Silo: S3-e9 – "Farewell" dear world

[00:00:26] Hello listeners, welcome to the end of the world. I'm Alicia. This is the Wool-Shift-Dust podcast and if you will please line up two by two by country, we will say farewell with episode nine of season three of Silo on Apple TV. It's the end of the world as we know it. Do you feel fine? Sorry. Do you feel fine? Well, no, not really. Not after this week. Poor Bernard.

[00:00:52] Poor Bernard. And I'm Luke, turning my tinfoil hat theories that have not turned out as well as I expected into a tinfoil horse so I can get back on that horse and produce yet more tinfoil hat theories. Right back in that tinfoil saddle. Exactly. I have a tinfoil hat theory for this one that is probably nothing but we'll talk about it when I get there.

[00:01:20] I saw it in the episode notes and I like the way you're thinking. Just out there. Just way out there. Just way out there. It's out there as far as the time where I was like, well, what if Harwood was actually Knox's dad? But of course he's not. And I knew he wasn't when I said it.

[00:01:39] Anyway, Silas and some other friends, the silos are now officially open and it's a, it's nice and non-radioactive inside. But before we continue, Luke, what is our spoiler policy for this podcast? So the discussion will be spoiler free beyond what was already aired. So full spoilers through episode nine of season three of Silo. Alicia has read the books, but I'm keeping it show only. Alicia can bring up anything from the books that's already happened on screen.

[00:02:08] But to protect my and your book innocence, there'll be no future book spoilers, except we are allowed to discuss the new in show universe short story, the mystery of the pez by Robert Sims. See our separate bonus episode breakdown of that surprise. Apple books short story from a few weeks ago.

[00:02:30] And as always, this show leaves lots of room for speculation for even book readers. So I promise all my speculation here is genuine. I was accused again this, this week of teasing too much. But actually the thing that I was accused of teasing of was misleading. Ah, you were tricking. Yeah, I was tricking.

[00:02:54] So don't worry. I, I, I'm doing my best not to spoil and leave full reign for all of the tinfoiliest of hat theories for Luke and listeners at home and throwing in my own because there's a lot of stuff I just don't know. Um, but if you do want the full book spoiler discussion and deep dives into the intricacies of the book version of this story, I have a separate book club podcast with fellow reader Abby.

[00:03:18] Uh, we do extra weekly episodes stick around until the end of the episode to learn more about that. But we are getting into now season three, episode nine of silo farewell 62 minutes long. So the one minute longer trend is broken. Um, I looked at the finale this time because it will be, people will be able to see the runtime when this is released on Apple. And so the finale is only 61 minutes.

[00:03:46] So this is actually the longest episode of the season. Ah, okay. Which is fair. Full like five minute jump up from the last one. I think it is. Yeah. Anyway, this episode is released Friday, August 28th, 2026 on Apple TV directed again by Amber Templemore, who, um, also did last week's episode. We'll also directed the finale, um, also directed a number of other episodes in seasons one and two.

[00:04:15] See our previous episodes where we talked more about that. And the writer this time was Jeffrey Wang, who was credited for co-writing season one, episode eight, Hannah and, and solo writing season two, episode six barricades. Um, all of this is of course, based on the series of silo books by Hugh Howey, the main trilogy being wool shift and dust. And the plot of this week's episode is Camille's announcement shakes the entire silo.

[00:04:43] Daniel and Helen attend a special event. I see what you did there. I am. I see what you did there. I am. Well, it's probably from Apple actually that description. Um, so Luke, what did you think overall about this episode? Okay. So after I first watched this episode, I WhatsApp to you, that episode is melted my brain and that's still very much my reaction.

[00:05:08] I think this, this is one of those episodes where the show fundamentally zigs, like the whole show feels like it's going in a different direction after this week. I think you can start to see, and I hope we get more of this in the finale, how the two story, how the, the two timelines are going to intersect with each other.

[00:05:33] Because now in, in the present, in the present day or in the flashbacks, however you want to think about it, we are now going to be in the silos. We're going to be discovering how the silos ran when they were first populated. I think we're going to see more about how the forgetting drug works. Um, I am fascinated to see what's going to happen with Daniel and Helen with them being in different silos.

[00:06:04] Um, obviously I want to know what Knox and the other Silevengers are up to and what exactly it was that they blew up. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Ugh. I mean, I hope it's not a pipe and just spewing poison everywhere. I still don't understand that plan. Especially after you heard that Jimmy's mom sealed herself in at the very least. Don't kill everybody. What are we doing? Anyway.

[00:06:31] Also, I'm going to throw this out for the feedback episode. Uh, so if people want to get on the discord or blue skyers or email us, we're going to have to retire the Sims Nard scale. Yeah. I actually brought that up on the, um, on the second breakfast episode that's coming out later this week for lower hound subscribers. I said, yeah, that you and I have retired the Sims Nard scaled after this. Like it's always there in our heart.

[00:06:59] We know what it means, but I don't know. Maybe we should implement Benamana's Pez scale. Yeah, it just doesn't work. So I think for the feedback episode we've got coming up after episode, after the season finale, we need, um, nominations on what we can rechristen the Sims Nard scale. Okay. I, I, I've got a suggestion. I'm just throwing it out there. What about the Camille continuum?

[00:07:23] I like the alliteration, but I want to see where the season ends before I decide that she is on any end of it. Okay. I'm still skeptical. Although this, this episode obviously gave me a lot more reason to doubt Camille. Yeah. No, I think if she, if she's not breaking bad, she's doing a very good impression of somebody. It's all for the cameras. I believe in you and Camille. Yeah.

[00:07:53] Um, I mean, this one, we were teased the entire season by Graham Yost, by Hugh Howey, you know, that nine and by the cast that nine and 10 are really, you know, it's, I talked about the, the Sander launch. It's the silo launch. It's the, we know the ends of the seasons are where all these pieces fall into place. And so we saw a lot of these pieces fall into place here. My only gripe about this episode is that there was no silo 17. I was so enjoying that. Yeah.

[00:08:23] Like we need, we need to know what's going on with everybody. And we need to know, um, did the, were they able to communicate back what Jimmy's mom had done? Yeah, they did. No, they did do that because, uh, in the last episode, somebody said like Lucas said this. Oh, okay. So they are, yeah, they do have radio contact between them at least. But, um, yeah, I hope, I mean, there's going to be a lot going on in the finale.

[00:08:50] I hope that there is room for at least a check-in on, I was hoping for more progress on the silo 17 story, but I've. A couple episodes ago, I gave up on, uh, this season ending where I thought it was going to in that part of the timeline. Okay. So, um, I'm just curious. Yeah. What is going to happen? And I'll say, so for this episode, um, I've known all season that the ninth episode was called farewell.

[00:09:17] And based on it being the ninth episode and based on the title, I very much expected the second part of this episode, the before times part of this episode. I'll say that is one of the closest book adaptations that we've gotten yet in this show, this episode. Um, but the silo 18 part of this story, well, Bernard's already dead in the book by this point. Uh, the whole pipe thing is based. I know what it's based on, but it is a new plot line.

[00:09:44] I think because they probably have to do certain stories differently for logistical reasons. Um, so yeah, that, that part's all new to me. So it was like a weird mix for the first half. I was like, I have no idea where this is going or what's happening with this whole Bernard story. And then the second half, I'm like, Oh shit, here we go. I know exactly where this is going. Yay. Nuclear bomb. Yeah.

[00:10:14] Um, I'll say as a lot of people though, I did not predict because I, I watched this episode before people started predicting this, but, uh, like Abby on the spoiler cast and a couple of people in the discord. And then they predicted based on the way the last episode ended on Bernard's face. They're like, he's going to sacrifice himself. This episode was like, Ooh, well, there you go. Yep. We'll talk about that more obviously. Um, cause I know some people have mixed feelings about it, but I, a lot of people were like, Oh, that's a good end to his arc.

[00:10:44] Cause again, he's already dead in the books. Um, I mean, I am curious that. It's so I knew there was going to be this big nuclear explosion, but I was curious, Luke, how you felt about that happening after last week was all nano talk.

[00:11:03] I mean, I, I think I've said in previous seasons that I kind of hoped it wasn't going to be a nuclear apocalypse, but my objection to that was that they wouldn't have time. After the bombs dropped to build the silo and move everybody underground. This kind of very neatly sidesteps that by having the silos built before the bombs go off. So actually, um, actually, I, actually, I don't, I don't mind it.

[00:11:32] I don't mind it as a mechanism for getting people into the silos. Um, and also I think what the, what this does is kind of answer the question of, um, how, you know, if there are 50 silos and 10,000 people in each silo, give or take, how did you move half a million people into the silos?

[00:11:59] The answer is you didn't, the silos must've filled up over time. Um, no, I think, I think the implication is that there was that many people, um, because there was that whole thing about, because there's a hundred people who were living there are already. Uh, the, the people who had been living there a year that they were basically acting as the tour guides here.

[00:12:24] And then there were all these people who were on the tours and there was that whole lottery thing, a millions of people applied and they got them. I think, I mean, I think just for practical reasons, we didn't see half a million people. Yeah, that's true. Um, so I think that they did things like, like that whole thing where they're like, Oh, everyone's inside eating dinner now. Like that's a convenient reason to only have a few hundred extras or whatever. Okay.

[00:12:54] Yeah. But okay. Your, your, your way actually makes more sense. And yeah, I get that you can't actually show like half a million people convincingly on screen. No. So yeah. Yeah. I, I thought, I mean, I was like, Oh, it's fewer people than I expected. But then I was like, you know what? This is fair. And then when they did show. At the end of the day, it is a TV show. It is bounded by the laws of physics. Right. And budget. And yeah.

[00:13:22] Um, but yeah, when they did like the, the big overhead shots, then they could do more like CGI people on the paths and stuff. But then when they were actually like with the people, they're like, well, it's tour groups that are taking tours in different turns. So, yeah. So yeah, as I said, the, the latter part does as close as closely resemble the source material as anything in this show. It's one of the closest adaptations, but there are still some big differences.

[00:13:48] So I will shout out the biggest ones as we go, but there's also, there's some things that I've been holding back all season that I now feel freer to talk about, including let's start with, uh, in the books, Daniel and Helen are married at the beginning of the book. So. Oh, okay. And there's actually a love triangle of sorts because Daniel's, um, ex-girlfriend from college is his old family friend, Anna Thurman.

[00:14:19] Oh, yeah. So. Oh no, they changed that fundamentally. Yeah. So that's why when Anna and Charlotte were making eyes at each other, all the book readers are like, what does that mean? But I, I really like this version of Helen so much more than book Helen. Um, I, yeah, book Helen, I would call her as a character description wife. Okay. Okay.

[00:14:46] And she is, her role is often to nag Donald about, you know, he's working with, so Donald is working on this project throughout in the book, throughout the entire project. He just doesn't know everything about it. He, he thinks he's designing one silo, doesn't realize it's being copied 50 times. Um, there's just a lot of details. He doesn't know that, uh, other people around him know more about.

[00:15:10] Um, but yeah, so, uh, Anna's, I mean, sorry, Helen's brought into it basically because she is his wife, you know, brought into, she's there present also like this episode on, on the day things go down. Um. So, so is she not a reporter in the book then? She's not. She has a job, but I cannot for the life of me think of it or find it in the books. What if it's ever defined exactly what it is. She's a professional of some sort.

[00:15:41] Um, but she's off. Yeah. She's often nagging about Anna or nagging about, um, his, his working or like undermining him as an architect and stuff. I'm like, geez, Helen's a bummer. I kind of want him to be with Anna. But here, you know, when I see, I knew the bomb was going to go off and they were going to be next to different silos. I knew that was going to happen, but I was still like, no, man, my brain just exploded at that point.

[00:16:10] Like rather like the nuclear bomb. Yeah. No. But yeah, no. Uh, I mean, obviously I haven't read the book, but this, this sounds a lot more, it sounds like a much stronger narrative in the show than it does in the book. Yeah. For Donald and Helen, I would say, obviously, you know, it's, they compliment each other well, cause there's definitely things the book does better. Like some people are like, well, Donald's not doing enough congressman stuff. I'm like, well, you definitely get more of that in the books.

[00:16:39] Um, more of him working on the project in the books, um, than you do in the show. But, uh, yeah, they, they have, they each have their different strengths. Cool. Um, so before we get into this episode though, there is one point from a previous episode from the last episode, actually, that I wanted to bring up because we got an email from Elon D who says, hi, Alicia and Luke love the podcast and your great insight and rapport. Thank you.

[00:17:08] I hope I didn't miss it in the last episode, but there was a part of the show that went completely over my wife's in my head and that I assured her I'd understand after listening to you, smiley face, who is Ralph Melby? There are a couple staircase, uh, scenes after the pregnancy discussion that were fast and oblique that I need broken down. Did you discuss this in the episode? And I missed it. If not any chance of an explanation in a mailbag or mini episode, um, I'll say we'll, we'll address that right now.

[00:17:36] I did mention it. Uh, I kind of just breezed over it in one of the recaps when I was talking about Juliet and Shirley walking down the stairs, but, um, I'm sure we didn't go back to it or discuss it in more depth. So I'm sure you're not the only person who's struggling to remember the significance of Ralph Melby, Elon. So, um, Luke, do you want, do you remember this? Did you want me to feel?

[00:18:03] No, I think, I think if you, if you want to deal with this, cause I was in rather the same boat as Elon, to be honest. Okay. So this Melby incident, uh, it comes from season one, episode five, uh, the one called the janitor's boy. And this, in this episode at this point, uh, Juliet is sheriff and Sandy is working in

[00:18:28] the sheriff's office and, uh, they're not getting along Juliet and Sandy, but, um, Sandy comes to Juliet. This is right after Marns has been killed. And, uh, Sandy says there's something fishy about Marns is death. And I don't trust how judicial is handling it. I want you and your deputy billings to, um, to take special, you know, pay special attention to this and, and investigate what judicial is doing. She's like, I think judicial is up to no good.

[00:18:58] And so, yeah, it turns out judicial was indeed playing games, um, about trying, cause we know now the real killer of Marns was clearly, uh, was ordered by Sims and, uh, via, I mean, Bernard via Sims. Uh, but so they, they set out some decoys from Juliet to distract her from that. So Patrick Kennedy, this is how we first met Patrick Kennedy is he was someone who had

[00:19:26] a grudge against Marns because Marns, uh, got his wife Doris in trouble. And this is part of what led to her death. And so Trumbull tried to frame Patrick Kennedy, but, uh, didn't realize that Patrick Kennedy had been moved to a new apartment after his wife's death. So he was planting evidence in the wrong apartment and Juliet's like, that's weird. And then, uh, they tried to throw another distraction her way, which was just basically name dropping

[00:19:54] a, another low level criminal with a grudge against Marns by the name of Ralph Melby. And so basically the reason why Sandy brought that up in the last episode was it was a secret code to Juliet that, and she had to hope that Juliet would remember it because of Juliet's memory problems. But, uh, apparently, yeah, she was able to fish that out of her memory. Great. Um, and it was, so it was her code to Juliet to say like, listen, I've been caught.

[00:20:24] Judicial is up to its nonsense again. Don't trust judicial. And it was letting Juliet know that she, that Sandy was in trouble and that they were probably going to be coming after Juliet next. And so this gave Juliet the chance to shoe off Shirley, which I suspect allowed her to do something in the background that we might find about out about in the season finale. Yeah. Just to clarify, Trumbull was one of the judicial goons, wasn't he?

[00:20:52] That killed, that helped Amundsen, um, that helped Amundsen sort of dispose of John's body. That was the one that, uh, Trumbull was the one that, um, Sims pushed off the rail. Yes. He's the one that, yeah, he's the one that, that, yeah, that Sims sort of swore in as a shadow and then immediately pushed him over the stairs, pushed him off the stairs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it was a kind of deep cut reference in that last episode. I'm sorry that I didn't dive more into it in the episode eight breakdown, but I hope this is helpful.

[00:21:22] Luke, what code name would, would you use to tell me that you were in trouble? Oh, Danny Bly. You know, have you been, have you been pining for Danny to turn up for so long? It would have to be Danny Bly. Then that's how I know that somebody is missing. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um, I mean, I think if I said something like, it might be like a whole code phrase. Like if I'm like, Sims Nard is evil.

[00:21:50] Oh no, she's being held hostage because Alicia believes in a redemption art. Okay. Right. That's my signal to call the police. Right. Oh, all right. Uh, let's, let's take a quick break here. And when we come back, we're going to be getting into the episode itself. Be right back.

[00:22:15] Your regularly scheduled breakdown will begin in three, two, one. So this episode is actually quite linear. So we'll pretty much just go through it in order. Starting of course, with silo 18 with, uh, Bernard is risen. Former mayor and head of it, Bernard Holland, Tim Robbins trudges to the top of the silo to announce himself alive and turn himself into current head of it.

