In the eight episode of Silo, Juliette had come to know that Bernard was the one running the show, and she hadn’t imagined in her wildest dreams the level of the scam he had been running inside the Silo. He was monitoring each and every individual through the cameras that were installed behind the mirrors, and Juliette realized the kind of control that man had over the lives of the common people living in the Silo. Juliette didn’t want to wage a war or start a rebellion, but she wanted to find out why Marnes, Mayor Ruth, and her beloved Wilkins were killed by the regime. Bernard, on the other hand, was of the opinion that the truth could have consequences that the authority was not ready to bear. He didn’t want the state of law and order to deteriorate inside the Silo, and for that, he was ready to go to any extent.
Spoilers Alert
What Did Paul Billings Want To Do?
Juliette had gone missing, and Sims knew that he would have to give an explanation to Bernard as to how they had committed such a blunder. Sims called Paul Billings and questioned his intentions. Paul felt humiliated, as he was a law-abiding citizen, and he never let his own feelings cloud his judgment. Paul knew that Juliette was not the perpetrator that Judicial was claiming her to be, but he still arrested the sheriff because he wanted to act in accordance with the law of the Pact. Paul went back to his house, and he told his wife how he felt an urge to prove himself. Paul’s wife told him that he owed nothing to anybody and that she was of the opinion that he should join the Judicial once again and not take the position of Sheriff as she didn’t want to risk his life. Paul was suffering from the syndrome, and whenever he had an attack, he wasn’t in control of himself. Paul knew that the moment the court learned about this condition, he would be immediately removed from his position.
Paul went to Juliette’s house after she escaped from captivity, and he found Jean Robinson and her team of investigative agents already present there. Jean told Paul that, as much as she understood why he wanted to take a look around, she was not authorized to give him that permission. Bernard had strictly ordered the officials to not let anybody tamper with the sites where there was a probability of finding some evidence. But Paul was way too curious and restless to obey what Robinson told him. After they left, he went inside the house, and hidden behind the mirror cabin, he found the same travel guide magazine that belonged to Gloria. Paul was stunned when he saw those images in the magazine. He had no clue that the forefathers of Silo were keeping such a big secret from them. He tore a page and burned the rest of the magazine.
Meanwhile, Bernard was getting restless as he knew that time was running out. His team was not able to get even one potential lead that could tell them about the whereabouts of Juliette. Agents of the Judicial went to question Martha Walker and Pete Nichols, but even they didn’t know where Juliette was hiding.
Why Did Alison Becker Go Out Of The Silo?
Bernard came to know that Juliette had met Lucas Kyle from IT before disappearing. Lucas was called for interrogation, and Bernard threatened him that he would ruin his life if he didn’t tell him where Juliette had gone. Juliette had not told Lucas anything, but he remembered that the hard drive that she was asking him to keep with him had the number 18 printed on it. Juliette trusted Lucas, and she believed that because he was such a curious man, when the time came, he would help her cause. But Lucas Kyle turned out to be a disappointment, as not only did he not help Juliette, but he also gave additional information to Bernard, which made it quite easy for them to catch hold of her. Lucas told Bernard that he had nothing to do with whatever Juliette was planning, but Bernard still decided to keep him in custody until he got hold of Juliette.
Juliette knew that the safest place she could go to was Sims’ house because she was probably of the opinion that nobody would be looking for her there. Juliette met Camille, Sims’ wife, in Silo episode 9, and she warned her to stay quiet if she cared for her and her son’s lives. She handcuffed Camille and then plugged the hard disk into Sims’ computer to find out what was on it. She saw George Wilkins’ video on it, which he had probably recorded sometime before he died. Meanwhile, Camille broke open her handcuffs, but before she could do anything, she also saw the video running on the computer. Surprisingly, she helped Juliette escape, as she didn’t want her to die at the hands of the raiders. Camille told Juliette that the moment she plugged in the hard drive, IT knew her location.
With nowhere to go, Juliette went to Patrick Kennedy, and he called one of his colleagues, who was a part of the ring who knew how to hack into the security system of IT. Kennedy asked him to open the hard drive and find out what was inside it without disclosing their location. Juliette found out that Regina Jackson was wrong when she said that George was just using her as he had done with others. George’s intention to join Mechanical might have been to use Juliette for his own benefit, but over a period of time, he did actually fall for her. He said in the video that he had found the door, though he still wasn’t sure if it led to some place. Wilkins said that she needed to know about Allison Becker and why she chose to go outside. There was video footage on the hard disc that Becker had recorded when she had gone outside. There were birds, trees and blue skies, and Juliette came to the conclusion that the display that they were shown from the inside was one big lie.
Silo episode 9’s ending left us on this cliffhanger, where the discovery of this new information completely stunned Juliette. Though the footage showed us that Allison saw the birds and the trees, we are not sure which one of them, i.e., the view from inside the Silo or the display from Allison’s helmet’s screen, was the reality. Juliette had already become a threat the moment she questioned the authority and showed curiosity to know more about what lay on the outside. But now the danger was more imminent than ever before, as she had the drive in her possession and had an idea, even if it was not true, what lay outside the Silo.
We believe that what Allison saw on the outside was not real and that the helmet’s screen was probably showing her computer-generated image. We can’t say for sure why it was done, but we can say for sure that Bernard and others knew that a person wasn’t going to survive once they went out, either because they knew that the environment was poisonous or maybe because they did something from their end to make sure that happened. There might have been many secrets that Bernard and Sims were hiding from the people, but we believe that the earth being uninhabitable was not one of them. Also, the image that a person saw when they went to clean outside looked identical every time, which makes us speculate that maybe it was fake. Maybe there was no actual conspiracy, and the power brokers were hiding these things for very different reasons. Maybe Bernard feared that people might cause a rebellion, and just to keep them in check, he was taking certain measures and choosing what information needed to be disclosed and what needed to be hidden from the public’s purview.
Juliette had realized that for years the regime had made sure that the residents remained ignorant, and that is why she had completely lost trust in whoever was part of the system. She had a few people she believed in, and she knew that in times to come, she would need all the support she could get. Juliette didn’t have a plan of action other than to not get caught by Bernard and his men, and in the meantime, she hoped that she could hold the perpetrators accountable for what they did and let the common people know about how they had been defrauded over the years.
