One of the very best Apple TV shows is coming back to our screens this week as Silo makes a welcome return. And as our Silo season 2 review states, it's just as great as it's ever been.
As you may recall, season 1 ended on a jaw-dropping note as Rebecca Ferguson's rebellious Juliette Nichols stepped foot outside of her silo, after discovering she has been lied to her entire life by its leaders. Picking up in the immediate aftermath, Silo season 2 now follows Juliette as she ventures into another silo, which is full of surprises.
Despite thinking that she is alone in this seemingly abandoned silo, Juliette soon encounters a mysterious man named Solo, who is played by The White Lotus star Steve Zahn. Readers of Hugh Howey's novels will already be familiar with who exactly Solo is, but when we are first introduced to him in the show, he is a curious stranger.
In fact, Solo is so full of secrets that star Zahn actually wanted to have the character be a complete surprise for viewers, pitching to Apple that they don't reveal his casting or anything in the build-up to season 2's release. As Zahn told GamesRadar+: "I actually wanted to and pitched to Apple that they shouldn't give me any credit or even announce me until I actually appear in like episode 3. Yeah, that would have been kind of cool, but then we wouldn't be talking right now!"
When Juliette first meets Solo, he is hiding in a vault, point blank refusing to open up the door to her. All we therefore initially see of the character is his eyes when he decides to open the peephole, but we do hear his voice behind the locked door too, allowing them to converse. For the first episodes then, Zahn and Ferguson have to act alongside each other through a wall, but that didn't stop them from developing a close relationship.
As Zahn tells us: "We got to shoot in order, which was really unique as well. So Rebecca and I really kind of grew as friends, but also as colleagues, and our characters really kind of evolved, which was really fun."
Continuing, Zahn explains how meeting Juliette changes Solo, given that he seemingly hasn't encountered another human in many, many years: "It changes him vastly. You know, at first, he doesn't even believe she's real! But I honestly think someone like that wouldn't survive much longer.
"Because of his youthfulness, his curiosity, and his ability to focus on many different things, that has kept him alive, but he's kind of at that point, you know, just look at him. She’s this amazing life force that comes into his world and then they build trust. And trust is everything."
Eventually, both Juliette and audiences do get to see what is behind that locked door, with the vault Solo has been hiding in being quite the set. Given that he has lived there alone for years, it's almost like his personality has exploded onto every wall, and into every nook and cranny.
For Zahn then, the first day stepping onto that crucial set was incredibly emotional: "It was moving, it was beautiful, the set design is so amazing. You discover new things, there's so much. We had conversations before I even saw it where I mentioned puppets and all these different things that I thought were companions for him."
Whilst Solo is a mystery for the first episodes of Silo season 2, readers of the books will know exactly who he really is. The question is then – did Zahn himself check out Howey's novels to discover his character's secrets? As the star reveals, he actually actively avoided them: "I purposefully didn’t want to know and I told Graham [Yost, showrunner] that. I like reading a script and having an instinctual response. I can’t play the past or the future, I play the moment, the realism of that moment."
Silo season 2 begins on Apple TV+ on November 15, with a new episode dropping weekly. Don't miss a beat with our Silo season 2 release schedule.