[00:22:44] Camille Sims, Alexandria Riley. The two enter the vault together to talk to the voice and Bernard tells the voice. He's reemerged from hiding due to the release of the memory drugs in the water and the arrest of current mayor, Juliet Nichols, Rebecca Ferguson. He asks both decisions to be reversed in exchange for the gift of narrative, someone to blame and publicly punish for all the recent strife in an effort to pull the silo back together against a common enemy and prevent another rebellion.

[00:23:14] He tells Camille to tell the silo that he killed judge Meadows last season and order the deaths of Johns and Marnes and lied about Juliet asking to go outside in season one. All true crimes for which Bernard is now eager to take the blame. Bernard asks to be rehabilitated, which he argues will show Camille to be a merciful leader.

[00:23:37] But he knows that once the algorithm runs the numbers, he will be sent outside with all other requests ignored. After they exit the vault, Bernard and Camille compare notes on their observations of the voice pointing out the human characteristics that peek through the unaltered tech facade. The next morning, Camille makes a silo-wide announcement about Bernard resurfacing and his impending cleaning.

[00:24:03] He will be sent out at noon that day and silo-zins are encouraged to attend the viewing in their nearest cafeteria. And to be courteous to each other on the stairs. Yeah. Which I thought was a nice touch. It's going to be a festival day. Yeah. It's a good old execution day. Yeah, exactly. Good old hangin'. Yeah.

[00:24:29] So I did appreciate the opening shot was we saw Aussie played by Michael Eunice straining to lift someone across the gap. And then we see it's Bernard. And so that's like a payoff to that 250 pound setup that we got from Martha early in the season, which is I looked it up 113 kilograms for anyone that helps. He's a big boy. Yeah. And so he's charged double and it would have been triple if he found out he was carrying tools.

[00:25:00] I wonder how many people Aussie has to lift across the gap. Quite a few, I would imagine. Yeah. Yeah. It was fun to see Aussies and others reactions to seeing Bernard back from the dead. It was like the viewers at the end of episode four. Whoa. Um, but yeah, I, were you surprised that Bernard could make that big wall? Yeah. Yeah. He's clearly, he's clearly recovered.

[00:25:30] He's clearly recovered quite well. You know what I was thinking throughout this entire, this, all these scenes where I've mentioned on the, I mentioned on the pod before that I'm working my way through Moby Dick and Tim Robbins would make a hell of a good Captain Ahab. Oh, I can see that. Yeah. No, he would absolutely kill Captain Ahab. Um, I thought that was Moby Dick's drop. No, sorry. Just kidding. Wait.

[00:26:01] Yeah. I do like the fact that, as you know it here, Bernard remembers everybody's name. You know, it's just, it's just a nice way of subtly reminding the audience that he knew everything that was going on in the silo. Mm-hmm. That, and that, um, having that level of control and that level of knowledge was something he'd dedicated his entire life to. Yeah.

[00:26:27] Um, and like, so when, when he's, when he, um, says hello to the two judicial goons, you know, he probably, he probably knew them from when they were shadows to previous set of judicial goons. He may well have recruited them into judicial in the first place, or at least had a hand in recruiting them into judicial in the first place.

[00:26:50] And I just think that's, that's the show just subtly reminding the audience who Bernard Holland was. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And just to shout out the two judicial goons, since they are, he does address them both by name and one of them is addressed again by later by name. So maybe they'll turn up again, but so their names are Chad played by Tom Cox and Joe played by Leah Gorish and or Gorish.

[00:27:19] But anyway, um, they have been around actually both of them, both first turned up in season two. So I don't call out obviously everyone in the background, but the first time we saw Joe, the woman was in episode five of last season descent when she was one of the people to escorted Papa Nichols to see Bernard. When Bernard gave, uh, when Dr. Nichols Juliet's belongings back. Okay.

[00:27:46] And then she also turned up in the season two finale and, um, also, you know, both of them turned up in, uh, this season and episodes five and six. So they've been in the judicial goonery in the background. Um, and so Chad, he, in addition to five and six of this season, he was first introduced in episode six of season two barricades when he's the one that, um, when Kathleen and Papa Nichols were trying to get down to the down deep.

[00:28:14] And Kathleen kind of like fast talk their way through by like babies, woman stuff. And he's like, but you might not be able to get back. So that was, that was that guy. So just because they're both shouted out by name, maybe they will, um, have a significant moment. Yeah. Finale or beyond. Yeah. I thought that was, it was funny. Bernard shows up at the top, but he says, I'm guessing she's expecting me. Cause he knows full well that she's been able to see him coming on the camera the whole way. Yeah.

[00:28:44] And probably that the voice woke her up to be like, he's coming. It was buzzing. Yeah. Mm hmm. Um, I like, he knows we're reminded again that like one thing he understands as, as you know, the longest running head of it that we know of is the central role of narrative in, in life, in silo life. In this case, this is a theme that keeps coming back.

[00:29:11] And so he, he tells Camille word has spread out of mechanical that you brainwashed Juliet. Like, Oh really? Bernard, how did words spread out of the place that you were nested in the middle? Yeah. And, um, and then later on he calls out Camille, you know, when she's shaming him for his past behavior, he, he was like, I was following orders just like you are. Like, he's like, don't think you're better than me. Cause you were actively doing the thing that I stopped doing.

[00:29:41] And he's absolutely right. Mm hmm. Yeah. I mean, obviously the voice, do you think the voice underestimated Bernard? Because the voice seems to think Bernard like was like, Oh, you got me. And Bernard did some good acting though. Yeah, he did. But this brings me back to, to an issue I had this episode and also the previous episode, which is what is the voice waiting for in regards to like the, in regards to the safeguard?

[00:30:10] I mean, surely it's time for it to push the button. Well, I mean, we'll come back to the big questions, but why, why would it want to, as Juliet asks later on, if the founders claim to care, why would they, why would they want to kill an entire silo in the first place? Yeah. But the, the, the, the safeguard is there for when the pact fails, the order fails, nothing else is left.

[00:30:37] Like, I don't know what more evidence the voice needs that it's no longer in control of the situation in silo 18. I mean, yeah, we, obviously we don't know yet the, the nature of the voice or anything like that. But, um, if, if I were just to put myself as a, cause the, obviously there's a lot of talk about speculation, there's humans behind the voice.

[00:31:00] If I were a human behind the voice, um, I would do everything in my power to avoid genocide. And, and, and the, why, like, what is the fear if the, if the voice allows, you know, silo 18, obviously not doing great in a lot of ways, but what is the danger that the voice would, um, yeah. What is the voice actually trying to stop?

[00:31:30] Because it's clearly not an internal implosion, uh, because that they would speed that along. I, I assume it's the, it's the danger of the citizens of any silo, not just silo 18, finding out the answer to the question that's in that little, um, homily that they give.

[00:31:55] When somebody goes out to clean, you know, why the world is the way it is, um, why they were in the, why they're in the silo. But we do know that the, the, the voices collectively are willing to commit genocide because they did it in silo 17. They did it in silo 17. Yeah. And that's the question is what is that line?

[00:32:16] Because, um, even if they found out, you know, the, the origins of the silos, uh, what, who could do what with that information? Well, like what difference with that? Yeah. This is where I come back to like, what is it there actually? Cause yeah, that, that's my working theory at the moment, but I'm not very satisfied with it for precisely the reason you just said, which is, well, okay. If they found out the truth, so what, it doesn't actually change it.

[00:32:44] It doesn't actually change anything. The outside is still uninhabitable. So what would it actually change? So that's the best I can do at the moment, but I'm not very happy with it as a, as a hypothesis. Mm. Hmm. Hmm. But, but the voice is definitely underestimating Bernard. Um, if it thinks that he wouldn't have anticipated not getting what he's asking for, like.

[00:33:13] And this is the thing. The voice spent a lot of time in Bernard's company. Like it is strange that it's, you know, it of all entities should underestimate Bernard. It probably knows him better than anybody apart from Mary Meadows. Well, this is also why Bernard starts questioning. He says to the voice, you're not omniscient. Are you? If you were actually omniscient, you wouldn't have led us here to begin with. You wouldn't need to erase everyone's memories or kill so many.

[00:33:43] Um, so I wondered if he was doing this to plant the seeds of doubt in Camille, but then when they go out in the hall, he and Camille talk more about this. And he says, it's been the same voice the entire time I served, but I've never heard it end a conversation like that. Have you, which is basically like goodbye, Bernard. And, and she Camille's like, no, but I don't provoke it. And he's like, exactly. It wanted to stop talking because of annoyance, frustration, and anger, rather on machine like characteristics, wouldn't you say?

[00:34:11] So it's the implication that there's a human something behind it. And Camille's like, oh yeah, it was extra empathetic to me that one time. But I'll say that, that empathy, I keep calling it a script because it reminds me of, you know, you can talk to AI therapists online these days. And that's exactly the sort of thing that it would say to you. Um, uh, but so the, the conversation goes, how would it be possible?

[00:34:39] Someone whose voice hasn't changed all these years and is always available to talk and same voice, perhaps not the same person. And I don't know if you noticed, um, at the end of the episode, when they were being, uh, ushered back into the silos, it was the same voice over the loudspeakers saying, like, please enter the nearest silo. So my idea that it was something to do with Daniel is yet another, uh, tinfoil hat theory that bit the dust.

[00:35:08] It does sound a bit like him, to be honest. So I understand that. I understand that. Um, but yeah, so that's, so there's this, this voice they keep implying might have humanity behind it might be the same voice, but not the same person. We, we had some speculation, uh, from previous feedback, like, um, uh, that we, I think even in the last episode, am I right? We're talking about that.

[00:35:37] There could be, yeah, like a call center situation. Well, this is, this is where I'm going. This is where I'm going to get back on the tinfoil horse. Do it. Because why does it have to be a person or a machine? Why can it not be a little bit from column A, a little bit from column B? Sure. Say more.

[00:35:58] Well, if this is, if this is a massive social experiment and if Pierce Stenson is at the heart of it, both of those things are looking increasingly likely. Then Pierce Stenson would want to see the outcome of his grand experiment.

[00:36:14] So obviously he can't live 400 years, but you're not telling me that somebody with Stenson's wealth and interests wasn't interested in seeing if he could become quote unquote immortal. Hmm.

[00:36:32] So what if this is an algorithm or a machine, but what if it's, what if it's, um, Pierce Stenson's consciousness uploaded. Okay. To some sort of cloud based thing. So he's not, it's not a person, but it's also not a machine. Kind of like the AI from Beacon 23. Exactly. Hmm. Um, I want to ask you about another part of something you just said.

[00:37:02] You said you think it looks increasingly like a social experiment. Can I ask why that? I mean, why, what role do you think like that nuclear bomb plays in that? And if, if that's the case, I go back to what Stenson said last episode about the world essentially being doomed. Mm-hmm. If it's not nanos, it's going to be something else. Mm-hmm. If it's, you know, yeah. Well, what if Pierce Stenson actually believes that?

[00:37:32] Mm-hmm. And he's the richest man in the world. Mm-hmm. Why not bring on the apocalypse, but do it on your own terms? Okay. And I think I understand now why the pack doesn't allow magnification. Because I think what Stenson is doing is he wants to reset the human race with a certain level of technology. Mm-hmm. So that when they do eventually emerge from silos,

[00:38:01] they're not having to deal with the kind of quote unquote threats that Stenson was describing in that, in that over dinner. Okay. He's trying to cap the level of like human technological progress. Which I think they would just redevelop it again. But yeah. Okay. And so what do you think the social experiment part is then? Well, basic social experiment might be the wrong way of putting it, but basically seeing whether the, seeing whether the human race can survive for 500 years

[00:38:30] and whether Stenson can twist it into his version, his better version of a humanity, his version of a humanity that doesn't have to deal with all the stuff he outlined last episode. Hmm. Hmm. Um, so just, just a small sidestep, um, that this whole 500 years thing, uh, that is the same as a book, but it was noticeable that the light bulbs, um,

[00:38:59] they said it's been 350 years in the system. And they had another 70 years left. Well, 50 years by it was 70 years, 20 years ago. So yeah, we know that they, the, we know that silo 18 is 350 years ahead of when the Daniel and Helen story is supposed to be happening. And, uh, Carla says they had 70 years of light bulbs,

[00:39:27] 70 years worth of light bulbs left. So that doesn't get you to 500 years. It gets you close, but it doesn't get you to 500. Yeah. So the question is, yeah. What's, what's with the discrepancy? Was there theft before that? You know, what's the deal? Oh, somebody on blue sky did like a, uh, a version of the, uh, the reading before they got out to clean with the light bulbs. I thought it was quite funny. Yeah. We don't know. Yeah. We don't know.

[00:39:56] we only know the light bulbs aren't here. Right. Uh, let's, let's give credit where due. Um, it was, uh, young list. Mastiff, uh, said, we do not know why the light bulbs were taken. We do not know who took the light bulbs. We do not know where the light bulbs are. We do not know whether we will find the light bulbs. We only know that the light bulbs are no longer there.

[00:40:30] And actually we still don't have an answer for that. Well, we do. We, we haven't seen the light. We haven't seen the light bulbs being returned yet. No, I think that, uh, yeah, we're going to get our silo lunch in the last episode with a lot of answers to these questions that are all going to fall together. Hopefully. Um, but yeah, okay. As far as going back to the conversation between Bernard Camille and the voice, um, is in, okay. In mind of Camille defense squad,

[00:40:58] I'll say she did look upset about the outcome of Bernard being sent out to clean and Juliet staying locked up, which also means her husband staying locked, locked up, I guess. And then of course, especially the D plus staying in the water. So, I mean, I think she, she's having feelings about it. She's not just like relishing the power. She's not having a good time with this position. I'll say. No, no. I will say like her, her,

[00:41:27] her default expression in this episode for obvious reasons was I am upset. Right. Um, so yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So could she be playing the voice? Could she be working both sides against the middle? Yeah, possibly. Hmm. The voice says Bernard remains deeply unpopular with 89% of the population, which, but I,

[00:41:55] I mean like that's something you can flip on a dime. Uh, Superman did a good job of showing how people will just like decide. I mean, we've seen also with the redemption arcs of with Bernard and Sims and how other characters act toward them. Like there's redemption is possible. And I was totally with Bernard when he was telling the voice, he said, you're missing something. People want redemption stories. And to quote redemption is the commonality in all the great myths, the major religions.

[00:42:24] Although I have to note that the major religions and great myths also include a lot, perhaps more brutal punishments than redemption arcs. Yeah. Yeah. It's just slightly, you're slightly boiling things down there, but we get where you're coming from. No, you're coming from a good place. I'm with you. Yeah. The power of a redemption arc, uh, as the myth to inspire people. Yes. Let's do that. Silo do that. Yeah. Yeah. Um,

[00:42:53] and yeah. And then Bernard is really putting on his show. Like, I guess as, as a former head of it, he had to do a lot of acting. So he really is like acting for the voice. You're going to take everything from me after all I've given, after I've given my life to you. And I'm sure he means that. But then also, as soon as they walk out in the hallway, um, Camille says, did that turn out the way you expected? And he was like, yes.

[00:43:28] Yeah. Um, and then Bernard, what do you think about like the argument? Bernard says the one thing about a person, a person can be defeated. I'm like, well, a machine can be defeated. Yeah. So I was thinking that's okay. Can a machine, but on, but you know, whatever. Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. All right. Um, let's do a quick interlude. Billings lifted little secret. Sheriff Paul Billings, Chinaza Uche has conflicted feelings after hearing the announcement about Bernard's cleaning,

[00:43:56] but deputy Hank Murphy, Billy Posseltwight asks him for a moment of his time before he runs upstairs. Hank takes Paul to Martha's workshop to meet with the remaining silovengers, Martha Walker, Harriet Walter herself, uh, her wife, Carla McLean, Claire Perkins, head of mechanical Deegan Knox, Shane McRae, his pregnant unsanctioned partner, Shirley Campbell, Remy Milner, and fellow mechanical and known shit stir, Teddy, Ola Tungjay, Ofi.

[00:44:26] They fill Billings in on the safeguard pipe situation, explaining that Bernard offered himself up as a distraction so that they could see the Kappa pipe plan through. Knox thinks something Billings discovered is the key to their plan. The elevator. The hope is that will help them sneak into water filtration on level 55. Later, we see Billings, Hank, and an excited Teddy and a nauseated Papa Gus Knox, William Hope, the elevator's engineer, riding the machine up.

