Silo Season 3 Versus Book 2: Was It Worth The Wait?

The following contains spoilers for Silo Season 3 now streaming on Apple TV, and also spoilers for the books.

The nearly 2-year gap between season 2 and 3 of Apple TV’s adaptation of Hugh Howey’s Silo series lasted just long enough to read all three original books with room to spare to get incredibly hyped. Shift was easily my favorite of the series, so I came into this season with some pretty high hopes. 

Season 3 was never going to be a perfect one-to-one adaptation, but comparing Silo season 3 versus Book 2 is especially interesting given just how much material the show has to work with. And how they’re approaching the story itself. 

Silo Season 3 vs. Book 2: The Plot – Donald Daniel Soldier Spy

Shift is a cool outlier in the Silo books. Instead of pushing the main story forward, it swaps in a nearly new cast and a completely different setting. Much of the book unfolds before the collapse, following Daniel Keene (called Donald in the books), a Georgia senator and trained architect who gets quietly maneuvered into designing the silos themselves under the cool guidance of Senator “Thawman” Thurman, played by Laura Innes.

After the world ends, the plot follows Donald as he is separated from his wife, frozen, memory wiped, and made to work in Silo 1 as the voice on the other end of the call in the books, or the “AI” in the series. After every six-month shift, he’s frozen for years at a time, and we get this cool anthology of him slowly regaining his memories and working to undermine Silo 1.

Juliette and the gang from Silo 18 are barely involved in Shift and only come in at the very end, with Juliette being introduced as the mayor of the Silo.  In the Apple TV series, Daniel and Helen go through their own little detective arc just to find out the silos exist, and then they reject the offer to be involved. It’s a great change that builds Daniel’s character, gives Helen real gravity in the story, and makes a lot more sense than a senator with a bit of architecture experience designing the subterranean ark preserving humanity.

That, plus the fact that basically every Juliette scene in season 3 happened off-screen in the books. The show did a great job expanding those gaps and letting us actually see the natural conflict of the Silo’s number one girl coming back.

Side Characters are Real Characters Now

Robert Simms is probably the best character of seasons 1 and 2. His role was almost non-existent in the books in the same way that Helen, Daniel’s wife, is basically just a name and a tragedy. Book Helen is mostly a presence in the background until she’s eventually doomed to be separated into Silo 18 while Donald is whisked off to Silo 1. Show Helen (Jessica Henwick) is great. She has an actual personality, goals that drive the plot, and a connection to Daniel that makes the tragedy of their separation feel so much heavier. 

In the book, Donald’s sister Charlotte (Jessica Brown Findlay) actually gets a lot of screen time, but not much of it is before the collapse.  Charlotte is a former Air Force drone pilot who ends up at the grand opening of the Silos when the world ends. In the show, she’s an active Air Force pilot who actually gets to experience the world-ending threat of the nanites before they’re ever mentioned. They kind of come out of nowhere in the books and read like a cooler substitute for nuclear war. 

Critiques of Silo Season 3: Jules Losing Her Memory 

It makes sense that a wounded Juliette will be placed in custody when she returns to a vault that doesn’t trust her. It makes sense that those same people would use their favorite memory-erasing magic. I still don’t have to like it, and it felt like a somewhat clunky way to transform the climactic ending of season 2 into the slow-burn opening of season 3, despite them happening right next to each other. They threw water on the fire to make it more exciting when it’s burning bright again. I get it, but I wasn’t a fan. The only saving grace there was Alexandria Riley’s Camille Sims being the perfect Wormtongue to Juliette’s Theoden. 

Pacing has been a common issue in every season of the Silo series. I didn’t notice it as much in seasons 1 and 2, but I really felt it in this one because a lot of the dragging elements just felt recycled. There’s another rebellion. Juliette is being hunted by IT, and then she turns herself in. It felt like the strongest elements of the story were all in Daniel’s timeline. 

Silo Season 3 Is So Dark (Literally)

It makes sense that the scenes inside the silo are dimly lit. It really does, both practically and artistically. I get that there’s a whole subplot where they’re literally running out of lightbulbs, and I get that the people of the silo are constantly “in the dark.”

I get that, but I still turned my screen brightness up to max because the way you tell a story should not detract from the story you are telling. If the siege of Helm’s Deep can be well-lit while still conveying they’re fighting in the dead of night, then so can Apple TV. 

Was Silo season 3 Worth The Wait? 

Comparing the Silo books and the TV series is tough. The show does a lot of things better. It expands existing characters like Camille Sims and builds on the world more cohesively. Still, some episodes are definitely a slog. 

The one thing season 3 did well that I’m not seeing other people mention. It’s saving the best for last. By getting some of the slower parts of the last act out of the way, they’ve basically saved all the most interesting plotlines for the final season. They’ve only just begun to touch upon how menacing the people in Silo 1 really are, the details of how the world ended, and the real reason the silos are even there at all. 

So yes, it was definitely worth the wait. I’m also certain season 4 will be an even better payoff because the one thing this series has consistently done is end on a high note.

All three seasons of Silo are currently streaming on Apple TV.