Movie Info
Movie Info
- Run Time
- 50 minutes
- Rating
- TV-MA
VP Content Ratings
- Violence
- 3/10
- Language
- 1/10
- Sex & Nudity
- 3/10
- Star Rating
Relevant Quotes
Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?” And he said, “There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and bring him, for we will not sit down until he comes here.” 12 He sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy and had beautiful eyes and was handsome. The Lord said, “Rise and anoint him, for this is the one.”
They all deceive their neighbors, and no one speaks the truth; they have taught their tongues to speak lies; they commit iniquity and are too weary to repent.
and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.
This ten-part series created by Graham Yost is based on a series of books by Hugh Howey. It is so bingeworthy that I can hardly wait for Season Two to begin.
The setting is some indeterminate date in the future after some kind of apocalyptic disaster. Ten thousand people have survived, living in a gigantic underground silo of 144 levels. At the bottom a group of skilled mechanics keep the life-saving machinery in good repair, while at the top a shadowy group known as Judicial enforce the governing rules contained in a document called the Pact. A Mayor presides over the society, and a sheriff and his deputies maintain order, along with a corps of Raiders, who are under the order of the Judiciary. No one is aware of who built the Silo or what the catastrophe was, with all traces of past history being destroyed in an uprising 140 years ago. There seem to be no libraries or books for people to learn of that past, just computers and video screens for communication. A camera outside the silo shows a landscape of devastation.
The sets are very impressive, with a central spiral staircase being the only connection between the 144 levels. For some reason the creators of the silo did not include any elevators. One must walk down or up that staircase to reach different levels. People on the upper levels tend to look down—literally, of course, and also socially—upon those living beneath them. The people live in small apartments on each level and come together near the top in a large dining area that contains a giant screen displaying the stark landscape outside the silo. No one goes outside, unless they request to do so—and if they do, they must be allowed to do so, but cannot return.
In the first episode Allison Becker (Rashida Jones) and her husband Holston Becker (David Oyelowo) are trying to conceive a child. During this process Allison is convinced by fertility expert, Gloria Hildebrandt (Sophie Thompson) that the scene of the outside showing a wasteland is a fake. This is proven by a forbidden hard drive dating back to the pre-rebellion times that shows a picture of a green landscape. George Wilkins (Ferdinand Kingsley), an Information Technology staffer, is the one they have turned to in order to retrieve this information. Allison shares this information and then requests to go outside, promising Holston that she will clean the camera lens and reveal that the authorities have been lying to them about the outside world. However, when she dons a protective suit and helmet and ventures outside and wipes the lens, she falls dead before she can reach a baren tree.
In the next episode, unfolding two years later, Sherriff Holston meets Juliette “Jules” Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson), the crack engineer whose special knowledge of the giant generator providing power to the Silo will prove crucial later on. Now convinced that his dead wife was right about the outside, Holston asks to leave, does so, and the same thing that happened to Allison, also happens to him. Before he had gone out of the Silo he had left a paper with Mayor Ruth Jahns (Geraldine James) that Juliette be appointed his successor as Sherriff. She at first refuses, knowing how unqualified she is, but then accepts when shown the sheriff’s badge and sees the inscription scratched on its back—the word “TRUTH.”
There follows a series of events that pit Juliet and her friends against those in control. Among he latter are Robert Sims (Common), the head of security for Judicial; Bernard Holland (Tim Robbins), head of the IT Department and others. We will meet Jules’ father Dr. Pete Nichols, an obstetrician who has been estranged from her since she was a teenager; Deputy Sherriff Samuel “Sam” Marnes (Will Patton), whose initial skepticism about the new sheriff changes; and a host of others. The plot is winding and twisting, and always exciting as Jules soon will have to try to stay one jump ahead (and in at last one case I mean this literally) ahead of those trying to keep her from learning that the Pact, which is evoked a number of times, is based on a lie. There are hints that there might be a group of resisters. Juliette “Jules” Nichols, ably played by Rebecca Ferguson, is the kind of person we would like our daughters to emulate—kind and compassionate, yet tough and resilient when the going gets rough. She is a leader like David, raised up from a low place—literally, in Jules place, as she was an engineer toiling at the very bottom level of the Silo! Episode Ten ends on a true cliff hanger, with its unexpected twist leaving us wondering what in the world is really going on. I am eagerly looking forward to the second series.
This review is in the July issue of VP along with a set of questions for reflection and/or discussion. If you have found reviews on this site helpful, please consider purchasing a subscription or individual issue in The Store.
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