[00:44:58] So, yeah, it was a brief Silo Avengers moment, but, now finally Billings is caught up to speed. Yeah. Um, I, what did you think about the fact that Knox and Carla didn't tell Martha what Billings discovered, nor did Knox tell Shirley? Oh, clear communication, people, clear communication. Um, yeah, but where does that sit in the balance of like Knox is like,

[00:45:26] this is too big of a violation of the pact for me to just go around saying something. And, and, uh, Carla says it was not my calls, like not my secret to tell basically. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. Hmm. Um, yeah, I think you raised a good question in the show notes. So how would tunneled in the tunnel into the mines to create the elevator shaft? Yeah, it seems like that was definitely, now that we got a better look at the elevator setup,

[00:45:54] it seems to definitely be in the mines rather than in the silo within the, you know, walls of the silo, which, yeah, I guess it's definitely, it's, it's definitely worrying me the amount of digging that's going on, um, this season. Like they need to be careful. With the, the amount of digging and the amount of explosions, like they need to be careful. They're like literally undermining the structural integrity of the silo. Yeah. Well, I mean, it almost seemed like the last explosions were to undermine the structural

[00:46:23] integrity of the silo, but why would they want to do that? Why would they want to do that? Where will you go? 17 is too far. You only have six suits. Yeah. You won't make it. Yeah. Um, I like the tidbit that Papa Knox was shit, faced when he designed the elevator and never wrote it. So I do wonder though, what has Papa Knox been up to the last two years? Uh, I would imagine he's been shit faced quite a lot of the time.

[00:46:52] Maybe making, um, yeah, maybe making like, uh, moonshine or something. Yeah. Um, all right, let's take a quick pause here. And when we come back, we're going to talk about some cellmates in their various prisons. We're back. All right. Mayor Juliet and judge Robert Sims common are locked up together in judicial seclusion.

[00:47:19] I'll do once Juliet gives up on breaking out through the door. She and Sims have nothing but time to kill. They sit silently throwing pebbles down a drain until Juliet is collected and brought to Camille. They share a drink as they talk Camille filling Juliet in on some of Bernard's anti-rebellion shenanigans. While Juliet was away in silo 17, like the time he tried to starve the down deepers and even had their existing food poison.

[00:47:45] Good times as well as Camille's role in helping the rebels move up the barricade so that they could reclaim a farm and her and her husband's role in turning the deputies of the silo against Bernard and Camille updates Juliet on Bernard's surrender and impending cleaning over which Juliet is expected to preside as mayor. Camille says she wants to work together. Juliet confronts her about the consequences coming of putting the forget drug in the water.

[00:48:14] And Camille says she wants to smooth through that process of transition by having Juliet and a member of each department hold onto their memories until they've retrained their departments and then take the forgetting drug themselves with Juliet as the last to do so. And Camille, the only one to hold onto her memories. Camille later admits Juliet's value is that people will follow her, but Juliet says she's not going to help and she knows she would be killed.

[00:48:43] Even if she did Camille agrees that she would kill Juliet because Juliet doesn't ever quit, but in exchange for Juliet's death, everyone else would live. And remember Juliet is a hero to which Juliet gives a friendly fuck you very much. Kind of hell no to that. So Camille and Juliet, not the allies I might've hoped for going into this season. Well, maybe. I just wondered with,

[00:49:12] with Camille recounting the, the story of season two and the rebellion to Juliet, was that, that might be Camille trying to tell Juliet something. Like what? I'm still on, I'm still on your side. Uh, you know, we've worked together before, you know, yeah. Read between the lines, Juliet. I was like,

[00:49:39] I was thinking that arguably Bernard starving the down deepers. He did that for more selfless reasons than Camille helping the rebels. And Juliet does see through this right away. As soon as Camille's like, Oh, I helped your people. And Juliet's like, I'm sure you had your reasons. It's not exactly. Thank you. Um, and Camille says she did it because she couldn't trust Bernard anymore. Do we believe her on that?

[00:50:10] Sort of. I think it was more that we don't know. We, the Sims is Robert and Camille don't know how this rebellion is going to play out. So let's make sure we've got a foot in both camps. Yeah. That is how I read it too. And maybe like not trusting Bernard to have their backs. The Sims is more than anything else. I did read it as, I mean, I do think in Camille,

[00:50:36] even as much as I like her as a character and I've liked her as a character since she was introduced, I have always read her as someone who was, um, more focused until this season, at least more focused on the advancement, personal advancement of herself and her family. And now this season with this, you know, being coming the head of it, she's suddenly thrown into the deep end and realizes the stakes are so much bigger. And so I do think that her goals have gotten bigger, but at the time,

[00:51:05] I don't think she was thinking about the overall wellbeing of the silo because I don't think she understood that that was really at risk. Yeah, I think, I think that's true. And also this is, this is the irony in season one and two. Camille was trying to gain more power and influence. Now she's got all the power she could want, but absolutely no choices. She can't use that power. She's actually, you know,

[00:51:31] she's reached as high as a human can reach in the silo within the system, but she's still subordinate to the voice. Yeah. And there's no way around that. No, that's true. So it's one of those, be careful what you wish for things. Cause in a way Camille has gotten everything she ever wanted. Yep. Yeah. And you know, and then this whole memory thing comes up again, obviously. And so, um, this,

[00:51:59] this TV show version of the memory thing does again, sound way more dramatic than I was picturing where children starve to death because their parents forgot to feed them. Like, like they forgot they had babies, I guess. Like just, like, did they cry or who are these children that are sitting in my apartment? Yeah. I would just be like, Oh, these must be my kids feed them. And that's like the implication that that smooths through the transitions because you just, a lot of memory is situational,

[00:52:28] you know, like I wake up in my apartment and I'm like, Oh yes, this is my apartment. Um, that exchange did answer a question that I posed, I think three episodes ago, which is how would you actually manage, how would you actually like practically manage the entire silo collectively losing its memory? Like what would happen if they, they had a mechanical, just forgot how the generator worked. And I think that,

[00:52:58] that, that is actually, they've actually come up with a pretty decent answer to that question, which is that the head of mechanical would be one of these 10 people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I still actually do prefer the explanation I gave then, which is just, you know, the, the whole mechanical memory, you have manuals, you, you know, you're doing it every day. It's content. It's contextual. I'm not sure how I feel to be honest about this,

[00:53:27] the way they're painting the forget drug, especially they did say low and slow at the beginning, but now it's, I don't know. It's, it seems a little inconsistent to me, this forget drug lore, but we'll go with it. We'll go with it. But I did think of you when they actually, it's like, Oh, they, she really is thinking transition plans, but then here's the thing. Wouldn't such transition plans be covered in the order? Yes. Yeah. They almost, I mean, I took it that, that, that, that, um, preserving the 10 people.

[00:53:55] I took that as that must've come straight out of the order. Then why didn't they do that 140 years ago? As far as they know, or did it do nothing? Or maybe, well, but that's the thing. It's not like those 10 people preserve their memories permanently. They just preserve them until the resets happened. So maybe it just wasn't recorded. 140 years ago. Hmm. I mean, it could be. So then, yeah, they do all this and it's just still lots of deaths and stuff.

[00:54:25] Yeah. yeah. Or maybe the, maybe the order was amended because that happened. Yeah. I mean, yeah. So this, this goes back to the question of, um, how many silos have undergone such a memory reset? Yeah. It, it, it, it definitely, it definitely does. Um, by the way, we still haven't seen any evidence of the memory drugs taking effect. We have not, we have not.

[00:54:55] I mean, granted, we haven't really seen people outside of, but no, we haven't seen like anyone, you know, being confused or whatever. No. And I mean, okay. Maybe the style vendors are, you know, drinking juice and milk and whiskey and whatever else. But, um, but yeah, like it's, it's, I think it's interesting that they haven't shown us like a scene of the marketplace or a scene of like the,

[00:55:24] those outdoor cafeteria things or, or the, the, the cafeteria itself of people getting confused, are people like forgetting each other's names. It could just be a simple conversation where like two people don't, two people know that they know each other, but they can't remember each other's names. Yeah. I mean, I still not a hundred percent convinced that stuff's in the water. So we'll see. no, because like they,

[00:55:50] they almost seem to be going out of their way not to show us that the memory drugs are working. But then, okay. But so even if, um, this, even if Camille did this plan of replacements, I still don't see how this works because how many of them who remember would tell someone before they went through the process themselves so that they, you know, leave their memories behind with someone else who's finished there. Their memory process. Yeah. Or try to prevent the process or to fake losing their memories. Yeah.

[00:56:20] Or like you would have, you would like, you would have like multiple versions of missions diary as well. Because if I, if I know I'm going to have my memory wiped, I'd write down. I don't think I probably wouldn't tell another person because I wouldn't want to get them sent out to clean or send the minds, but I write it down. That's true. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And write it for myself somewhere. Yeah. I'd hope I found it, I guess. Yeah. I get it. Well, yeah, yeah. That, that,

[00:56:50] that is the problem. But yeah, I don't think I would tell another person because I think it would just be exposing them to too much risk. Yeah. Yeah. And then, yeah, Camille says, I do, you know, this is sad how she puts this in terms of what you were saying before of, of her getting the top dog position and realizing it sucks and it's still not top dog. And she says, I'll have my memories, but I'll be alone in that each day. Look at me each day until everything is reset.

[00:57:17] I'll have to remind my son who I am and hope he believes me or that there's enough of him left to remember. I've got to say, I, I, I love the way Alexandria O'Reilly can, can like change energy, like really quickly. She can go from really soft spoken to like proper rage at the flick of a switch. And that's something that Camille, Camille, whoever is playing her has to be able to do those, those quite sort of drastic changes in energy.

[00:57:47] And I think Alexandria O'Reilly does it brilliantly. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. She does snark well, like when Juliet comes in, she's like, Oh, Juliet, I heard you weren't much of a drinker. So I had all your liquor stolen. Hope you don't mind. But to be fair, Juliet, when she sips it, she's like, fucking hell people like that. So it doesn't seem like Juliet's been drinking it anyway.

[00:58:14] I guess that was the stuff left over from Mayor John's because she had the good stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, Mayor John's was something of a connoisseur. So. And then there was that deadpan exchange where neither of them even fully smiles, but she's like, no, it says no to the drink at first. And so Camille's like some water then. And like, I laughed out loud. Julia just gave her a look. Because of course there's a memory drug in the water and they both know that.

[00:58:44] Or allegedly. Yeah. But then, yeah. When Juliet does ask for a drink, I'm like, oh, that's interesting. But then of course it's a distraction and she plucks something from a tin on Camille's desk. I spent the longest time trying to figure out that it was a paperclip only to realize you get a perfect view of it later when Camille clocks it and has the Raiders pull it off of Juliet. So she paperclip taken away, but maybe she got to do something with it before that. Yeah, maybe. Maybe.

[00:59:13] It was really nice of Juliet and the other Sims, Robert. They, you know, basically they are mostly in the cell, not talking because they both know that there's a camera on them. So they're not going to fall for that trick. And I feel like the only thing that, that Sims really says is directed at his wife through the camera, even though he doesn't look at a camera.

[00:59:37] He says the only way it ends differently is if my wife stops taking orders from that fucking machine screen. I don't even know who she is now. That felt very pointed toward Camille, but then the rest, it's just like the two of them sitting in silence, throwing pebbles down a drain. And it's kind of the warmest interaction I've seen between them yet. Like, yeah, just a comfortable silence. You know what? You know what it made me think of?

[01:00:06] It made me think of that famous scene in the great escape where Steve McQueen is throwing the baseball at the wall and it bounces back and he's catching it. Hmm. Yeah. So if you're, you're stuck in a cell, um, you can't talk. How do you kill the time? How do I kill the time? Um, Ooh, good question. Good question. Like I can remember entire episodes of the Simpsons wrote like it's,

[01:00:36] it's my, it's my, it's my superpower. I can, I can remember silo, not particularly much. It's, it's more stuff from when I was a kid, but I can remember whole episodes of TV shows pretty much word for word. So I think I'd probably do that. I think I would write stories in my head. That's what I do when I want to relax. Just lay down and let my mind drift through, uh, stories that I make up. Do you ever write them down? Yeah, no, I mean, I write all the,

[01:01:06] every day, but when I want to relax, I just like lay on the couch and just like, let my mind explore story world. Cause I'm assuming in this, in this scenario, we don't have books or paper or anything like that. Just a bear. So yeah. And, and Robert, he jumps to Juliet's offense, the defense there. He's like, she's still mayor, Chad. And she whispers, it's okay. So it's like they're buddies now. Yeah. Same team. Yeah. But before we move, before we move off this section,

[01:01:35] there was something, there's something I was thinking, I was thinking, and I hadn't, I've never thought this before when it comes to Camille. Hmm. Do you think she might not make it through the finale? Do you think, do you think this might be building towards Camille dying? I think there's a good chance. Yeah. Yeah. I just, I just, I just got the sense from this episode that she is not, and this may be me doing a Papa Nichols of like killing her off three times before she actually dies. Yeah.

[01:02:05] But I just got a sense that, that, that maybe her character is building towards the finale. Yeah. I mean, I wonder, yeah, I wonder if we're going to lose a couple characters in the next finale. I think we might not get to the part of the story that I was expecting, or at least it will look drastically different than I expected. I, I don't know. Maybe they could do it in one episode, but then they also have to do the, you know, the,

[01:02:34] the before time stuff that no longer before time stuff. I'm just saying they can do what they like with Camille. They touch a hair on Knox or Shirley or down deep depth. He Hank, I will be upset. I think Shirley has the pregnancy plot armor now because I don't see them making a character pregnant. Who's not pregnant in the books, by the way, just to kill her off, you know? Yeah. Um, so I,

[01:03:02] I think she is probably safe through the finale knocks after this episode. I'm like, maybe he is because he's just like, we need that through. Maybe he does get to, I don't know. I am Knox and Hank are two of the people I'm worried about the most. Sorry. I am just warning you. I know it's already been filmed and there's nothing you can do about it. But I am warning you. Now, you know how Abby felt when they killed off Papa Nichols.

[01:03:31] There is finger pointing going on. Um, all right. So moving on to mechanical on the March, Camille and Juliet's conversation is interrupted by goon and chief Emerson, Florian Claire, who warns Camille that Knox and Shirley are leading a couple hundred people up the stairs and a group of people on level 55. Won't move.

[01:03:56] Knox and Shirley pushed to the front of the crowd that is waving pipes and chanting, let us through into water filtration. And Knox tells Emerson that she knows what's in the water and she should step aside to keep things from getting violent. As judicial loses their weapons, Knox turns to talk down the crowd. And just then Camille brings Juliet, who's, uh, again, you know, Juliet is brought everywhere, uh, cuffed up in this. Like they're afraid she's going to,

[01:04:26] she's never like fought and run away except that one time when Bernard said she wanted to go outside and she didn't. Anyway, so maybe, okay, maybe they do need to cover. Um, but Camille's brought Juliet to confront the crowd, telling her to calm everyone or risk the lives of her friends, all of her friends. Juliet tells the crowd to put their weapons down and go home, denying that there's anything shady about the quote unquote vitamin D in the water. Knox is quick to comply,

[01:04:56] leading the crowd to shuffle off. Camille asks the guards to stay standing guard until after the cleaning, falsely assuring Emerson that what the crowd said about the water is just another down deep conspiracy theory. Camille sends Juliet, escorted by a squadron of raiders to prep for the cleaning ceremony, and asks the raiders to bring Robert Sims from his cell to their apartment. And elsewhere, the rabble rousers and elevator crew reconvene on the stairs,

[01:05:24] allowing Knox to introduce Shirley to his deadbeat dad. And Gus says his son isn't wrong about him, but they have a job to do. So, okay. Um, first of all, I think this, this group shot is where like all the people are in the background there, or I'm like, all these people are credited as being in this episode, but I don't remember them playing a role, but I did clearly see Gloria, Sophie Thompson, Kathleen Billings, Caitlin Zaz, and Regina Jackson. So Rita Henry were there behind,

[01:05:54] directly behind Sherlock's or Shiroxy, whichever way we're going. Um, I also noticed the fangirls were right behind them too. So I think that pretty much everyone who's credited in this episode, not seen elsewhere is in that crowd. Yeah. And, um, I'm wondering though, just the fact they, they did this whole thing, went up there and then Knox is like, Oh, you better let us through. No. Okay. Let's go. I'm like, that was a distraction. Yeah. That was a distraction.

[01:06:24] That was definitely a distraction. Yeah. Cause Knox will punch his way into a place. He's not afraid to do that. Yeah. And the whole, like the whole thing with the, we just talked about with Camille. People do what you say, even when they don't agree with it. Um, I'm not sure that's what was going on. Camille. Yeah. Um, yeah. And then this, this is the question. Like I, like I said, I don't know.

[01:06:54] I don't know if Knox is going to die in the finale. Obviously it wasn't like the solo sacrifice, like Jimmy's mom did that. I was hypothesizing, but I'm like, what are we worried about Teddy going out? Are we worried about Billings? Will Hank sacrifice himself out of guilt over contributing to Papa, Papa Nichols self-sacrifice? Who are you worried about in the finale? Okay. You said Camille. Uh, I'm worried about Camille. I am worried about Knox.

