Silo‘s Showrunner Talks Mapping Out the Apple TV+ Sci-Fi Mystery

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Anyone who watched the first season of Silo has been sitting on a mountain of questions for the past year and a half. Season one of the Apple TV+ show ended with Rebecca Ferguson’s Juliette leaving the silo and discovering everything she knew about the world was wrong. Meanwhile, the people who watched her leave were forced to question their entire existence and belief system. As a result, audiences have those questions—as well as things like, is Earth safe? Who made the silos? And what is the meaning behind all this?

Those questions begin to get answered Friday when season two of Silo finally debuts on Apple TV+, with new episodes coming each Wednesday after through January 17, 2025. To get prepared, io9 sat down with the show’s showrunner, Graham Yost.

Yost, who is best known as the creator of Justified and one of the first writers on Speed, worked hand in hand with original author Hugh Howey on the series adaptation. Howey wrote three Silo books for Yost to dig into and, since season one only adapted half of the first book, we were curious about how that process worked. We also talked overall aims for season two, the constraints of the show, and more. Check it out.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

Germain Lussier, io9: I’m curious about adaptation. When you start the show, you have three books and no guarantee that you’re going to have that many or more seasons. So I’m curious, how do you go about breaking it up? Because obviously season one is basically the first half of book one, and I’ve seen the first couple episodes of two, and it doesn’t really get into the bulk of book two. So how do you make a show unique to you, your version on television, but also a satisfying story just in case you never ever get to the endings?

Graham Yost: Have you read all the books?

io9: I know a little bit about them. My brother has read the books.

Yost: It’s something I talked to Hugh about—and he totally agrees—which is [in] his second book, Juliette’s only on the last page, and it’s like, “Oh, we can’t do that. We’ve got Rebecca Ferguson.” So if we get to do more than two seasons, we’ll be telling that part of the story differently. But I can also say that we have a plan. I can’t say what the plan is, but we do have a plan. Hopefully, we get to do the whole thing.

It was just the first writers’ room. We had a mini room, and we decided let’s start with Holston [played by David Oyelowo] and Allison [Rashida Jones] the way Hugh did, because this all started with him writing his self-published story, it goes viral, and now here we are. So let’s honor that. And then… man. Juliette going out to clean and going out over the hill and disappearing? That’s a pretty sweet ending for a season. Let’s go for that.

And then when we looked at the second half, we talked frankly in the room early on, breaking season two. “Maybe we go farther. Maybe we stretch this into two seasons.” It’s like, “No.” No, it’s a good season: her in 17, the uprising in 18, let’s make it work. And so that became our target, and we had roughly an idea how to end this season and then came up with something that, when you see all the episodes, you’ll see there’s an extra little spin we put in the end. It’s not the same as going out and seeing 50 silos, but it’s a different thing and it’s something that hopefully will get the audience smiling.

io9: And how involved is Hugh in that? Does he just put his trust in you, or does he have any input?

Yost: Yeah, he trusts us. He was in the writers’ room early on and he would pitch out things. “Well, we could kill off this character! It’s like, “No Hugh, no, no, not yet, come on.” So he was completely free with it. He looks at it kind of like Elmore Leonard did when we were doing Justified, which is, “There’s a difference.” I’ve always got the written stuff, and you do the television stuff, and luckily enough, he loved our show. In this case, Hugh and his wife, Shay, have seen season two at least a couple times and love it. So that’s a good feeling. That’s a great review. The only review better than that is Apple saying, “Do more.”

io9: Right, exactly. One of the things I love about the show is that our humanity is a mystery. We know things as the viewers that the characters don’t. Like in season one, it’s the book and the history. I love that about it. Do you play with that any more in season two or is there any way that you could subvert those expectations?

Yost: Cue the enigmatic smile. You’ll see something in season two that leans hard into that.

io9: I understand. You can’t give anything away. What were some of the big aims for this season, though? Kind of big picture and without spoiling anything? Obviously want to pay off that cliffhanger and get deeper into the story. Was there anything else you want to push ahead with this season thematically or otherwise?

Yost: I think a lot of it is there’s a bunch of couples in Silo 18. There’s Sims [Common] and his wife. There’s Bernard [Tim Robbins] and Sims. There’s Bernard and Judge Meadows [Tanya Moodie]. There’s Knox [Shane McRae] and Shirley [Remmie Milner]. There’s McLain and Walker [Harriet Walter]. There’s Billings [Chinaza Uche] and his wife Kathleen [Caitlin Zoz). These relationships are critical, and they have their good times and their bad times. A lot is found out about these characters by seeing them in the crucible of relationship. And that was something that emerged and was really something we could write towards.

I think that Juliette’s survival… Juliette is intent on solving a mystery in the first season. “What happened to George?” In the second season, the mystery becomes “Who is this Solo guy?” Who is Steve Zahn? What’s really going on? Because not everything he says adds up. And then by the end of the season, you’ll see that solving that mystery becomes critical to her own mission and his life. So that was a fun thing to go for.

io9: Another thing I love about the show is the first episode of the first season is packed with crucial information you don’t even know is happening until you watch the whole season. Watching this season though I didn’t get that same feeling. So, was I wrong? Tell me a little bit about like the importance of this first episode of season two and setting up the season.

Yost: Well, I would say this. There are a lot of questions that are raised in the opening episode and you don’t even realize the questions are being raised, but there are certain logic things. You go, “Wait a second. We know this about this, but this doesn’t appear to fit with that.” And all I would say is “Be patient. There are answers.” They don’t come in this season, but the answers will come and they will hopefully satisfy and also, I’ll be honest, horrify. And so yeah, that’s part of the long story. And season two starts to branch out more into the big story in that if we don’t get answers, we know we’re headed toward answers.

io9: That leads into my next question which is part of what made the first season so unique is how restricted it is. You’re just in the silo. But as you slowly get away with that in season two, does that add any challenges? Like as you take restrictions away, does it make it more difficult?

Yost: I mean, it could. I think that because of the character stories, it keeps it small in a way. Even though things can get big. And especially in Silo 18 with the rebellion, and especially for Juliette, there’s something she has to do in a later episode, which is pretty damn big. But hopefully we always keep it down to those people. And that I think is what people tune in for. The spectacle, the gigantic sets, the scenery, all of that is great candy but ultimately it comes down to: is she going to live or is she going to die?

io9: Lastly, you’ve obviously been in television and film for a long time and had an incredible career. Streaming is a relatively new thing and I know you’ve had a couple of other shows already, but what perspective do you have about working with Apple and releasing the shows weekly?

Yost: I mean, I love that they release them the way they do because I love my cranky friends going, “I can’t watch more?” It’s like, “What did you do the last 60 years? You would wait every week” … But, I think that there’s even more of an impetus to have, if not cliffhangers, something that gets the audience, for lack of a better term, leaning forward. What’s happening now? And that’s fun. And that’s, to me, old time structure. I have watched shows and I’ve enjoyed them where they just seem to kind of end. It’s almost as if did a 10-hour film and they just arbitrarily cut it into 10 parts. This is not that. We really structure each episode to work in and of itself, at the same time setting up something for the next week.

io9: Well, I think it’s one of the great mystery shows of the last couple of years. I really enjoy it.

Yost: Oh, thanks, man. That’s why I got involved with. It’s a great mystery.

The first season of Silo is now on Apple TV+. It’s awesome. Season two begins November 15.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

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