Commentary: ‘Silo’ Reveals The Beauty We Take For Granted

At its best, science fiction is a reflection of our current world. It takes the state of humanity and flips it into an unrealistic setting in order to expose something current and real. Silo does this in a multitude of ways. At its core, it’s a story about survival as a community works together to live in an underground fallout shelter. But the story is so much more than that as it touches upon so many different aspects of life. One prominent message the show puts forth is about the beauty of Earth that humanity takes for granted on a daily basis.

There’s a lot of politics involved in Silo as the ruling class fights for power with those in the lower classes. In order to retain his power, Bernard (Tim Robbins) kills Judge Meadows (Tanya Moodie) to frame those who oppose him. However, Bernard and the judge were very close, and he felt her death was unfortunately necessary. He ended up poisoning her at dinner, but before she died, he gave her one last surprise. He allowed her to wear a VR headset, something they consider against the law, to view animals in a forest before the Earth’s surface became toxic.

Even though this was technically a murder, it was still a beautiful scene and a moment of compassion. Judge Meadows was completely enamored by the simplest things such as trees and birds. It was also evident that Bernard had worn the headset numerous times himself as he was able to direct her thought the scenario almost as if he had it memorized. The things she witnessed were everyday sights anybody can go outside and witness now. For humanity today, they aren’t anything special. And the scene highlights that people should stop and look around at the simple beauty of the world more often instead of taking it for granted.

Silo is now streaming on Apple+.