[01:07:24] I wasn't, but you've convinced me that I should. Sorry. I don't mean to. I let, let's be honest. I, I, I don't care one way or the other about Teddy. You know, he's, he's not that big of a character. Um, I really, really hope I, again, I wasn't worried about Hank, but I am now. And yes, that, that would make a lot of sense from a plot point. Well, I don't know if they would do Teddy because Teddy is a character who's been stepping up.

[01:07:54] Like I remember I was like, Oh, they keep showing that guy. We should pay attention to him. And he's just grown more and more in presence. And I was hypothesizing if there is a new shadow to the head of mechanical, it must be Teddy because who else would it be? Yeah. Um, so I could see if, if we lost Knox, I'm not saying it's going to happen. I'm just, I don't know. I don't, we might lose characters in the finale if, if, because in the book we've lost a lot more characters than we lost in the show.

[01:08:23] But if Knox did go out, I could see Teddy being the one who was expected to like step up into that. Or we are Shirley as well. Shirley. I would say Shirley. She's also got her. She's yeah. I don't know. She's got this whole pregnancy storyline. I don't know. I'm like, where's this going other than protecting her from death? Yeah. Yeah. Um, I, I am kind of worried about Paul Billings because I kind of feel like billing,

[01:08:52] Billings has been involved a lot this season, but I don't feel his, his character has grown in the same way that Knox or Shirley or Bernard or, um, Camille or Robert Simpson. Billings just seems to be stuck in the same old doing Billings stuff kind of role. Yeah. I am actually not worried about him for that reason right now, because it does seem like, um, compared to prior seasons this season,

[01:09:20] he's more spinning his wheels and more just like grappling with what's gone on before, which gives me the idea that there's more character development for him. And we still haven't addressed the whole syndrome of it all and things like that. So I, I do think there's actually a chance that, uh, he might be off the chopping block for that. Yeah. I think, I think you might, yeah, I think, yeah, I think that could go one of two ways. It's either, yes,

[01:09:46] there's more character development to come or we're kind of stuck and we don't know what to do with this character. I mean, they have to at least wrap up the storylines that they opened and I don't see them having the space to do that in a way that's satisfying in the last episodes, because I think they have shifted, like they shifted a lot of episode, a lot of focus toward Bernard, for instance, because he was sacrificed this episode, you know? So, um, I'll say we,

[01:10:14] apparently deputy Jerry also was credited in this episode. Didn't clock him, didn't wear his wall to him in the crowd, but, um, I did notice that he's definitely not being trusted with Juliet duty anymore. Well, yeah. I mean, well, obviously, um, the whole exchange though, between Emerson, new Amundsen and Camille about the water though, made me wonder. Yeah. Do you think Emerson might turn on Camille?

[01:10:43] I think it, I think it's, I think she might, but I think there's a bigger question there, which is will the judicial, the judicial goons writ large turn on Camille because, you know, they don't want to lose their memories any more than anybody else in the silo does. Hmm. And you know, at the end of the day, they are the people with the guns. I mean, that's basically what happened at the end of season two with, uh, all the deputies turning on Bernard. Yeah. But the judicial goons didn't.

[01:11:14] No, that's true. Um, all right. Well, that brings us to the big climax of this part of the story for this episode. Bernard goes out. This is a longer story time. So snuggle up in the Sims apartment. Robert says he knows his wife is angry with him about keeping Bernard alive. He insists he still loves his wife, but he's worried about their son. He couldn't go along with a vitamin D plus plan and doesn't regret it.

[01:11:43] Camille counters that Robert doesn't understand that his actions have put the entire silo at risk. She leaves her husband, a prisoner in their apartment to be touted out for the ceremony. Just like Juliet. Juliet is allowed to visit with Bernard in the holding cell or rather become his temporary cellmate. Camille informs them that Bernard will be sent out without a suit to take no chances. Although Juliet points out it's against the pact, but Bernard assures her it's actually not.

[01:12:10] And then Camille is called away by the arrival of Billings, giving Juliet and Bernard a moment alone. Juliet gently teases him about the time he sent her out to die herself in the same way. Ha ha ha ha. The good old days. And Bernard tells Juliet, he turned himself in to give Walker and the silo vendors a distraction. Juliet thinks she's messed up the plan by having them sent away. The crowd that is.

[01:12:38] Juliet has reached the bargaining phase on her pre grieving, but Bernard says he's fighting on by going out, drawing all eyes to him. And the rest is up to Juliet's friends. And Bernard has learned to believe in them. His final words for Juliet are about the voice. He tells her, as he told Camille that he no longer believes it's a machine or a higher intelligence. He thinks it's just another human on the other end of the line.

[01:13:04] He won't have the chance to kill whoever this person or persons is, but Juliet might. He says, all questions really come down to just one question, which Juliet figures out is why it's time for the ceremony. And Billings recites the words with vacant eyes as Juliet, Robert and Camille watch on in their official capacities. Bernard declines to leave the group with any last words, though he shakes Robert's hand on his way out. Outside,

[01:13:33] Bernard takes in the open world and walks straight to the scraggly dead tree on the hill, leaning against the trunk to die, picturing leaves in the branches and a patch of sun as he passes away with a drip of blood from his nose. Everyone else watches from the cafeteria. The crowd confused that Bernard is not wearing a suit. Juliet tells Camille Bernard's last words to her, listing the questions that linger in the air. All the wise. Complacent Camille says, maybe we just aren't meant to know the answers.

[01:14:03] And then their whispered exchange is interrupted by a big boom. Camille accuses Juliet of planning this, but Juliet reminds her she's been in custody all day. We cut to Teddy drilling a hole in the roof of a mine shaft and placing dynamite. And then he knocks his father, Shirley and some miners duck as an even bigger blast rocks the silo. Paul tries to calm the people in the up top cafeteria, imploring them not to leave. And the vault key fob vibrates red,

[01:14:32] summoning Camille. She tells Juliet, her friends may have just killed them all before taking off to talk to the voice. So, okay. Just first of all, Camille, since we've already been talking about her, I think the worst thing, maybe she said all episode was to Robert. Oh yeah. Before long, all Anthony will know about you is what I tell him like, damn girl. You didn't need to say that. Or as you put, as you put it in the show notes,

[01:15:02] yikes on bike. Yes. Um, I mean, what do you, how do you feeling about this, uh, Bernard, uh, sacrifice redemption arc? Uh, did this, did this whole, did this work for you? Were you emotional about this? Yeah, I was. And I mean, I think Tim Robbins is obviously a fine actor and he does get every ounce of pathos, um, out of this scene. And I,

[01:15:31] I don't think I can entirely forgive Bernard. Everything he's done because I was just following orders is not, is not a justification at the end of the day. But I think you've always got to respect somebody who can learn lessons and can be better than, than they were because isn't that without getting like too heavy, isn't that what we're all trying to do?

[01:16:02] Um, so I, I was kind of, I was kind of sad that this is the last time, the last thing we'll see at Bernard. I kind of like, I hope in, you know, in whatever afterlife exists in the silo, him and Mary Meadows can meet up and have like, um, have like a moment. Um, and I did think like the, the,

[01:16:29] the almost like father son dynamic between Robert Sims and Bernard this season. It's been really, it's a little weird, but it's very touching. Well, I mean, I think it makes sense. Like Bernard never had a son. So yeah, Sims is probably the closest. Yeah. Maybe he could have, maybe he could have been Lucas in some other life, but not in this version of silo. Yeah. Um, so yeah, I, I, like I said, I don't think,

[01:16:59] I can quite forgive Bernard has passed, but I can, I can respect the choices that he made and I can sort of appreciate that at the end, he decided to be a better man. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it was a well done redemption arc because it also doesn't deny the bad things that he did. He goes, he goes to the unremembering end. Although I do keep thinking of something that Barb's 2796 said after episode eight on discord, where she wrote as a psychiatrist,

[01:17:28] I think there's a lot of reasons to be worried about suicidality with Bernard, but I hope not as redemption through suicide. That really gives me the ick. Like, Oh, I hope, um, I hope that this didn't give you too much of the ick barbs, but I mean, I was thinking about that. I was like, is I can see why redemption through suicide is kind of a problematic trope. Hmm. But in this, I guess I like that he, he,

[01:17:56] like he gave it a go as sort of like, you could redeem me. And then we can, and he's like, no, I knew that wasn't going to work, but it was for the shot. Like, yeah. And also I'm not, I'm not sure I would call this suicide. No. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. For the reason. Yeah. Yeah. I like, I get what, but I get what barbs is saying. And I, I think it is a problematic trope, but I don't think they were actually, I don't think they were actually using that trope. I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't call what Bernard did suicide.

[01:18:26] No. Yeah. There was, um, enough for me, there was enough, um, to counteract that, that interpretation. For me personally. Yeah. Yeah. Although this, this whole memory drug threat, if it does go through, it adds an extra degree of tragedy to these sacrifices because it's like, would it Bernard even be remembered? Well, no, even worse than that. Like the rebels from 140 odd years ago, they're,

[01:18:55] they're remembered or they're portrayed as the villain. Surely that's what's awaiting Bernard. Mm-hmm. He's going to be like portrayed as the ultimate villain. Yeah. Yeah. I, I think the thing that touched me the most, probably that maybe this entire episode was Bernard saying about Juliet's friends, the Silo Avengers. I was able to be a part of it. I've never had that in my life. Oh, Bernard. Yeah. My heart breaks.

[01:19:25] It was just, it was just lonely. Yeah. I, what do you think about this whole no suit thing? Like, I would like to know, like, okay, I'll, I'll certainly take Bernard's word for it, but I would like to know how that's in line with the pact. Yeah. I mean, I guess for me, the biggest thing would be like, is Camille trying to rile people up? Because we see people are confused when they see him go out without, without a suit on.

[01:19:53] That certainly doesn't make Camille look good. I, he did last longer than I expected given no suit. Yeah, he did. I mean, he lasted because he actually, he got to that tree, which is more or less where Holston and Allison got to. Yeah. And they, they did have suits. So. And Bernard, Bernard though, he didn't clean. He didn't know. That's true. He just went straight forward. Like it didn't even seem like they gave him something for the lens. They're like, he's not going to do it.

[01:20:24] You know, they, like, yeah, no, they didn't even give him the, they didn't even give him the wall. So he couldn't have cleaned even if he wanted to. Yeah. They're like, we're not even pretending this is anything other than you being sentenced to death. Yeah. Exile. Yeah. But it does like, it feels like I can't imagine the algorithm favoring this sending Bernard outside without cleaning, without a suit, because it's just going to rile people up inside. I would think. Hmm. Yeah.

[01:20:55] But I, as far as from Bernard's perspective, if the bad air is going to get in through the bad tape and get you anyway, then might as well just go out without a suit at all. Just experience outside for once. Yeah. I mean, I think if I had the option of suit, no suit, knowing what I, you know, in Bernard's position, knowing what I know, knowing what he knows, I would go with no suit because I'd at least like to feel the, the, the air on my skin, you know? Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah.

[01:21:24] And that he gets to feel some tree bark against his back. Yeah. I mean, do we think, is that tree like petrified or, the tree must be dead. Oh yeah. Yeah. That tree's long dead. Yeah. But there's still bark on it. It seems so. Um, I, how much pain do you think he was in at the end? I did notice, I tried to pay more attention in the second time. And as he's like looking out over the horizon, I, you start to see him wincing more. And that's when, yeah. And then he's coughing up a little bit of blood. Yeah.

[01:21:53] And he's coughing up a little bit of blood. We're not coughing, but just sort of bleeding out his mouth and out his nose a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, he, he leaves us with some questions and facts. Oh, random learn fact. Apparently he drops knowledge. He says everyone hates him, including sanctioned pets. So it's like, oh, pets need to be sanctioned too. Um, he also says about the voice turns out, after all this,

[01:22:22] the wizard is nothing more than a man behind a curtain. Like he referenced Mary Meadows favorite book, the wizard of Oz. Yeah. And I, I kind of appreciate that. Like he said, his last words to Juliet shook Robert's hand and everyone else. He's like, fuck you about. Yeah. Peace out. And he says to Juliet, you are the one their numbers missed, which I think means Juliet doesn't fit neatly into the algorithms calculation. He said,

[01:22:52] you are more than a disruptor. You are a unifier. Hope punk for the win. And, uh, these are the questions that Juliet puts in Camille's mind after Bernard's death. Why were the silos built? Do you, do you think you have a better handle on that so far? Well, we kind of, we do know what Pierce Stenson's, uh, rationale for them. Right. Right. Um,

[01:23:18] and it turns out that it just so happened that there, there's apparently a nuclear apocalypse on the day they were completed. So why did the people have to go into them? Check. Yeah. Nuclear apocalypse. Uh, why couldn't the silos communicate with each other? Do you have any thoughts? That we still don't know. Do you have any thoughts? No. And the, the, the, the more like the more is revealed in the before times,

[01:23:46] the more confusing that becomes. Okay. Mm-hmm. Because like, but when I was saying before social experiment, I think I actually misspoke. It's pet. What I think is going on is Pierce Stenson is trying to, like I said earlier on, is Pierce Stenson is trying to manipulate humanity to his version of a more sustainable future. So if that's the case,

[01:24:11] I really don't see what the harm would be in allowing the silos to talk to each other. And I wonder where the next episode will find out that, that in the very early days of the silo, they could. Okay. Um, and then that brings us to the question that we were grappling with earlier. And if the founders cared so fucking much, why would they put in a safeguard to be able to kill us? Yeah. Um, any,

[01:24:41] what are your final silo 18 thoughts for this episode? Any predictions for the finale in this part of the story? I mean, I think this is obviously going to be addressed in the finale, but what the hell is going on with water filter? Like what is not, what are the soil Avengers plan here? What are they blowing up? Yeah. Yeah. And please, please, please don't let it end with like the, the silo 18 imploding on itself because people have just been fucking around digging tunnels and blowing shit up. Yeah.

[01:25:11] After all of the threats from the voice and the algorithm, if silo 18 just does its own self in trying to protect itself, I'm going to facepalm. Yeah. Um, I think clearly this, the, the voice will try and deploy the safeguard. Hmm. It won't succeed because, well, that would kill off half the show. So I don't think, I don't think that's going to work. But I do think. Yeah. We would just have like Lucas. Yeah.

[01:25:41] Lucas, Patrick, Jimmy and the kids. Yeah. Yeah. Silo 17 and the before times. Um, so yeah, I think it will try and deploy the safeguard. It will obviously fail. I think the question then is what, what happens next? Because it goes back to what Bernard was saying, uh, last episode. If the safeguard fails, will the siloes then be able to have a proper conversation with who,

[01:26:10] or with whoever or whatever is behind the voice. Yeah. Yeah. Good question. Now, whether that conversation takes place in episode 10 of season three or episode one of season four, I don't know, but I think it will be one or the other. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, I think, um, I think that we're going to probably see a few of these stories fit together. For instance, this whole light bulbs thing.

[01:26:40] Like I said, this is new. It's not from the books, but I can't imagine they would spend so much time on it. If it didn't play a role in the, whatever reveals are coming for this part of the story. Yeah. Cool. All right. Uh, let's take a break here. When we come back, we're going to switch to the before times. And I think it's the last time I can call it the before times because it's just the time. It's just going to be the times. Be right back. All right. Baby on Board.

[01:27:10] There has indeed been a time jump of several years since the before times plot of the last episode. And intrepid reporter, Helen drew Jessica Henwick is now heavily pregnant with former Congressman Daniel Keene, Ashley Zuckerman's child. Wait, do we think he's a former Congressman or he's just relocated to Portland? No. Cause he said they, he's working on infrastructure projects, but as a civilian or as a government official, I took that as being like, he's the architect. Yeah. Um, so,

[01:27:40] so I think I engineer, yeah, I think he quit Congress. He didn't like it. So, yeah, it wasn't, it wasn't doing much for him. So they visit Helen's obstetrician, having a sonogram done before Alan and Daniel take a flight back to Georgia to visit old friends and family and attend the official opening of Stenson's Folly, the Silosystem Park. Uh, so sonogram. Do you want to explain to anyone who hasn't,

[01:28:10] doesn't know where this comes from? Why are we excited to see a sonogram? So in the short story, uh, the mystery of the pairs, one of the relics that gets referenced is, well, they describe it as like a photograph of a fetus inside a woman's stomach, but we know it as a sonogram. Right. Robert says, uh, Bernard knew that word sonogram from the vault. So the legacy and told him the word sonogram. Yeah.

