than was hinted at even last episode. The Pact is written so that it always turns things to the advantage of one branch, which has clearly led to corruption.
Jules talks to Meadows about Trumbull and her desire to open a relic investigation. Sims says there’s no way it was his because they have their own relic tracking system, and the relic was listed as owned by George. She convincingly lies that she never saw the Pez before and hints that she knows that Judicial are more deeply involved than they will admit. They agree to her investigation as long as Billings is involved.
She and Billings go to see Patrick Kennedy about the relic black market. He says he’s worried she’ll arrest him and refuses to be a snitch. Eventually, he tells them a woman named Regina Jackson is the one to talk to.
Sims, meanwhile, finds the Pez in his database, which lists it as pre-silo. He opens a vault door behind him which shows a collection of red packages with biohazard symbols. He retrieves a ledger.
In another flashback, George contemplates the world beyond the silo. Jules argues that she’s keeping the dreamers like him alive because she keeps things running. She hands him his watch, fixed. Their love life is played up as quite serious and romantic, with allusions to their personal history together we don’t get to see and playful banter. I didn’t think their relationship was that deep initially, and it’s sometimes hard to remember that he’s only recently deceased.
They arrive at Regina Jackson’s place, which is dim and has sheets covering all the windows. She recognizes the watch instantly. Regina says she’s George’s girlfriend. Jules’ eyes widen, but she keeps her cool quite well. She tells Regina that he’s dead. Seeing Jules’ nervousness, Regina accuses Jules of cheating with George, which it seems he might have been doing without Jules’ knowledge. Regina explains that she bought relics for George, laundering them essentially. She says that George was a manipulator who used people for his needs, then abandoned them. That was not a twist I was expecting, and it makes those romantic memories almost worse for Jules.
Jules contemplates her moments with George, trying to decipher if he was lying to her about his feelings. Meanwhile, Sims and Bernard barge into her office. Sims accuses Jules yet again of planting the Pez. Jules lies, and Bernard backs her up. He asks whether Trumbull was on the search team of George’s room and stole it for himself. Bernard says he doesn’t want to reveal the truth of any of it and to drop it. Sims does not argue. Perhaps Bernard is even more powerful than Judicial?
After, Billings accuses Jules of putting him in danger by having him find the relic and says she needs to trust him. Jules accuses him of having the syndrome, essentially telling him to be quiet about her crime or she’ll rat him out. This seems to destroy Billings emotionally.
As Jules leaves, Lukas approaches her with a terrible pickup line she calls him out on. He admits that he came upstairs to see her despite the view being cloudy, and they flirt a bit.
We see BIllings’ home, his wife, and baby Claire. His hands shake when he tries to hold his baby, and they talk about Jules as he rests and takes medicine. He’s worried Claire will have the syndrome too, but his wife says it’s not hereditary. He says he’d be so lonely without the two of them, meaning he understands Jules’ ruthlessness and how much she must be hurting after what she found out about Geoge’s lies.
At night, Jules calls Marty and says she’s going to resign. She says that George was awful and there’s no point to the investigation now. Marty convinces her to do it for herself, explaining that she hid out of fear and is now a lonely hermit.
Jules goes to Regina and accuses her of snitching on Judicial about George after he left her. She explains there’s another man who got the information from her that wasn’t Judicial, that he broke into her home and threatened to hurt her friends and family if she didn’t comply. He began to stalk her, and she has thus built things around her room to block her voice. Regina says George is dead because he didn’t give up the hard drive. She’s clearly traumatized and mentally disturbed. Likely to get it out of her own home, she brings out a wrapped package hidden in her floor mat. It’s a gift from George’s mother, she explains, from before the silo existed. She says not to read it aloud and keep it super hidden.
The package is a book called Amazing Adventures in Georgia. It shows forests, rivers, and sea creatures, something Jules has no concept of but are beautiful to her. She finds a symbol she recognizes as also Geoge’s tattoo. She stares at a beach with a sunrise, fully immersed. It’s a bit of an environmental message: imagine if future generations don’t even have a concept of a forest or a beach.
The scene ends with the camera zooming out of Jules’ room to show two men watching Jules on a screen. One of them tells the other to wake “him” up.
Final Thoughts
This episode really played with our and Juliette’s emotions. The initial flashbacks with George were very romantic, but then to completely twist them was devious and unexpected. It also strengthens Jules’ resolve, as while she was initially looking for justice, now she’s trying to uncover a massive conspiracy that has rocked her worldview. Before this episode, we were led to assume that the silo functioned as a bunker of sorts, but the final scene reveals something else is going on, something bigger than just governmental branches fighting for control. I know what the deal is, but I’m very jealous of those of you coming to the story having not read the books!
The next episode airs on June 9th on AppleTV+.
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