Silo (Season 1), Episode 8: Recap & Ending Explained – Is Mayor Bernard controlling the Silo?

Silo (Season 1), Episode 8 Recap & Ending Explained: The latest episode of “Silo” (Season 1) takes us into the past as we delve into the history of Hanna, Jules’s mother, and discover why Jules has an estranged relationship with her father in the present.

The show also unveils the truth behind the individuals who allegedly abuse power within Silo and their desire to replace Jules. We witness Jules uncovering shocking revelations that could significantly impact the people of Silo. Will Jules succeed in leading the people out of darkness, or will she meet the same fate as the flamethrowers and rebels from the past?

*spoilers ahead*

Silo (Season 1), Episode 8 Recap:

“Hanna”

Finally, the new episode of “Silo” uses the typical past and present storytelling device to move the story forward. Focused entirely on Hanna – Jules’ mother, we will look into the new episode with the past and present storylines separately.

Past: The episode opens with Jules’ mother, Hanna, taking her to the farm, where she exchanges a relic with a box despite the farmer’s warning that it might lead her to trouble. As Jules and Hanna walk home, Jules looks into the box and sees a dying rabbit. She decides to help her mother in whatever she is up to. Hanna then shows Jules a magnifier she has developed on her own and plans to use to operate on the rabbit’s heart, which has a hole in it.

Later, we see that the authorities have come into their house and are destroying everything in the search for the thing Hanna has developed. A young Jules is scared in the other room, while Hanna gets furious at Pete for snitching on her, despite her noble intentions with the magnifier. She tells him that she made it so that she can use it to treat people like her deceased son, who died because he couldn’t be operated on without a magnifier.

Seeing that the Judicial is destroying her home, she gives up on the device, which is instantly destroyed. Later, a disturbed Jules enters the room and finds some comfort in the wounded rabbit – the same one Hanna claimed to have died.

We see young Jules burying her mother and being extremely angry because they did not stand for what they believed. She calls them cowards and releases the rabbit on the farm.

Present: In the current scenario, we see Jules hiding in the nursery as people from the Judicial are out searching for her. Simms comes into Gloria’s room and interrogates her about Jules’ visit and the relic she found in the room. Gloria, who is not under the influence of the medication at the moment, remembers Simms as the man whose wife had a miscarriage and to whom she suggested something for the next one. We can assume that Simms is keeping her alive because, due to her suggestion, he finally has a son and feels indebted. However, since Gloria has now breached the rules of Silo, he asks the nurse to give her a ‘nice’ dose.

In the nursery, Jules tries to access the hard drive (relic) on the medical computer system to no avail. She later receives a message on the comm from Billings and reaches her office, where the people from the Judicial are tossing everything around in search of a ‘red level’ relic.

Billings and Jules are angry at this random search, and Billings tells her that the search breached many pact protocols and is essentially illegal. It gives Jules an idea as she barges into Simms’ office and arrests him. Later, when his office is empty, Jules does a deep search and finds confidential files of Shirley Campbell, Martha Walker, and Hanna Nichols.

While going through her mother’s files, Jules is shocked. The next time we see her, she is at the medical center talking to her father in the nursery. When she questions why he did not help her mother with the magnifier, he says that her mother got carried away with the grief of losing her son, and he couldn’t help her in any way. Jules, who had believed in the involvement of her father in her mother’s eventual suicide, now knows that he was not the one who snitched on her – but it was the Judicial who kept an eye on her through the mirrors.

The father and the daughter have a nice little moment together as they finally accept each other and truly reunite. Jules, who had hidden the hard drive in one of the baby’s carriages, takes it and bids goodbye to her father so she can take it below to Mechanical. However, while she is going down, she sees that the people of the Judicial are searching every single person on the stairs.

At the Sheriff’s office, we see Simms trying to manipulate the officers in charge so that they allow him to make a call. Billings has a minor incident at home where he has hand tremors, and his wife blames the job for it. Martha is worried that Jules hasn’t reached her below despite her father’s message that she will reach the workshop at 6. An agoraphobic Martha tries to leave the workshop but finds Shirley outside her apartment and asks her to find Jules’ whereabouts.

Lukas receives a message from Jules at the cafeteria, who calls him to her place. Upon reaching her home, Jules tells him about the hard drive that might have the answers that both of them have been looking for. However, she needs his help accessing the hard drive, which requires ‘Syops’ authorization, and since he is an IT guy, he might find a way around it. When Lukas is not very eager to go against the rules and rebel against the Judicial, Jules tells him about the mirrors and breaks one to show him the cameras that the Judicial has installed all over to spy on the people of Silo.

Despite all her explanations, Lukas is scared to do anything, which makes Jules leave disappointed. Lukas notices that people from the Judicial ambush her house.

Silo (Season 1), Episode 8 Ending, Explained –

Is Mayor Bernard controlling the Silo?

With no other way to access the hard drive, Jules finally decides to go down below but is stopped by security at the checkpoints. However, Mayor Bernard intervenes, and since Jules believes in him now, she tells him about Judge Meadows being a mere proxy for Simms. The Mayor asks her to go to a more private place to discuss this further and takes her to the farm.

There, as both of them are discussing Simms being the culprit and the one who is misusing power, Bernard blurts out the truth, and we get to know that he and Simms are working together, and since Jules has now breached their wishes, she needs to go down as well. They both pretend Jules has blurted the wish ‘to go out’ and ask the security to arrest her. Jules makes a run for it but is eventually captured. It is when Billings is called to take her in, but Jules keeps insisting that she has not asked for ‘going out to clean’ and needs to be heard.

Billings, who adheres to the pact, tells her that she will be heard, but Simms is not too eager about it. A tense Billings has another one of his hand tremors, losing his grip on Jules. It makes Jules make a run again, and we see her jumping down from the stairway rails.

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Silo (Season 1), Episode 8 Links – IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes
Silo (Season 1), Episode 8 Cast – Rebecca Ferguson, Tim Robbins, David Oyelowo, Common, William Patto

Where to watch Silo