[01:28:39] So yeah. And we know that we know that, uh, Helen was, was due to tour or had toured Silo 18. So presumably that's how it got in there in the first place. Um, yeah. So I, I did go, Oh, I literally, I literally made a noise. Yeah. I think I also was like, ah, I was,

[01:29:08] and you were, ah, um, yeah. So I guess she just like took that, had that with her in her purse. And yeah. So, yeah. Uh, I'll say there's a book difference with the whole Daniel and the project. I did already say he was on the project the whole time, which just kept more in the dark than the others. Um, Helen was never on the project cause she was, uh, character description wife. Um, and, uh,

[01:29:38] the big difference is the, um, I did sort of allude to this at the beginning of the season, but the, uh, this was, this whole silo system was more of a political positioned thing. Whereas here it's a government private industry project. Um, but in the book, the big event that was going on when the bomb went off was the democratic national convention. And they were about to nominate a woman. Okay. And then, yeah, it was,

[01:30:08] um, during, so there's all these, and then that version had every silo had a stage in front of it. And each of the, each silo was one different state. So rather than we hear in this, like Paris Stenson's getting the two by twos from the, all the countries around the world, it was pretty much all Americans representing the 50 different states in each. Yeah. so 18 was, wait, do we know what silo 18 was? I don't think we do know,

[01:30:36] but we know silo one was Georgia and silo two was Tennessee. Okay, cool. Um, so do you think that, that was a thing that Apple insisted on seeing as, you know, this is a global show, a global phenomenon. We want, we want a bit more, uh, representation. Well, I think, yeah, I mean, we talked about the whole, you know, veering away from the political, uh, aspect of it with, you know, having, for example,

[01:31:03] Daniel and the Senator be from different political parties. Um, I think that makes sense. And so, yeah, naturally, um, also involving more of the private sector because, as a harder to imagine that the government would be able to get away with such a project at this point. Yes. Um, and yeah, so I, I understand these, I think those changes make a lot of sense. And as far as, you know, the makeup being not mostly American, but people from around the world,

[01:31:32] I did think about you saying, uh, it can't just be that this is in the U S so yeah, I, maybe they were anticipating those sorts of objections. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'm quite, I'm quite sort of happy with how that played out because the one, the one slight, the one tinfoil hat theory that I had way back in season one,

[01:31:57] when there was no reason to suppose that this was the case was that there had to be more than one silo. And I've got a lot of stuff wrong between now and then, but that is, you got a lot of stuff right too. And including, yeah, but that, that is one of the ones where I absolutely landed it. Yeah. Um, and so about the other Stenson's thing, Dr. Wagner is her name, Eliza Matengu. And she, that's the obstetrician.

[01:32:26] And she says, she tells Daniel and Helen, she knows people who applied for quote unquote, the Stenson thing, which she also calls the golden ticket to the chocolate factory. But those people were, were rejected and, and she's impressed. Do you know him? We met him once. Daniel's like, hi. Helen's like, what? We met him. We did. I love the way Daniel goes, hi. Hello. Um, yeah.

[01:32:55] So apparently even this doctor knows Stenson is famous for his NDA. So I guess that's what Daniel was worried about. That was possibly my favorite Daniel bit of the entire season. Um, yeah. And we learned that it, so it's been, it seems it's been a four year time drop jump since the previous episode, because, uh,

[01:33:23] it took three years for Stenson to get the silos operational and people have been living in there for just over a year already. So it's been about four years. So that's on track with what they were expecting. Hmm.

[01:34:04] All right. They listened to it and went back and did a quick reshoot. Yeah. With the, with the, uh, screeners that we already had access to. Um, yeah. So they, they, they either take out and they're catching up and Daniel talks about the Portland infrastructure projects, keeping him busy as Charlotte playfully makes her boredom known. Charlotte seems less passionate about her work as Paris Stenson's personal drone pilot,

[01:34:30] but happy in her life with Anna aside from Anna's battle with cancer recently from which she seemed, she seems to have largely recovered. When Daniel decides it's past pregnant Helen's bedtime, they make plans to meet Charlotte and Anna for breakfast in the morning to which Anna is reluctant to agree plans to turn out that will not pan out. But yeah. So what did you think of this whole dinner party? Yeah, I thought it was really cute. I did think that last bit was strange. The, you know,

[01:35:00] Anna being reluctant. Does Anna know something about what's coming next? Hmm. I did. It did make my, that did make my Spidey senses tingle. Yeah. We'll talk about it in the final section for this part. But, um, yeah. Uh, Daniel seemed to me suspicious of Anna at the end when he gets the weird text. That's not his sister. Yeah. So yeah, just, just, um,

[01:35:26] it was nice to see Daniel and Charlotte seem to be back to normal again. Yes. Um, and you know, every, everybody, everybody seemed very happy. And with the way, with the way everything has played out. And again, really nice house, beautiful setting. Um, yeah. We, we learned that, uh, all of them use their NDA money to buy real estate. And frankly, that's what I would do with it. What about you?

[01:35:56] Uh, yeah, I think, I think I would, I think I would buy a house. Just to like, not have to worry ever again about. Yeah. Yeah. I think I'd buy a house. I don't pay it in cash. No mortgage. Just have that sorted. Yeah. And I, I think I would go on a holiday, a nice holidays. Sure. Somewhere like maybe like Gardner or Como or Paris or something like that. And just hang out for a couple of months. How about you? Yeah. I mean, yeah.

[01:36:26] First things first, I would, um, buy a house full out cash. Just like, leave me alone. Nobody takes away my house. Just walk to the estate agents and dump a great big one of cash on the desk. Just get out. This is mine. Mine. I live here forever now. Never moving again. Okay. I can decorate it how I want. And I can, I can have as many cats as I want. And that's it. Yeah. And nobody can like, uh,

[01:36:55] kick me out because they want to move back in or sell it or something. Yeah. Um, yeah, that's what I would do with it. But, uh, Charlotte, I mean, she seems like Charlotte doesn't seem like she loves her job, but she loves her life outside of it. Like she seems really happy gardening as they're arriving. Um, she and Anna seem genuinely in love. Right. Yeah. And I thought that was,

[01:37:24] that was really well done because we've had next to no time with those two characters together. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:37:54] Um, um, Jessica Finley Brown and sorry, who is it? Morvin Christie. Morvin Christie come a close second collectively. Hmm. Cause I, I, I, I absolutely like having seen that last episode, I thought, Oh, that's a bit of a, that's a bit of a sharp turn. That's a bit of a, that came out of nowhere a little bit. And it's like, yeah, no, actually I can, I'm not this episode. No, I completely buy that. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And, and,

[01:38:24] and I like to see, you know, at one point Charlotte does admit that her memories of her childhood sometimes feel like someone else's memories, but, um, she's, she seems like herself. We get the sibling banter, like, um, the rare apology heard to Anna or Daniel eating a too hot pepper, you know, just the stuff that makes people feel real characters feel real, like real people. Um, and yeah,

[01:38:50] Charlotte says that her house with Anna reminds her of where she and Dan grew up. She's calling him Dan. Like, okay, fine. Can we at least call him Danny? He was Donnie in the books, but yeah, she said she feels like it's someone else's story sometimes. Uh, but she does also like we go with her favorite joke that we heard in the first episode comes back where as soon as Daniel says, if our parents were here, she would, she finishes, they would be calling frantically to get out of their coffins,

[01:39:19] which of course is, is an indication that she's more back to her old self, but it's also reminding us, uh, why Daniel is later in the episode the next day tipped off when Daniel said something about their parents, if their parents were there and he gets a very different response. We'll get back to, yeah, that, that, that ladies and gentlemen is what they call foreshadowing. Yes. Yeah. We're laying out the clues for us to pick them up later. Yeah. Yeah. Um,

[01:39:48] I loved getting the updates about them. I don't know much about Portland. So if any Portland peoples want to shout out the Burnside references or other references they made there, then, uh, please do, uh, please send us some mails about that. Um, but we learned that Helen's been working for a local paper, the Oregonian, which is of course understaffed budget cuts, dwindling subscriptions, the usual, but she seems happy. Um,

[01:40:15] Charlotte asks if they have a name for the baby yet. And they said Daniel Keene the second. It was that serious? No, I think they were joking. Cause that does, don't they say in the, in the doctor's office of this girl? Oh, did they? Yeah, I think they did. Oh, maybe, maybe. Um, yeah. Okay. I think that, I think they say there she is, but. Oh yeah, that could be makes sense.

[01:40:45] And, and then they flip the question back around and ask Anna and Charlotte, what did you think of their reaction? I think it's question. I thought that was a bit, that was a bit, that was a bit sort of insensitive given Anna's health condition. They probably, they've had bigger fish to fry than getting pregnant, frankly. Yeah. Um, so when it seems like they're not doing kids, I, they're not doing kids for the moment.

[01:41:15] I don't think that they've like ruled it out entirely. Um, and there is the whole conversation in a minute when they're doing the, when they're doing the dishes where, um, Anna's talking about Charlotte having a way with children. That's true. That sort of led me to think that Anna, Anna at least might quite want to have a child with Charlotte. So I think it's just that life kind of has gotten in the way.

[01:41:44] Yeah. So far. I don't think, I don't think they've made a conscious decision not to have kids. I mean, I, yeah, of course the, the whole being sick thing would play a role. And, and, and I mean, um, there's obviously two women there, two chances to be fertile, but, um, the chemo and such can make you infertile. But also I do wonder if the fact that Anna's been spent the last four years working on a doomsday project weighs on her as well at all.

[01:42:15] Yeah, it would, it would. You would think it might. Yeah. Uh, Helen says she and Daniel almost didn't come for this thing because Daniel thinks Senator Thurman, Laura Ennis, Anna's mom doesn't like him. I guess for running out on the before times league. Um, yeah, possibly. I also thought that, that, that, you know, um, I also thought there might've been a political angle given that they were in the same party.

[01:42:45] Yeah. Daniel might've given up a seat that then went to the, that then went Republican in the, uh, special election or the next. Well, there are different parties. So that would be going to her party then. But yeah, no, no, no. The, the, the, uh, I think, yeah, they are. Yeah. Um, yeah. Okay. Scratch that. Uh, yeah, probably is. She didn't join the before times league then. Hmm. He didn't join them. Sorry. But,

[01:43:15] um, but then, yeah, she apparently has asked to speak with Daniel, which Anna says she must, must mean she wants to bury the hatchet. And I, I mean, I noticed there's a tension. If there's a tension between Anna and Charlotte at this point is definitely about the project, which Anna says there's finally a light at the end of the tunnel. And Charlotte's like, except it's not daylight. It's a train. She's not wrong. It's a,

[01:43:44] it's a nuclear bomb going off actually. Um, but then she's Charlotte says, and when it's all over, we can finally go on a real honeymoon. You get one extra museum because I was mean. Uh, and it seems Anna's just clearly much more invested in this project than Charlotte. And given now the nuclear bomb has gone off and they're going to be living in the silo, it's sort of like Charlotte loses. I mean, well, yeah,

[01:44:12] we'll talk about where we even think Charlotte is actually, but, um, yeah, it's like, it's the end. I was so sad seeing Charlotte by the fire, Charlotte gardening. It's like, all she seems to love being outdoors. And, uh, well, yeah, that ain't happened. That ain't happening again. No. Yeah. Um, what did you think about Anna insisting on doing the dishes? Is this a control freak thing? Like Charlotte?

[01:44:40] I think it's possibly a control freak thing, but it's also like, I have this thing. Like if you've got guests around, like if you've got guests around, it always feels weird to make them do the dishes. I think it's just a politeness thing. Yeah. I mean, it is her brother-in-law. It is. Yeah. Yeah. Because that is a thing. Like in my, when I visit my family, it's whoever cooked is not supposed to be the one to clean,

[01:45:10] you know? Okay. Yeah. And, and we find out this surprised me a little bit. So I'm wondering, uh, Daniel and Helen, clearly they have been back in the intervening four years. It seems like, um, when Anna got sick, now there's some implication that maybe this is not her first time getting sick because she says something cancer fought, fought it before, fought it again. So maybe she spent, but at least this time she got sick.

[01:45:40] Daniel says they didn't make it back. And she's like, yeah, Helen was newly pregnant. So that means it was probably, you know, like seven, eight months ago. Um, eight months. Yeah. Yeah. She can't be nine months pregnant and flying. So anyway, it was a little over half a year ago. And, and then Helen was also dealing with her dad. I was like, wait, what? First of all, Helen has a dad. Of course she does. But like, we're bringing this up now. And what was the dealing and what?

[01:46:10] It was dealing. What was the nature of the dealing? Yes, exactly. Like it was, he's, was he sick? Was he suing her? Was, I don't know what was going on with her dad. Why'd you have to deal with him? Um, yeah. So any thoughts about them not making it back? No, I didn't, I didn't take it as like there was any tension in the relationship.

[01:46:37] And Anna seemed quite accepting of it all. Um, yeah. Um, and yeah, there was something going on. There was something going on with Helen's dad. So whether we, whether we, whether we'll ever find out the nature of that or whether we ever need to is different question. But I don't know. I mean, they've not, the bringing up them not coming back makes me wonder if we're going to find out more about that. But yeah. Um, and,

[01:47:06] but Anna's, she said she was surrounded by people who brought her comfort and she lists Charlotte and her mother and Henry Reed Bernie, who we find out she's known since she, since he was, since she was 12 and, uh, that he to quote her sweeps up the emotional debris after her mother visits. So that says some things about her relationship with her mother. Yeah. That Henry is taking care of her.

[01:47:35] He's sort of like a, we don't know anything about her father, but he seems like a father figure to her. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I mean, I, I, I don't know whether I'm like over-interpreting it, but, but, um, do we think that means that the Senator has a problem with Anna having a same sex partner? Um, I didn't see anything to, I mean, she, she's a Republican as we said, but, um, I didn't see anything that specifically indicated that I just thought that it was,

[01:48:05] I mean, there was tension when we first met Anna and the Senator in the first episode of this season. And they were like sniping at each other a bit. So I just thought they just have a somewhat fraught relationship at times. Or that her mother's like a difficult person at times, perhaps. Yeah. That's, that's fair. I probably just, yeah. The Republicanism of it all, I probably just, uh, you know, uh, looked at the facts and cleared a, um, uh, cleared the wrong conclusion from a standing start. Back in my day,

[01:48:34] there were lots of Republicans who were not anti, but anyway, you know, um, Charlotte also says to Helen, yeah, the second Anna's cancer treatment was done, she was back to all silos all the time. So it was really like Charlotte was finding her joy in Anna. They were both finding their joy in each other, but Charlotte other, other than that was like looking outside of the whole silo thing. Whereas Anna seems to have centered her life around it. Hmm.

[01:49:02] but Anna says she's thankful to Charlotte and more in love than ever. And she tells that story that you brought up about Charlotte visiting kids in the cancer ward, swearing to them, uh, and their parents about cancer. And she calls Charlotte tough, but so kind, which I think it's fair. And, uh, and then Charlotte, she and Daniel are, no, she and Helen, sorry, are gossiping outside or no, where she says this to Daniel, didn't she? Yeah. Yeah.

[01:49:31] That Charlotte calls the pact, some crazy shit, Anna and Dr. C. No, it was to Helen. Cause she was talking to Helen. Well, Anna and, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. crazy shit. Anna and Dr. C meaning Victor wrote about how to live underground for 500 years without killing each other. So this was a 400, 500 year question. Maybe I'm making too much of it, but it just, it made my ears perk up when it was 400 with the light bulb. So I'm like, well, what does that mean?

[01:50:02] Yeah. Yeah. The numbers don't quite work. Do they? Is 500 years, do you know, is that like, uh, the time for nuclear? Well, actually I was going to, I was going to bring this up later, but assuming a full on strategic nuclear exchange between the, between Russia, the United States, China with basically everybody firing off every nuclear weapon they can lay hands on.

[01:50:32] And, um, and sort of the, the, the, the worst possible atmospheric conditions and with, because, okay, this gets a little complicated, but basically the height at which you detonate the nuclear bomb affects the level of fallout, affects the level of radiation that gets pumped into the atmosphere. So assuming that you,

[01:51:02] assuming that you set it in what's called a low air burst, which is where the, the, the device detonates about 12 feet above the ground, which is what you would do optimally because you want the explosive force to spread outwards, not downwards. You don't want to make a, you don't want to make a big hole.

[01:51:26] So you don't want it actually exploding on impact because that will drive a lot of the kinetic force downwards rather than outwards. But that also means you get slightly less fallout because you don't get as much dust thrown up into the atmosphere. Because that's all fallout is, is radioactive dust. Hmm. The, the issue with the issue is less the radioactivity than the,

[01:51:55] or the issue that would drag on for perhaps 500 years is less than radioactivity and more. do you cause a nuclear winter by throwing that much particulate matter into the atmosphere? Do you actually block out the sun, reduce global temperatures, stop crops from growing? That would, that would be the issue that might kill life for that length of time.

