Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.A concrete subterranean complex is no place to spend an extended amount of time. But unlike delayed commuters at Westminster Tube station, the residents of the Silo — the grey, gloomy underground city where Apple TV+’s sci-fi series is set — are trapped in their claustrophobic confines forever. To go out means instant death. Or at least it did, before one citizen is seen on the livestream feed of the toxic wasteland, walking off past the horizon.The second series of Silo directly follows the season one finale, in which ex-sheriff Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson), banished from the Silo, took her first steps above ground and learnt that her (and our) suspicions about what she would discover on the surface were wrong.The twist was that there was no twist. Having ostensibly uncovered evidence that the ruling “Judicial” class had long been manipulating footage of the outside world, Juliette left the Silo expecting to find a habitable environment. Yet the story picks up with Juliette emerging into a hellscape, climbing over a hill into a corpse-filled crater and seeking refuge in a neighbouring silo. Still, the sight of her disappearing out of view is enough to electrify the inhabitants of the Silo watching below, many of whom start to believe Juliette’s heretical theory.This dramatic irony runs through the new season which continuously cuts between two plot lines — one following Juliette’s efforts to relay the truth back to her people; the other set in the now-febrile Silo, where a new movement in the exiled woman’s name threatens the authority of the icy mayor (Tim Robbins).As Juliette gets her bearings in an eerie duplicate of her silo, the show becomes a compelling two-hander with the introduction of an anxious oddball named Solo (Steve Zahn), who guards a mysterious vault. Back in the original Silo, civil uprisings and political conspiracies unfold against a backdrop of an imaginatively conceived mythology and atmospherically realised space that sustains interest even as momentum stalls in the middle episodes. The success of the similarly drawn-out first season is testament to how thoughtful world-building can compensate for patchy performances and workmanlike writing. And while there are few hidden depths — you don’t have to dig much to find the show’s points about our own stratified society — Silo remains a solid offering for fans of slow-burn sci-fi and brutalist architecture alike.★★★☆☆First episode on Apple TV+ from November 15. New episodes released weekly
