Silo – Season 2 Episode 5 “Descent” Recap & Review

Descent

Episode 5 of Silo season 2 starts with chaos gripping the Silo. With people out for blood, Carla comes up with an idea. She’s still in lieu with the porters and they could be their ticket home. They just need to get down two more floors, and with the angry mob patrolling the area, it seems the only option.

Carla speaks to a guy called Calvin there and he wants valuable treasure in exchange for passage. Specifically, something belonging to Juliette. While a deal is made, it turns out Calvin has been stalling for time. He’s given a tip-off to the Raiders, given the price on their head is too high, and the gang are forced to flee.

Carla is worried about her health and stays behind though, while Knox and Shirley make a run for it on the stairs. As for Martha, she slips away after giving Carla a kiss. Carla is inevitably captured not long after.

Bernard shows up to see Robert, and he’s not happy. Bernard calls him out for his betrayal and demotes him away from Head of Judicial. He’s too valuable to just outright kill though, so he gives him the Judge’s job. Bernard has Robert’s wife, Camille, bring the Pact over to make this official, but it’s definitely a tenuous situation.

When Paul finds out about the reshuffling within Judicial, and the murder of Meadows, he contemplates his next move. After all, the Pact has been violated here and as he reads through it, he realizes there’s foul play at work. He floats the idea that Meadows’ murder may not have been the work of Mechanical after all.

Paul finds Patrick Kennedy in the depths of the Silo bleeding out and he admits that everything they’ve come to believe in is a lie. In order to divulge the truth, Paul tries to gain his trust. He hands over a sheet of paper he grabbed from Juliette’s apartment in season 1. Kennedy wants a doctor and once he’s got that, agrees to tell him everything.

Bernard meanwhile, brings Pete in to see him. He hands over some trinkets belonging to Juliette and after hearing about him patching up those hurt in the riots, he wants to use Pete to try and restore order.

The thing is, Pete has lost all hope and knows his profession is a sham, especially with the Silo destroying hope for young couples and controlling them with the birth control. He vehemently rejects Bernard’s play to stay in line, and he walks away.

Bernard is fuming. In fact, Bernard brings Lukas up from the mines and offers him some “soft duty”. He wants Lukas to fix up the smashed hard drive to find out what Juliette has seen. He’s also allowed to work in his office too. Lukas doesn’t have much of a choice here, given the life expectancy for those in the Mines is so short, and Bernard is confident that this is the right play.

It doesn’t take long for Lukas to find blueprints with a tunnel leading out of the Silo, and also a folder holding a scan of a handwritten letter Salvador Quinn wrote to his wife. It’s a love letter that devolves into code.

Camille shows up on the stairs and manages to stop the mob from beating Shirley and Knox to a pulp. She brings up that these two are going into custody, but in reality there’s an alternate play here. Camille takes them into an alleyway and allows them to slip out of view, at least for a bit. They eventually decide to head up, rather than down the stairs. They return to Calvin and force him into submission, posing as porters with backpacks before slipping past the guards on the way down.

However, they only get a couple of floors before they’re spotted. By that point though, all-out chaos ensues. Knox and Shirley manages to get out, while a riot ensues at the barricades on the stairs.

As this is occurring, Paul promises Bernard that he will always do right by the Silo and the Pact… but the camera shows a shot of Kennedy in the background being tended to by a doctor.

Meanwhile, Juliette and Solo discus the power inside the silo. Given the generator is hundreds of floors underwater, but the lights are still on, there must be an alternate source. There appears to be a generator outside, but there’s also the situation involving the floodwater to contend with too.

Solo deduces that he has 10 months before the water from the flooded generator reaches IT and destroys what’s inside the vault. He believes Juliette can fix the Silo’s broken pump, given her engineering expertise.

Juliette disagrees, believing she needs to sort her own Silo out before doing anything else. However, she looks through the employee logs and finds someone called Trina Samuels. This was Solo’s girlfriend and upon seeing the picture of Solo in the handbook, it seems like this guy is impersonating him and not who he says he is. When Juliette calls him out for it, fake Solo shouts and screams at Juliette.

It’s enough for her to decide to leave and get answers. In the employee quarters, her dizzy, faint spell eventually catches up to her. It turns out Juliette’s cut arm is infected and it’s causing her serious distress. Juliette grabs a nearby blanket from under the bed, and unveils a fully-functional helmet. However, she passes out before she can get any further.

The Episode Review

What’s particularly fascinating about this season is seeing how the trickles of dissent and rebellion are starting to seep into every single part of the Silo. All the different players are starting to make their move, and Bernard using his power to try and force people into his biding, is actually having an adverse effect.

Meanwhile, the drama involving Juliette is really starting to get interesting now as it appears Solo is not who he says he is, and this entire play is starting to unravel. Quite what happened in this Silo, and why we have an impersonator on our hands is anyone’s guess, but the ending definitely leaves the door wide open for next week’s chapter.