[01:52:22] Not actually the radioactivity per se. It's the amount of particulate matter that you would throw into the air. 500 years is conceivable, but it's probably at the pessimistic end of what you would do. Because of course it doesn't, it doesn't actually, in the real world, it doesn't actually matter. Everyone's going to be dead long. Everyone's going to be dead long before that. Um,

[01:52:52] and even if he didn't kill everybody to quote Nikita Khrushchev, the living would very much envy the dead. Hmm. Um, so there is, um, I, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a recent book by a, a journalist called Anna Jacobson. It's just called nuclear war, a scenario. I think there are a lot of holes in that. And there are a lot of stuff. There's a lot of stuff in that. That I would find questionable.

[01:53:22] But if people want a place to start with what a nuclear war would look like and what it do, that Anna Jacobson book is a place to start. Like I say, there've been a number of people in reviews that have questioned some of the science, uh, involved, but if you want, and also you'll be able to buy that at like your, you know, your nearest book retailer, because it's, it's been quite a,

[01:53:52] it's been quite a popular book. So I would take what's in that book with a grain of salt. But if you're interested in this kind of thing, that would be a place to start doing some research. Okay. I've also, uh, asked Alicia to put a website called, uh, new map in the show notes. And that is a website. And that is a website I use as a teaching aid that will,

[01:54:19] that will show you the effect of nuclear weapons dropped on different cities from different heights in different ways. You can have hours of fun killing millions of people. And of course it shows immediately, uh, opens to where I am sitting. Yeah, it does. And you're going to set the effect size and all that stuff. So yeah, I'll play with it after this as well. Yeah. Um, well,

[01:54:46] let's take our break and then we'll get into the long silo tour and the big bottle boom. Be right back. All right. The long silo tour at the silo unveiling, each visitor has been assigned a silo to tour the guides who seem to be the Guinea pigs who have been living in the silos already where augmented reality glasses to verify the identity of everyone present, making sure that every person is in the right place.

[01:55:14] Helen has been assigned silo 18 and Daniel is being sent to silo one. Daniel walks Helen to silo 18 where they are intercepted by Henry. He compliments Helen's pregnancy glow before whisking Daniel back to where he's supposed to be, telling him his sisters with Anna and the senators at silo one, but it's a long walk. So Helen should stay at 18 for her scheduled tour,

[01:55:40] but she should meet them at silo one after for the senators scheduled speech, which, uh, she promises will be short and followed by music and fireworks. So Charlotte is guided into the silo by her guide Everett, Arthur McBain, while Daniel catches up with the rest of the before times league. Victor takes a break from taking photos of the attendees to greet Daniel, telling him he was sad not to have him involved in the project these past years,

[01:56:08] saying Daniel had a gift for seeing things other people missed. Victor was sucked into the considerations of the mass trauma that would be involved in needing to use such a fallout shelter, if the silo system were to ever be used for its intended purpose. Daniel and Victor convene with Anna, Senator Thurman and Paris Stenson, Colin Hanks at the silo one stage where Peter Gabriel is rehearsing. Here comes the flood. Peter Gabriel played by Peter Gabriel, uh,

[01:56:37] Daniel and Senator Thurman talk and she chides him for not stopping by to see her. Pear also says he has a bone to pick with Daniel for leaving the project. Thurman asks Daniel to stick around while she and pear do a tech check. She says she wants to discuss something with him. Anna apologizes for missing breakfast, but agrees to a makeup the next day. She says Charlotte should be along soon, but Daniel gets no responses from his text to her until he finally does.

[01:57:06] And it's not what he expected setting up the, if mom and dad were alive joke, he gets the response. Mom and dad would say it's best to sit still and be patient. And Daniel freaked out, walks away from Anna and the others. Daniel begins frantically texting and calling Helen and finally gets a response from her that she's climbed back outside silo 18 to get reception.

[01:57:30] Henry is trying to herd Daniel back toward the stage and a guide tries to usher Helen back in for her dinner. But they're determined to find each other. They see each other from the tops of the berms around each silo. They're standing next to and wave just as a nuclear bomb falls on Atlanta in the distance. As the fallout begins to sweep toward them, they're both yanked back into their nearest silos,

[01:57:57] calling each other's names and the episode ends. Dun, dun, dun. So, I mean, were you surprised by the bomb? Were you surprised by them being separated? What was your emotional experience going through this whole sequence of Paris Stinson day? My emotional experience was, well, let's start at the beginning and work our way forwards.

[01:58:26] So, my first reaction is, everybody's been very friendly to Henry. It's just like they're old friends. Yeah, considering this is a guy who literally kidnapped you. Literally kidnapped you. But then they got a million each out of it. Yeah, everybody's been very understanding about this situation. So, I suppose, yeah, you've got a million dollars each, and I suppose all ends well.

[01:58:53] But I would be a little bit more guarded around my former kidnapper, to be honest. He was just doing his job. That's what Bernard said. Yeah. And I guess it's harder to hold it against Thurman, considering she's family now that Anna and Charlotte are married. I guess, I guess. But yeah, that did strike me. Did that strike you as weird? Because, yeah, it struck me as a little bit odd.

[01:59:23] Yeah, no, I thought it was funny and sweet, but I do also think that is how people are. They're like, oh, old Hatchetsbury. We're old comrades who know some parts, at least, of this big secret of this site that we're standing on. Yeah. Remember that time we all hung out and you told us about Nanos? Yeah. I did wonder, his whole thing, he said to Helen, my advice is don't take the full tour.

[01:59:51] It's a lot of stairs and a lot of elevators. And then she says, oh, something about getting enough exercise, the lack of elevators, which, okay, we've speculated on that further. And then he's like, oh, Helen, it's too far to walk to come to Silo 1. But then actually, after you tour Silo 18, then you can walk by yourself to Silo 1 to meet us. Like, what? What? Yeah, that doesn't make any sense. What? Um, yeah.

[02:00:21] And also, like, yeah, there's just something, there's also something deeply sinister about the tour guides. Something really deeply sinister. Like, apart from the fact that we're in the pervert glasses. Yeah, I mean, I do wonder, like, so it was funny, that whole thing, that clip of Helen, there's a clip of Helen walking into the Silo, holding someone's arm in the trailer. And all season long, book readers have been like,

[02:00:51] who is, whose arm is she holding? And then it turned out to be a character we've never seen before. And it's like, ha ha ha, jokes on us. I would, I would be prepared to make a fairly hefty bet. We'll never see again. Maybe. So, okay, this is Everett from Hottiston. Do you know Hottiston? Because apparently even Londoners don't. No, I actually, I actually Googled it when I was doing my rewatch, because I have never heard of this place, but it is a real place. It is on the edge of London. Okay. Makes sense.

[02:01:21] Um, and yeah, so he was one of the million, well, he's not even one of the millions who applied and got accepted because he was already there for a year before that. But, um, he's the one who tells them about two people from every country and Helen calls it Stenson's arc. Yeah, I think it was funny. Helen asks about the costs again. Like she's really obsessed with the cost of this project. He's like, Dr. Stenson plans on releasing those figures soon, right after the bomb. Don't worry about it. Yeah. Yeah.

[02:01:51] Like how soon? Within the next five minutes? I don't know why. If, if like, it's mostly Paris money, as he claims, I don't know why Helen is so concerned about. Well, I think Helen's thing is you could solve all of these problems and instead you've dug 50 holes in the ground. Yeah. Fair. Fair. Uh, speaking of the 50 holes. So we get that overhead map of the silos and Bernard's understanding of the layouts of the silo system does not, it seems a bit off.

[02:02:20] So Bernard, when he was explaining this to Juliet last episode, he was saying there's, uh, basically like seven groups of seven, which would be 49 plus silo one in the middle. But what we see here is that, uh, the clumps are a varying size. So silo 18 is actually part of a clump of eight silos. Uh, but then down at the very bottom, there's a clump of only five silos.

[02:02:46] So I, I don't like, was this just a design decision or I don't know if there's a reason for this. Um, but that's interesting. Cause that means there is a silo in silo 18s. Um, field cluster that Bernard doesn't know about. Yeah. But if, I mean, but it was, I guess it was purely speculation on his part, or this is my

[02:03:10] question is it was more clear in the books what Bernard knew from the algorithm, I think for, from the voice versus here, we're kind of piecing it together. What does Bernard Bernard actually know? Um, and the other thing that caught my ear is that, uh, Henry said that, you know, let's go to silo one to like Anna and the senators, which plural. So Thurman is Paris Stenson a Senator now?

[02:03:40] Well, but, but if he is, then it would have been Senator, Senator Stenson, uh, shortly rather than doctors. So I don't think so. Okay. So maybe just in general, this is, that's where the senators were sent. Yeah. I think possibly, possibly Thurman was not the only Senator as a, as there is a VIP. Yeah. Okay. Why do we think they showed us Victor taking photos of the people? All right. You want to hear, well, I'm going to hear your thing and then I'll tell you my ultimate

[02:04:10] tin theory of the episode. So what's my thing? Well, yeah. Why do you think they showed us Victor taking photos of the people? I, I hadn't really noticed that until you'd, until you'd put it in the show notes. So I don't really have a, a theory about that, but you've come up with an absolute doozy. I don't think it's real. We'll say, okay. Real answer.

[02:04:35] I don't know that he wants it for documentation for some study that he's doing or something about, or some, you know, yeah, that he, yeah, just wants to analyze the crowd on this day for whatever his Victor reasons. Um, the tinfoil hat theory I put in the notes is that he's Palmer and forget drugged Helen because Palmer was a photographer.

[02:05:04] I mean, I don't think that's true. I don't think it's true. I mean, we, we, we know, we know that Victor had a family. We know that he had a wife and daughter who died, but we don't know much about the period of time from that happening to when we meet him. So he could, he could be, he could be Palmer. But then when he, did he, he forget drugged Helen before any of this show started?

[02:05:34] Who's, I mean, she was staying in Palmer's apartment. I don't know. See, this is why I don't think this is real at all. It was just a thought that popped into my head. You've got to get into the spirit of tinfoil hat. I know. Stop undermining. I'm unraveling the tinfoil as I'm putting it on. Yeah, you can't let, you can't let these annoying things like facts get in the way of a good theory. I mean, yeah, because presumably she knew whose apartment she was staying in.

[02:06:02] And then she also didn't recognize Victor when she saw him. So I don't know. Yeah, that's true. That's true. It's a flimsy connection I made that Victor was using a camera. And I still am wondering what the deal is with that Palmer unseen dude. But I'm glad you're entering into the spirit of tinfoil hat. Yeah, I do wonder, Victor seems to, I wonder what's going on in his head.

[02:06:30] He says, he's saying to Daniel, like, it's a shame you weren't on the project. But then it's almost like he's trying to guilt trip him. He's like, there's nothing wrong with thinking about the road not taken. But then he says we all do. Like, he's the one reflecting on his own feelings of regret. What do you think's going on inside Victor's head? I just think Victor is, he's constantly analyzing people. He's constantly trying to get a rise out of people.

[02:06:58] And like, Daniel is going to end up going into one of the silos. We think silo one, but maybe, maybe he doesn't make it to silo one. So I think from Victor's point of view, this is not the end of the project. This is the beginning of the project. And he's trying to get a base. I think Daniel is going to play an important role in that project.

[02:07:28] I think Pierce Stenson and Victor, both this episode and the last clock, that Daniel was somebody they could, with the kind of mind they could use. And that would be useful in the context of the silo. So I think Victor's trying to get like a, he's trying to get a rise out of Daniel. I don't know why, but that's clearly what he's trying to do.

[02:07:57] But yeah, I think from Victor's point of view, it's wrong to see this is the, the end of the project. This is the beginning of the project. So as far as the people who were next to silo one, who were thus ushered in there when the bomb went off, we know obviously Daniel being tracked back in by Henry. Yeah. Um, um, we knew, yeah, Anna, definitely her mother pair Victor. Um, Charlotte was not seen.

[02:08:28] Yeah. Charlotte was not seen. Uh, but pretty much all of the rest of the before times league, except for Helen. Yeah. Cause like, I've just, I just got this image of like the opening scene of the finale being that being like it being another time job. In the before times.

[02:08:53] And we find out that, that, that Daniel and Helen, you know, have been memory drugged. They can't remember each other. Um, and I, this is not particularly, by my standards, this is not particularly tinfoil hardness. I wonder whether Helen ends up marrying somebody called Nichols. Oh, okay.

[02:09:18] And becomes a ancestor of, well, we, we have the idea that she is probably an ancestor of, of be based on that, the mystery of the Pez short story. We have the idea. She's probably an ancestor of George Wilkins. Yes. Oh yeah. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[02:09:40] But yeah, I just, I, I think the opening, the opening scene of the next episode is going to be a cut between Helen and Daniel. And we realized that they've both been memory drugged and can't remember each other. And Helen's got the Pez in her handbag and she knows it's important, but she doesn't know why. Um, yeah. Does it trigger a memory? Yeah. Is that why it becomes a forbidden relic? Yeah.

[02:10:11] Yeah. So, okay. I mean, so much to pick apart in this part. First of all, what do you think Thurman wanted to discuss with Daniel? She said, stick around. I want to talk to you about something after this practice speech. I'm not sure. I don't know. And frankly, at this point, I don't know whether it's even going to be important. You know, the context has somewhat shifted in the last five minutes.

[02:10:36] Um, I, I, I do, I do wonder like what is, what is Senator Thurman's usefulness to the project going forward? Like she's delivered the silo. I, I, I, I, will she be like interrogating Per Stenson about what's going on? Or again, she may well be memory drugged by the time we, we see her next.

[02:11:02] So you think she doesn't know as much as you think Per knows more than her or he's holding things back from her? Absolutely. Okay. Cause we'll, we'll, we'll talk about this in a second, but I am almost sure that it's Per Stenson that has caused the nuclear bomb to go off. I don't think Thurman has anything to do with that. Okay. I think Thurman genuinely believes in the project Stenson was pitching last episode. Okay.

[02:11:31] What did you, okay. Do you want to guess what line made my blood boil? Go on. Victor says the pact was mostly written by AI and they just did some editing. As if it's just, as if it's just that simple. Well, yeah, it was like, this is the most important documents in humanity.

[02:11:55] You're basically just said at another point sometime right before, after this, um, what you trusted that something that important to AI. Like, are you lying? Are you, I don't know what to make of this. Is this like a way of explaining away any wonkiness of it? Like, I don't know what to make about that being thrown in. And then he says, hopefully we'll never have to find out if we did a good job because she didn't write it.

[02:12:25] Even. I don't know. I don't get it. Why? Yeah. The entire future of humanity has been doomed by Chuck GPT. Exactly. Like, no wonder I didn't think human things. Anyway. Yeah. So Peter Gabriel, any chance we see him in the finale? I really hope he got to a silo and died. Well, Per was, we saw Per directing him to 17 at the end of his rehearsal.

[02:12:54] I do wonder if anyone, any listeners at home know who the, so we saw watching Peter Gabriel, we saw Per, Senator Thurman and two other people. And I'm wondering if the two other people are like other known faces, like members of the Hanks family or something, somebody I'm supposed to recognize and didn't. If anyone knows, let me know. So I'm curious who the other people on stage with the Senator and Per were watching Peter Gabriel. Yeah.

[02:13:23] And then Victor tells his joke, 17, it's the best one. They're not all the same. No, they are. It's a silo joke. But it's funny because here Donald just assumes all the silos are the same. In the book, it's the opposite. He thought that he had designed one silo for people and that the rest were like to house nuclear waste or other things. And then only on this day, does he find out, wait, these are all the house people? Why?

[02:13:52] So it's a difference. Do we think the weird text from Charlotte? Daniel doesn't tell Anna about the not Charlotte text, which makes me wonder if he's suspicious of her. But it also, I don't know if this is a misdirect, but we see Per pull out his, his phone buzzes as Daniel's trying to get in touch with Charlotte. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I noticed that. And has Per like cloned Charlotte's phone.

[02:14:21] I mean, yeah, certainly it's within possibility, but it seemed or it could be a misdirect because it seems so obvious to viewers at home. I don't know. Hmm. Hmm. Yeah. I mean, it's like, but if it's Anna, like if it's Anna, Anna would know the joke. Yeah. True. Yeah. So it's not Anna. I mean, Anna was sitting right next to Daniel.

[02:14:50] So she wasn't responding. Yeah. So I don't know why Daniel would be suspicious of Anna. Yeah. Maybe because he was weirded out by the whole breakfast thing. Yeah. He was being shady about meeting for breakfast. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. I do wonder his spidey senses are going off on something. I don't know, but, or maybe it was just all of them. He was just like, I trust no one, but Helen right now or my sister. I want Helen and my sister and everyone else go away. Yeah.

