Silo Season 3 Has The Same Problem As Hulu's Paradise

The following post contains spoilers for "Silo" Season 3, Episode 8, "Gray Goo."

As Season 3 of Apple TV's excellent sci-fi series "Silo" nears its end, we're finally getting some answers to the show's biggest mysteries. We now know where the silos are located, as well as how, exactly, to stop the Safeguard Procedure from killing the entire population of Silo 18. Most importantly, however, Season 3, Episode 8 ("Gray Goo"), explains what the silos are even for.

Turns out, the silos are the pet project of Colin Hanks' character Per Stensen, a trillionaire with a god complex, and Senator Rosalind Thurman (Laura Innes) in the series' past-set timeline. Stensen, a man who apparently knows how to create an actual unicorn, is also partly responsible for creating the nanotechnology he's now convinced will inevitably be used in an attack that will bring about the end of humankind by "turning everyone into gray goo" and making them explode from the inside. The silos, then, are meant to be a failsafe that will allow part of the human population to survive underground when that happens.

Overall, this makes for a pretty sound argument. Sure, Stensen is a cold, emotionless jerk and, again, this entire situation is, in part, his fault, but at the same time, he genuinely seems to have humanity's best interest at heart ... for the moment. This should make the character interesting and maybe even layered, but that's not the case. Rather, it appears "Silo" Season 3 currently has the same problem as Hulu's "Paradise," another recent post-apocalyptic show in which an uber-rich person attempts to save the world. In both cases, as good as these series are on the whole, their portrayal of these extremely wealthy individuals feels kind of misguided.

"Paradise" (a show that counts Stephen King among its fans) co-stars Julianne Nicholson as Samantha Redmond, aka. Sinatra. A tech billionaire, Sinatra acts as the shadowy ruler of an underground bunker following a global catastrophe and uses ruthless tactics, deceit, and even murder to keep control of the bunker's citizens. Yet, as much as she functions as an antagonist, she's also the reason a whole lot of people survived the apocalypse. Indeed, Sinatra spent her vast fortune on building said bunker as soon as she learned that there would be an unavoidable cataclysmic event that would annihilate most of humanity.

So, yeah, for all the trouble that Sinatra causes for the show's actual hero, Xavier Collins (Sterling K. Brown), she's still responsible for saving a whole lot of lives. This, in turn, partially justifies the lies, manipulations, and even the killings she engineers as she tries to keep humankind going in the series' post-apocalyptic setting.

Likewise, at this stage in "Silo" Season 3, Per Stensen could be considered something of a hero. We already know he's right about the end of the world being imminent (given the state of things in the show's future timeline), so he's doing the right thing by building the silos. Sure, as Stenson himself admits, he could have spent his money to cure cancer, eliminate poverty, or solve any other major issue plaguing humanity — but he didn't. He's by no means a good person, but does that matter if he saves the human species?

Now, before we build a shrine to tech trillionaire Per Stensen, it's worth remembering that the silos are still quite sinister. Yes, they helped save humanity from annihilation, but why do they all have a procedure in place to poison their residents if they rebel? And why is every silo equipped with drugs that can suppress memories? None of this comes across as the actions of a man with good intentions.

What's more, we may yet learn more about Stensen's true plans down the line. The existence of the Safeguard Procedure alone is deeply disturbing and brings to mind the equally troubling vaults from the "Fallout" universe. In that case, the vaults may've saved people from a nuclear apocalypse, but they were secretly just a bunch of sadistic social experiments concocted by billionaires — ones that involved everything from training young orphans to become soldiers to subjecting musicians to stress-inducing white noise. In other words, Stensen might yet prove to be more malicious than we've been led to believe so far.

At least, I hope so. The idea that Stensen of ultimately being a force for good would feel disingenuous for "Silo," especially at a time when sentiments against rich people (especially in tech) are at an all time low for very good reasons. We're seeing the rapid decay of nature and humanity right in front of us, and it's being brought upon us by tech billionaires who are more interested in traveling to space than trying to save Earth. "Silo" may be a sci-fi series, but the idea of a truly morally good trillionaire would be way more far-fetched than anything else on the show.

New episodes of "Silo" drop Fridays on Apple TV.