Silo – Season 1 Episode 2 “Holston’s Pick” Recap & Review

Holston’s Pick

Episode 2 of Silo begins with Holston prepared to head outside. Once out the airlock, he’s away from the law. He apologizes to them all for the fuss, and prepares to brave the outside world. He makes the long climb up the stairs, ready for whatever may lay outside.

Everyone joins together in the cafeteria to see Holston emerge from underground and into the wasteland beyond. “Damnit Allison, you were right!” Holston says, as it seems like outside actually is this beautiful paradisiac area. He cleans the lens on the camera so those in the silo can see and heads toward the tree, which is beautiful and idyllic. But there’s something wrong.

He starts to choke and eventually collapses on the ground. Nobody has taken their helmet off before so Holston is the first, and he begins crawling toward Allison’s body, where he collapses and seems to die.

Juliette is livid and takes off, shouting “he’s a liar”. She heads down to engineering and tries to keep herself in check. In her rage, she throws something and bursts one of the pipes, sending a stream of fresh water across the room.

With the sheriff gone, the attention turns to who will pick up the mantle and take over. They’re up to sheriff number 97, and with the sparks of rebellion rumbling in the streets, given the lack of law and order, things don’t look good. In fact, an opportunist called Sims shows up and begins organizing traffic.

It’s been three months since George died during our timeline this episode, which cuts back in time. Juliette is convinced that he was murdered. He wanted to show Juliette something before he died, which includes a letter and a pez dispenser which seems to hint at something. When George doesn’t show up in her bunk, news of his death spreads.

This catches us up to the moments from last episode, as Holston shows up to question Juliette about George’s death. He seems to have fallen 100 feet and there’s no witnesses here, given it occurred at 3am.

Suicide is apparently a crime here but Juliette is convinced that he wouldn’t have killed himself. She confides in Holston and tells him as much, even going on to mention that George has left something for her. She doesn’t want him to rat her out regarding this relic, so Holston agrees to bend the truth a little and claim that he just found it, rather than that he got it from her.

Juliette shows that the letter reads “Remember where you last saw this?” which is a message only Juliette can decipher. It’s to do with the pez dispenser, and she leads Holston into a secret area, hidden behind a large sign and down a hidden tunnel. With a torch in hand, they continue until the bottom of the stairs, where they come to a large, open area.

There, Juliette shows off the remnants of a huge spidery digger robot. Apologies for the lack of a technical term here! Anyway, this thing is just a husk now, given all the precious materials that have been stripped and taken off it. However, it’s enough to open Holston’s eyes to a whole world that’s been hidden in plain sight.

The pair arrive at a makeshift camp down there, which happens to be the location George hinted at with the letter. These are all relics from the old world, including a camcorder that Juliette is struggling to turn on. He sold and traded relics in his spare time.

Juliette notices something different this time, a piece of string that tracks all the way across to a suspended piece of steel. Attached on the end happens to be a bag holding even more relics. There’s instructions on recovering deleted files, with Allison’s handwriting on the back. There’s also the computer drive too but Holston reminds her that asking questions is dangerous.

Part of Holston’s interest here comes from Juliette’s connection to George, and in particular, his ties with Allison. His wife was never afraid and in a way, Holston sees some of his wife in Juliette. He tells her to stop wearing the watch as it draws attention, and he promises to keep looking into this in secret and figure out what the truth is.

Back in the present, Deputy Marnes happens to have a letter from Holston – his final letter. He recommends Juliette Nicholls to take over his role, along with taking on all his personal belongings too. Now, given Juliette was waiting for a sign, this could well be an indication as to what he meant, so she can take over his role.

As for Juliette, her little outburst about calling Holston a liar is linked to him not giving her a sign and helping to find out what happened to George. Given George was driven to find out the truth, that role has now turned to Juliette to take over. And as the episode closes, Juliette drops a whole load of rope down that suspended steel beam and intends to rappel down, believing it could hold a clue to what’s happening here.

The Episode Review

Silo continues to intrigue, although the slight switch and bait over who the main character is a bit disconcerting. Either way though, understanding more about what’s happening inside the Silo, including this perceived conspiracy and how the Judicial are involved, makes for a very intoxicating cocktail of mystery.

There’s a lot to like with this one and although it seems like we know what’s happening outside, we really don’t in the grand scheme of things. It’s clever too because we kinda do get glimmers of answers, what with the opening involving Holston outside, but the subject of poison comes up.

Personally, I think the suits have been poisoned completely and the outside world is totally fine. However, it could be that all of this is a projection too because we didn’t see Allison’s body on the ground during Holston’s walk up the hill to the tree.

The mystery of the silo is just starting to heat up and the episodes ahead, which appear to be around an hour long each, could well make this one of the best shows of the year. Roll on next week’s follow up!