[02:15:19] I want, I want Helen. I want Helen, my sister and my child safe. And I don't really care about what else is going on. Yeah. And then we also, we see a slightly different side of Thurman when she's practicing her speech. Like she seems more intense. Do you agree? Yeah. Yeah. She clicks into politician mode. And she, yeah, she's like bossing everyone around. You got to do it right. This is the most important speech, which of course she never gets to give. Yeah. Um, but pair is just going through the motions.

[02:15:49] That's funny. Like he leans over. He's like, Oh, it's my part to speak. He's like, this is the greatest achievement of humanity. Yeah. Well, I am 99% certain he knows what's coming next. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And then, yeah. And, and, um, just to answer our questions about, is it government? Is it private? Um, in the practice speech Thurman says government and industry working together on a level not seen since world war two. Yeah. Yeah. And that would be right. If you were building something on this scale.

[02:16:19] Yeah. It would be like building the Pentagon. It would be like the Manhattan project. Yeah. Yeah. So this, this whole, the way it ends with like the practice speech and stuff, I think this is part of the, the cheating to keep budget down aspect of it because in the book version, they actually really do get the music and fireworks, not just the rehearsal. And then it's like, like the fireworks have started going off and then, uh, they're like, oh shit, there's bomb. Um,

[02:16:48] Um, and you say you've got a news anchors melting on camera. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, there's, yeah, there's news anchors that melt on camera and that's when they're like shit. Yeah. Um, yeah. And I also wrote music and fireworks. Well, I guess there was certainly fire. There was certainly fireworks. Yeah.

[02:17:19] Um, I, yeah. Okay. So you've shared your ideas about who dropped the bomb and why, um, we noted that the algorithm voice is already being used. I do agree. It kind of sounds like Daniel, but, um, I don't know. I think it's just a, it was just like a mechanical, a digital voice. Like literally, I think they might've just, you know, got Ashley Zuckerman to read a few lines just to save a bit of money. Maybe, or maybe to mess with people. No, I don't.

[02:17:48] Or did you just mess with us? Yeah. I mean, I wonder if they like layered several characters' voices over each other. Yeah. That, cause he also said, it also sounds a little bit like Pierce Benson as well. So it sounds a little bit like Colin Hanks as well. So yeah, I think there's very possibly that they very possibly could have done that. Yeah. And of course, uh, the bomb goes off while most visitors are inside eating dinner. So you think they, that was intentionally timed? Yeah.

[02:18:19] Cause I'm 99% sure it was Benson that set the bomb off. Hmm. And we hear that the silos are built to withstand a 30 megaton nuclear explosion as close as two miles. Uh, the doors are 25 tons each and each can keep out particles as small as 50 nanometers. So, um, yeah, there's, it's, it's, uh, nuclear proof and nano proof. Yeah.

[02:18:45] Although I'd say, uh, again, it doesn't, it doesn't really matter. And I'm sure it's not, but I'd say that's further away than two miles. Yeah. Atlanta from wherever they are. I think in the book they specify it's Fulton County, Georgia, but I'm not sure that. I actually thought Fulton County is the county that, that metropolitan Atlanta sits in. Right. Okay. So it's not far. Yeah. Because you can see it in the distance obviously. So, but it's not, it's not that close. Yeah.

[02:19:13] I think someone, um, actually at some point figured out where exactly they based it in terms of like the view of Atlanta from the silo system. Yeah. Yeah. Cause somebody did that last season and you were like, I can't talk about this cause it would give too much away. Yeah. But somebody wrote in and said they'd worked out exactly where the silo was. Yeah. You said they were right, but you couldn't tell us where. Yeah. Or you thought they were right. That was in the suburbs of Atlanta. Yeah.

[02:19:43] I forget the exact location from the top of my head, but yeah. Did you want to, did you talk about the permissive actively action links? Yeah. So, so I think it's Pierce Stenson that sets off the bomb, but I don't know how he's done it because us, Russian, Chinese, almost everybody's nuclear weapons.

[02:20:11] We're not sure about the North Koreans, which is a bit worrying. Use something called a P-A-L, a permissive action link, or sometimes the L is rendered as lock rather than link. And you say, actually, this has been very, this is very well sort of represented in the popular culture on nuclear weapons. So whenever you see nuclear weapons launched from a silo or a submarine on TV,

[02:20:41] it's the thing where the two people have the two keys and they have to turn them simultaneously to launch the missile. That is actually real. And that is what a permissive action link is. So basically it's to stop a situation where a single individual could launch a nuclear weapon. So let's say the, let's say the US president wants to launch the nukes.

[02:21:11] What he would do is he would ask for what's called the nuclear satchel or sometimes called the nuclear football. The reason it's called a nuclear football, by the way, is because it's passed off between the president's military assistance in a way that sort of looks like American football, apparently, if you squint. So that's why it's called the nuclear football. Okay. So they open up that briefcase.

[02:21:38] That briefcase has a, has a, has a laptop with a very, very, very secure internet connection. And what that will do is that will broadcast the exact number of nuclear weapons the president wants launching. And it will also send the target packages depending on what the president selects.

[02:22:09] And it will send them out to the submarines. It will send them out to SAC, Strategic Air Command. It will send them out to the missile silos in places like Montana, Nevada, Utah, Arkansas. But actually the president can't launch a nuclear weapon. He can give the orders at launch, but actually requires the captain of the ship or the bombardier

[02:22:35] of the, of the bombardier of plane or the guy sitting in the silo to actually arm the weapon. And the, the, the, the two key system was the way they originally designed it in the 1960s. And that went on to the 1970s, the way it's done, or the last time we had a report on this,

[02:22:59] because it was the last time the PALs were publicly updated was in the early 2000s. They may have been updated further since, but the Pentagon hasn't released that information to the general public. So the way it works or the way it worked in the early 2000s was there is a safe. You open that safe. There is a plastic card inside that safe.

[02:23:26] You then have to enter in on a keyboard, a whole series of codes that, that, that arm the nuclear weapon. And those codes are changed periodically. So two people have to enter two separate sets of codes and those codes are changed randomly. And often the idea being that it would be impossible for a single person, even the president of the

[02:23:53] United States to launch nuclear weapons without other people in the chain of command concurring that that should be what happens. So the question I have is, well, the questions I have is how did Pierce Stenson get hold of a nuclear weapon? How did he break the PALs?

[02:24:16] Because there's a, there's a famous quote that I like by one of the people that designed it, the system. And he said, trying to break a PAL would be the equivalent of, um, trying to perform a, uh, a tonsillectomy on a patient who is awake whilst having to go in the other end.

[02:24:38] In other words, having to go, but first, because the thing is the PA, the actual physical, because the PAL is what they are physically is a whole series of locks. They are built deep into the gubbins, deep into the heart of the nuclear weapon. So you can't actually physically get to them without dismantling the bottom. So where did Pierce Stenson get a nuclear weapon from? How did he beat the PALs?

[02:25:08] Or, or is what we're seeing a Russian or a Chinese nuclear weapon used against Atlanta because Pierce Stenson managed to basically hack their early warning system in such a way that they thought they were under attack by the United States? Because, sorry, I'm going on. No, no, go, go, go.

[02:25:34] Because the way it works is, uh, certainly for Russia, the U S and China, they have a doctrine. They have a doctrine, which is a, a policy, an idea, which is called launch on warning, basically, which is they will not wait for nuclear weapons to strike Russia or China. If they see an incoming nuclear weapon from the United States, they will launch, and the United States also has this policy.

[02:26:00] They will launch when they, the nuclear weapon is first detected. In other words, they won't wait to absorb a first strike and then retaliate.

[02:26:09] So what Stenson could have done, and I think this might actually frighteningly be easier than, than defeating the PA, the PA LS is actually hack the early warning system and full China or Russia or whoever into launching nuclear weapons at the United States. Um, okay. Um, okay. Two questions. Uh, if, yeah.

[02:26:37] So if it's, if it were pair who, if it were pair who did this, um, one, couldn't he have been working with someone who had access to the PAL system or whatever? Yeah, but it would still require whoever was president of the United States to open them, to open the nuclear football and send the orders because it's only, because it's only at that point.

[02:27:03] It's only at that point when that's received that it's actually possible to open those safes. Okay. We have, we haven't heard anything about the president in this universe, in this world. Yeah. Yeah. Um, which I'll say actually the president is mentioned that, yeah, there's a more place. Political angle in the book version, but I see they're skirting away from that and I guess I get it. Uh, but it does raise questions in this regard, but yeah. But then, okay, here's my more important question. Why would he want to bomb Atlanta?

[02:27:32] I don't think he is bombing Atlanta per se. I think he's bombing everywhere. The whole world. Yeah. This just happens to be the one we've seen. Yeah. Okay. Okay. All right. I would urge people to have fun with the nuke map. Uh, because I'll put that in the show notes. Yeah.

[02:27:56] It's, it's, it's, it's an old website, but it does give you a sense of scale and what a nuclear weapon would do. Yeah. And you can position it over Fulton County, Georgia. You can, yeah. It does. Like, it is a jump scare when it opens as it's positioned over the center of Amsterdam. I'm like, no, bad juju. Go away. No nukes here. Um, yeah. And I'm going to play with it and that'll be in the show notes for anyone who wants to, else wants to play with it.

[02:28:25] Um, well let's take our final break of the episode. And then finally we, we got some emails in as feedback for this week. So be right back. Now opening the listener feedback channel. We got a few mostly emails. Uh, one is from Yael, uh, H who wrote in, actually this was after episode, after our episode seven podcast.

[02:28:54] So this is going back a little bit, but, uh, I didn't get it until after we recorded episode eight. Uh, hi Alicia and Luke. I'm a big fan of the podcast. And despite the fact I only discovered it when season three began, I've listened to all of your season two and season three episodes. Well, we're really happy to have you with us. Thank you. Um, like Luke, I am extremely impressed by Alicia's abilities to resurrect random side characters from the dead. I'm just, uh, yeah. Predicting narrative, uh, including Gloria.

[02:29:22] However, I was a little miffed listening this week when Luke seemed to imply Gloria was some short sorts of charlatan because of her work as a fertility consultant. If memory serves in season one, we learned that Gloria told none other than Robert Sims to procure folic acid for his wife. When she was having trouble conceiving. She later went on to have Anthony. While it is possible. She had some woo woo things going on. Is sage available in the silo?

[02:29:49] Folic acid is recommended by most, not most national health bodies, EG, uh, NHS CDC for women of childbearing age because of its vital role in preventing neural tube defects in developing fetuses, particularly in the first trimester. Telling me to take a prenatal with folic acid was the first thing out of my OBGYN's mouth. When my pregnancies were confirmed, I even had to take extra folic acid for my second pregnancy. Twins. Well, congratulations.

[02:30:19] Uh, it will, it will of course, shock absolutely no one to discover that RFK junior in response to California wanting to enrich certain foods with folic acid to prevent birth defects declared this to be insanity. Looking forward to your next episode into hearing Luke amend his characterization of Gloria as a hack. Although I will concede she does give off witchy vibes. Best yell. Thanks Yale. I forgot about the folic acid myself, but yeah, that is, that was solid. That was a grounded.

[02:30:49] That's solid advice. Um, I think the, I'd have to go back and listen to what I, what I said, but I think the point I was trying to make was that Halston thought she was a crack. Yeah. Um. I said Gloria is redeemed because Halston, cause she was right about Alison. Yeah. Yeah.

[02:31:08] And yeah, for the, as far as the folic acid goes, I'm not sure if this is still the case people can write in, but certainly in the UK for a while, folic acid was routinely added to bread just as an additive for that reason. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like the whole thing about putting fluoride in the water and people like, no, it's mind control. And that seems to be kind of what they're playing into with the whole vitamin D plus in the water supply thing.

[02:31:36] Um, this one I pulled from the books channel action, the discord, but it's not a spoiler. Sub zero said just finished wool, still a lot to process. So wool being the first book, uh, which was the basis mostly of the first two seasons, still a lot to process. But initial impression is I liked most of the changes they made when adapting this for TV. It surprised me how some major characters like Sims and Dr. Nichols are barely in the book. And I'm so happy with how they chose to adapt Bernard's character.

[02:32:05] The book version was quite annoying. And I'll say with, with Dr. Nichols, it's the funny thing about him is they really moved up his story in the show because in the books, his story doesn't really begin. He and Juliet don't make up until the very end of wool. When she gets back from silo 17 and now in this version, he was dead by then. So all of his story stuff plays out before that. Yeah.

[02:32:33] So it's actually quite truncated, but it happens early. But anyway, yeah, just good to hear about from people who are, uh, getting into the books now and what they think, um, having experienced a TV show first. If there's more feedback on that, send it our way. We'd love to hear. Yep. Tony C said by email. Hi, Alicia and Luke. Thanks again for your work on the podcast. I'm enjoying it. And sorry, we're near the end of season three. I know.

[02:33:00] Uh, I just watched episode eight last night and listened to the podcast today. I'm with you both in that. I think I'd agree to sign up for the project. I'm not sure, however, about the 200 K in the year underground. I don't trust pair as far as I could throw him. And I don't like the professor. I get, I think he means Victor. Uh, there's definitely more to the silos than they're letting on. I agree with Luke. Helen has definitely been giving, given the forgetting drugs. They'd never trust her not to tell.

[02:33:30] Someone pointed out to me that a smiling Helen is one of, uh, is one of the crowd scene entering the silo in the trailer. Yeah, we saw that in this episode. This could be evidence of her being given the drugs. Patrick Kennedy has become one of my favorite characters. I love the scene with him and Jimmy and also him looking at the animal pictures. Something struck previously, um, about time in the silos. How do we know for a fact it's 352 years since they were built?

[02:33:59] I've gone on way too long and don't get me started on nanotechnology. I roll, but one final note, I think Camille will turn quote unquote, quote, good, all the best for now, Tony. So thoughts on, um, thoughts on any of that? I mean, I know we know that Helen didn't get given the forgetting drugs. Yeah. So that's another tinfoil hat theory to bit the dust within a single episode. Um, Unless she was made to forget Palmer. No, I'm just kidding.

[02:34:27] And we know why she willingly went on the, what we now know is a tour of the silo. Uh, yeah, definitely, definitely with you about, definitely with you regarding Patrick Kennedy and solo. Um, yeah, it's an interesting question. How do we know that they're 352 years old? I mean, I think Ed Harwood gave us a pretty good steer that they must be about 300 years old.

[02:34:54] And I think the way you described it was you can sort of work backwards from the amount of tunnels there are in the mines. Mm-hmm. I think that's a reasonable guide to how old the silo is. It might not give you an exact figure like 352, but it should give you a fairly good idea of just about how old the silo is, I think.

[02:35:16] Yeah, and I guess there's other indicators like, um, the names in the digger void in the basement that's less precise, but it does show that there's a long history behind it. I've seen a lot of people with this positing that the silos are not as old as, um, as they say they are on Reddit. But, um. Well, I think we've got to be fairly certain that they're 140, at least 140 years old. Right.

[02:35:45] Because they can date from the time of the rebellion. There's enough relics and enough evidence out there that they can say with some certainty that the rebellion was 140 years ago. I mean, and the, um, the basement, you know, the names of the basement go far back beyond that. The tunnels, as you said. Um, yeah, I think that this, this has become a favorite fan theory online that people like the sound of. Uh, but.

[02:36:13] I had, I'm, I'm reluctant to debunk it because people will accuse me of spoiling. So I'll let you debunk it. Okay. Um, Tony also sent a follow-up email that said that with basically an, a link to an article and the note, hmm, echoes of silo. So I'll link this article in the show notes, but the title is security by antiquity. Why older tech is sometimes safer from hackers.

[02:36:42] And this is a BBC, um, article from just this week, August 24th. And I pulled out a couple of a few key quotes from this that seem silo relevant to a certain degree. So first is cybersecurity expert. Miko Hipponen calls it security by antiquity. Others use the phrase security by obsolescence.

[02:37:07] And in both cases, this means relying on an older technology or system, since it may prove somewhat counterintuitively safer than more recent alternatives. Uh, yeah, skipping ahead. The vast majority of attackers are criminals trying to make money and it doesn't make any sense for them to target systems being run by 50 people.

[02:37:30] He explains the Irish aviation authority, for instance, recently decided to keep ground-based radio navigation beacons in use because supposedly the more modern satellite based global positioning system. GPS has proven so susceptible to jamming in recent years. Another quote, militaries are also known for being reluctant to take chances.

[02:37:52] Even the world's most active militaries are known to occasionally rely on old technologies for reasons of reliability and security. One thing I've seen in places like Ukraine is the use of paper maps or laminated maps and compasses, says Thomas Whittington, associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank. You can't jam that. It's kind of analog resilience, he adds. Thoughts on all that?

[02:38:22] Yeah, I've definitely, I've definitely sort of seen the same phenomenon. And you also have, um, concern from, um, some people in the military that new recruits and the, the militaries more generally are too dependent on systems that can jam or spoofed or otherwise compromised. So yeah, there is definitely, there's definitely something to that. Hmm.

