Silo: Season 3

Streaming on: Apple TV

Episodes viewed: 10 of 10

Mystery-box shows are built on a risky foundation, as the showrunners have to try to stay one step ahead of audience conjecture. Too often, their eventual answers are disappointing or even rob the entire story of what made it compelling. But three seasons in, Apple TV’s Silo is managing the near-impossible feat of becoming more intriguing the more it reveals.

If you’re not drawn in by now, nothing here is likely to change that. The pace remains glacial, the science-fiction dense, and the dialogue often takes the form of cryptic half-truths. Characters rarely say exactly what they mean, and understanding true motivations requires the attention usually reserved for deciphering diplomatic communiqués. But for those open to its charms, this penultimate season is the best yet.

The timeline-jump teased at the end of Season 2 is not a one-off fake-out but a permanent expansion. So while Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson) attempts to navigate the new status quo in the aftermath of the rebellion, the show also journeys back hundreds of years to track a journalist (Jessica Henwick) and an ambitious congressman (Ashley Zukerman) as they uncover the web of hubris and conspiracy that will ultimately result in humanity disappearing underground. This additional timeline gives Silo something it has occasionally lacked: room to breathe. After two seasons of being hemmed in by Brutalist concrete walls and steampunk contraptions, there’s something rejuvenating about the sunlight. And, for that matter, a darkly hilarious Peter Gabriel cameo.

Not that Silo 18 has become any less fascinating. If anything, the contrast only emphasises how twisted and oppressive the place is — now more than ever. Three months post the events of the last season, Juliette has woken up as mayor, reeling from having no recollection of how she got there and aware that virtually everyone around her appears to be lying. It’s a testament to Ferguson’s performance that she remains unmistakably our intrepid, resourceful and hyper-vigilant hero, even though she is unable to recognise herself in the mirror and is dressed in improbably glamorous mayoral gowns.

This season is ultimately less interested in who holds power than who actually has principles. Politicians, revolutionaries and law enforcement all discover the limits of their authority, and hovering over everything is the mysterious Algorithm, whose growing role is best left unspoiled. As events past and present cruelly unfold, Silo retains its ability to make its world and stakes feel ever more substantial; what began as a show that was essentially a murder-mystery wrapped in dystopian world-building has carefully evolved into something far more ambitious.