[02:38:52] Um, yeah, no, I think that this was a great article and a good, um, we'll see if it has any relevance to the reasons for silos, uh, tech being obsolete, but it's, it was, yeah, it's definitely an interesting read. And it seems indeed to dovetail with the themes of silo. Yeah, it does.

[02:39:17] Robert FJ sent an email, uh, that says all U S waste ever made from commercial reactors is stored on the reactor site. You're thinking of the Yukon mountain complex, which was shut down due to NIMBY. Uh, and then the quote, two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe said Albert Einstein. Do you know what, what's NIMBY? Not in my backyard. Oh, I see.

[02:39:44] So they shut down that site because of, got it. Yeah. Yeah. Which is maybe why the book explanation for Georgia accepting a nuclear waste site on there, not in my backyard would not have flown as well in the show. Yeah. Let's see. And, uh, John from California sent by email. Hi there. I've not read the silo books, so I'm completely in the dark on things, but have two theories. One on the memory wide drug and the other on the algorithm.

[02:40:11] I believe the drug to erase memories was seen by the creators of the silo project is critical to keeping the original first occupants of the silos from suffering mass massive survivor guilt and PTSD. They would want to shield them from the knowledge of knowing their family, friends, acquaintances outside the silos. Billions of people, young and old were dying horrible deaths from whatever was ending our world.

[02:40:35] Next, there is no reasonable explanation for why the silo builders would intentionally include a feature to kill everyone inside a silo. It makes no sense. What anticipated problem could this possibly be intended to solve? So my second theory is the algorithm in silo one is in control of all the silos. And over time, it developed a psychosis and conflict in its mission programming.

[02:40:58] It had a primary directive to protect humanity and at the same time to keep those in the silo from learning, remembering, the truth about the horrible deaths of billions while their ancestors hide safe inside the silo. And it created the safeguard in a flawed logic loop as the ultimate way to keep those in the silo from learning their history and suffering deep mental anguish, physically killing them all to save them from the soul crushing mental pain of learning what was done.

[02:41:29] Thoughts? John, California. I think it's an interesting theory, John. But I think it falls down because the safeguard is a physical thing. It's a pipe that pumps gas into the silo, which means that it was probably built at the same time the silo was originally built. I don't know how the algorithm would have been able.

[02:41:57] Because like Camille says, the algorithm, you know, it doesn't have arms and legs. So it would need people to actually build the infrastructure that the safeguard works off of. So I think until we're told otherwise, I'm assuming that those pipes were put into the silo when the silo was being constructed. So I think it's a good theory, but I don't think quite. There's probably something in.

[02:42:26] I certainly think. That theory explains the memory drug, but I don't think it explains the safeguard. Yeah, I would be curious of all of the feedback in this episode is from episode eight at the latest because we're recording this before episode nine has been released.

[02:42:46] So I would be curious, John, about your thoughts about the algorithm and then safeguard after this most recent episode, which I think might cast things in a different light there in terms of is it a human? Is it? Yeah, what is the dealio there? Yeah, I definitely agree on the memory thing being used, at least in part.

[02:43:08] We've seen it used for multiple things, but definitely, at least in part, for I just imagine like them being inside having dinner while the bombs are falling. Like, are they being served to vitamin D plus water with dinner, you know, like to calm them down or yeah. What? Yeah.

[02:43:33] I can definitely imagine that the memory drug being used because Victor brought up in episode nine, which again, John had not yet seen while writing this. But Victor brought up in episode nine that that he was interested in it from like a how do we deal with mass trauma angle. So, yeah, absolutely can see. And he's the memory drug dude. So can absolutely see him working it in in that way as well. I guess we will probably find out more about that in the finale.

[02:44:04] And then our last piece of feedback is Dan from Oak Park, Illinois sent in an email. Hi, Luke and Alicia. Love the podcast and your in-depth discussions. Thank you. I'm a season pass holder for the book spoiler podcast, which I also love. Thank you so much for your support, Dan. Ree, why drones may not have snuck around to make sure Luke and Patrick were still dead? You mean Lucas and Patrick? Lucas. I will say people do call him Luke as a nickname in the book sometimes.

[02:44:31] It's like the same way people call Donald Donnie or whatever, or Juliet Jules. I think it may have to do with how the drones are powered. I would imagine that battery powered drones have short flight times while the old ones used for longer missions are hybrid or fuel powered. Google seems to agree with this. See attached screenshot and he sent an AI summary Google screenshot that's talking about the battery powered drones versus fuel powered drones and points out.

[02:45:01] I don't think we've seen anything in the silos indicating they have fuel. So I assume that the drones are battery powered and had to go back to recharge before coming back for a second. Look, keep up the great work. All the best Dan from Oak Park, Illinois. So yeah, I'll say about the fuel question. That is a change from the books that I thought made a lot of sense. And I think I had to dance around this before, but now I can just say in the books they are mining.

[02:45:29] I mean, they're mining iron also, but they are also pumping oil and oil is how they feed the generator. Now, Georgia doesn't have oil. So they would need refining capacity. No. Yeah. They had to, they had that in the, they had like a refinery at the bottom of the silo in the books. And they were, and they were also able to make plastics in the silo because of this. Um, but they, so no oil in this.

[02:45:57] So yeah, indeed seems no fuel, uh, in this versions must be battery powered. And we see that the generator in silo 18, that's the generator we've seen. It is, uh, hydrothermal because Georgia does have like geysers and hydrothermal activity or, you know, uh, what do you call it? Yeah. Geothermal activity. Geothermal. Yeah.

[02:46:21] Um, so yeah, so that's what we see them powering at least silo 18 with is this geothermal thing. And yeah, Georgia does have, uh, iron to mine. So they're still mining iron, but no oil. So they have the geothermal stuff instead. So I don't know. What do you, what do you think about? Yeah, that's a, it's a, it's a good point Dan. Although I will say the battery technology for drones is improved.

[02:46:49] I mean, I am not the, I am not a leading expert on this, but I know people that are, and I would say that the battery technology for drones is improving, uh, is improving by, by leaps and bounds. Um, so. I, it's as good an explanation as any. Put it that way. Okay. Yeah. All right. So, oh yeah, that's, that's our episode. Let me ask you one final question.

[02:47:17] This is a game I'm calling kill your darlings. Um, so in the season finale, you can pick, we're let's, we're going to talk only a and B cast, you know, characters in silo 18. Okay. So we'll leave silo 17 alone. We'll leave the before times alone in silo 18. You can save one, but you have to also condemn one to death.

[02:47:46] It has to be an A or B character. You can't say like Teddy, cause you already said you don't consider him a tough character. Okay. So I have to kill somebody in order to save somebody. If you'd asked me this at the beginning of the season, I would never, I would never in a million years have made this choice, but I am killing Billings in order to save Knox. I knew you were going to save Knox.

[02:48:14] Um, let me think. Like, I don't know. I kind of want to save Billings because his story is not done to me. Um, I won't kill Knox though. Leave Knox alone. Oh, I don't want to kill Hank either. Oh, I hate the rules to my own game. Camille, you're dead. You're dead in Billings lives.

[02:48:45] You know what? In all seriousness, I really do get a vibe off Camille that she might not make it through next, the next episode. Hmm. We shall see. We shall see. Any more final thoughts or predictions for the, before the finale? I just feel like this, this episode is sort of, um, with this episode, I feel like the whole series is kind of turned on its axis.

[02:49:09] Um, and I'm going to be really interested to see where we go from here. I am hoping that the finale is relatively evenly divided between the four times and silo 18. Like, I, I really do want to know what's going on with Daniel and Heaven. I think there is going to be another time jump.

[02:49:39] Um, I am prepared to let silo 17 lie till season four. Cause the thing is, I can say. We at least need a check in, at least a check in. No, but the thing is, I can say that Alicia, because I know season four is going to happen. Sure. Next summer. Yeah. Next summer. Um, I, I really do sort of feel that I really do sort of feel that you can start to see the

[02:50:06] ways in which the two timelines come together, the way in which the two halves of the story are going to start to fit together, which will be that, and I'm not saying all of this will happen next week. I'm saying it will happen over the course of the remaining 11 episodes, but it will be the people in silo 18 finding out what happens to Daniel, Helen, Pierce, Stenson, et cetera.

[02:50:35] And yeah, so I, I think I've got a much better sense after this week of how the whole thing, how the two halves of the story are going to fit together. Okay. Yeah. Um, I mean, I, I have more concrete predictions for the, times part of the story. We're not calling it the before times anymore. It's just the times, the D day times part of the story.

[02:51:02] Um, and so I'm just, I'll leave, I'll let that lie. Uh, I think we're not going as far into dust with the other story. There's a thing that happens halfway through dust that I thought would be a natural season finale. I don't think we're going to make it that far, but who knows? There's a whole hour left and a lot could happen in that time. Um, so I, I don't know. I I'm up in the air about what's going to happen in 18 and I want to see more of 17. There's some specific things that I want to start to see happening.

[02:51:30] And I hope there's at least teases of that, but it's going to be a packed episode for just one hour. So I'm just really excited to see how it all plays out and see if we can. So Luke, we, you and I can't fully tell how long we've been recording because what listeners at home don't know is that we've had several technical problems in this. So we've been recording all night. Yeah. This, this has been, this has been something of an epic recording.

[02:52:00] Just to give you an idea, listeners, we're recording this on Tuesday the 26th. Well, we started recording this on, on Monday, the 25th of August. We're going to finish recording it on Tuesday, the 26th at 20, at 20 to one in the morning. In the UK. So yeah, 20 to two in my time. Um, yeah, no, this was an, uh, so a lot, a lot of that recording time is just us lost trying

[02:52:27] to make our computers and the connection work. But, um, I think it might end up being our longest episode once it's all stitched together though. Well, come on a lot. We, a lot happens. Yeah. I mean, it's the biggest one. It deserves it. So we'll see what we come back with in the finale. This is one episode remaining this season for silo, but not for us because as Luke mentioned, we'll be back with the season wrap and final mailbag as well.

[02:52:55] And, um, obviously after that, we will be going back to our dune stuff, uh, our dune coverage leading into that movie, the end of the year. But, uh, Luke, do you want to tell people what we're doing in January? Yeah. So we will be doing another show that on Apple, we will be doing the Apple adaptation of William Gibson's neuromancer. Um, and is this the same setup as silo Alicia?

[02:53:24] You've read the book and I haven't, or is this week either? Yeah. Um, yeah, I think we'll, we, we talked about, so yeah, we'll do, um, I've read the book you haven't. So I'll do something with, we might tweak just for ease of recording the, the format for the, uh, book club, but we'll, we'll be doing coverage with there, which, you know, Abby's in Tokyo and so is that book set. So, and she's read it before.

[02:53:50] So, um, so that we should be some interesting conversations and I'll do some lower dives into the wider world, you know, including stories like Johnny mnemonic and such where the technology and stuff comes up. So it'll be a very similar, but slightly tweaked setup compared to this. Um, but I'm excited about it. This is like the, or cyberpunk. It's also another like sci-fi noir type thing and, uh, on Apple.

[02:54:17] So I imagine that a lot of people like silo might like that as well. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, but we're still in silo mode now and we want to hear your thoughts and theories. Please send them to will shift us podcast at gmail.com. You'll find that linked in the show notes and, um, emails that we get before we record the finale episode. We'll, we'll include there as we've been doing here, but then we will have a full mailbag

[02:54:44] and season wrap probably about a week after the finale to give people time to process and share their thoughts and us to process and all of that. So, um, for your emails, book spoilers are okay, but then those elements will be discussed in the book club episodes. Um, and you can also jump into our discussion on the discord, the lore hounds discord. You'll find linked in the show notes.

[02:55:07] There are separate spoiler chats per episode there in the silo forum, plus a separate chat for book discussions with full spoilers weighed into those waters with care. Um, but if you want all of those spoilery discussions in podcast form, you'll find a link to the wool shift dust book club in the show notes where you can catch up on my and Abby's full book spoiler conversations, including, uh, we, we covered the books in multiple parts

[02:55:37] for most of them. Plus the silo short stories, uh, plus breakdowns of the episodes to date with, um, special deep dives per episode for these past two seasons. Uh, but also Luke, you have also appeared on, um, other episodes with me there. For example, talking about, uh, every Christmas we do a Dickens Christmas. Yes, we do. And we've done, we've done that for three years now and we've already got the fourth.

[02:56:05] The fourth is already in the, in, in looming soon. Yeah. It's, it's somewhat looming. Um, so yeah, there are a series of holiday specials where we look at, uh, we look at, uh, Christmas based short stories by Dickens. And we also look at different adaptations of a Christmas Carol. Cause one year, three years ago, I absentmind, was it three years? Two, no, two years ago.

[02:56:30] Uh, I absentmind that we suggested that we might want to do a Christmas special looking at adaptations of a Christmas Carol. And we found out there were about 70 million of them. Well, I mean, I think we knew that, but yeah, I don't think you realize, like, I think you've learned now when you suggest something to me, I'm going to run all the way with it and drag you along. And you know what? I've enjoyed every minute of the journey. So there's no problem. And there's also, there's, I like to do spooktober specials as well.

[02:57:00] So you'll find a spooktober specials dedicated to Frankenstein witches vampires this year. It's going to be medieval werewolves. So that's an exclusive. I haven't told anyone yet, but now, you know, um, yeah, also all of that in the book club plus, uh, been starting waiting into extra doom prequel books coverage there, Hugh Howie's other short stories. But right now, obviously the focus is on these weekly silo spoiler deep dives.

[02:57:29] This week's special topic is inside silo one. So we'll be outlining the history of silo one up to the point of Juliet's timeline, uh, how it's different in the show and what it looks like there. And I think in terms of for Luke and the other show onlys based on the finale title, I will say, I strongly suspect that we will get at least an introduction to the show version of silo one in the finale.

[02:57:55] I think also that's fair to say after the way this last episode ended with Daniel and company being ushered into it. So yeah, I think we will finally get a glimpse inside. Nice. I hope so. I hope so. So for anyone who wants the, the full subscription, uh, you can find that supercast and Patreon options in the show notes.

[02:58:19] They are mostly the same content per feed, uh, check the pricing options based on what you use. Yeah. Apple and Patreon do not play nicely together. I'll just say that they tend to be the most expensive combination. So you might want to consider supercast if you're an Apple user and thank you to our new silos since last week, Rosalinda, MG, Russell S, Sharif and Derek F. Welcome to the book club and thank you so much for your support.

[02:58:46] But if you're not interested in all those extra episodes that I said, you just want the silo content for a specific season or seasons and the books, uh, you can pick and choose the seasons of your choice in the season pass options separately linked in the show notes, supercast and Patreon options. Obviously the more seasons you combine, the higher the discounts. That's just a one-time fee for just those episodes and not the rest.

[02:59:13] Um, Luke, where else can people find you? So they can find me on blue sky at late middip and several people have. So the more the Maria for that. Um, and I do a podcast with two friends from uni, Will Cooling and Simon Alvey. Um, we talk about all things, British politics, international politics, sport, culture, and whatever else we feel like talking about. We release once a month.

[02:59:43] I think I am due to be recording with them on Sunday, I think. Although that's also when we're recording the, um, finale. So I might have to move that around, but that's fine. Oh, okay. We'll talk about it. Yeah. Um, yeah. And, uh, uh, you can also find me on blue sky and I've been dabbling on threads. Find both of those linked in the show notes.

[03:00:08] And, uh, you can find me, especially on the lore helms parent podcast where they just wrapped up the house of the dragon season. And we just wrapped up the vampire list. That's not too long ago. And David and John have started weekly lanterns coverage. That's a two episodes in as we're recording and going very well. I would say, um, we also recently did Spider-Man brand new day shortly after this or no, I guess

[03:00:34] maybe before this, we'll see how it works out because obviously we're recording this episode of days before we'll release it. Uh, but anyway, there will be an X-Men 97 season two episode, uh, Ted Lasso check-in coming up. Um, and you can find all that in the lorehounds.com link where you'll also find episodes for the affiliates in the network, like dungeons and do rags. It's also starting lanterns coverage. Nevermind the music where psychology meets music properly.

[03:01:01] Howard, which just released an episode about the movie obsession and Cosmere corner, the newest podcast on the block. Um, also a video option going into the, yeah, basically chunks of chapters at a time into the Cosmere Brandon Sanderson books, starting with the mist born books. And I am reading along and really enjoying my ride. So definitely I recommend Cosmere corner.

[03:01:29] Final thoughts before we go, Luke? No, I have no final thoughts. My final thoughts of bed. My final thought is I want to go to bed. Okay. And then tomorrow let's go mushroom cloud picking. Yeah, exactly. Explosion sound. 14. 14. pela. you