Re-engineering Silo season 3 for television
I spoke with Rebecca Ferguson and showrunner Graham Yost about Silo's third season, which is currently airing on Apple TV. As a huge fan of the original books, I immediately asked Yost about the changes as we return to Silo 18.
Unlike the original novel, Silo's third season begins with Juliette as mayor, deified by certain factions of the uprising that drove much of the previous season's drama. After the climactic events last year, Juliette has lost her memory and has no idea how or why she's become a leader.
Joonatan Itkonen
Says Yost: "The big thing in the book was that Juliet doesn't appear until the final page. I said to Hugh, 'Yeah, we can't do that in a TV series. We got Rebecca Ferguson playing Juliet, and her face is on the poster! We can't take her off!' And we didn't want to; we're having too much fun."
So, to bridge the gap between narratives, Yost and his writers looked to the beginnings of the Silo program, over 300 years prior.
"And so we started to look at what happened 350 years ago and whether certain seeds were planted that we could see, 'Oh, that's that memory control, that's something that goes back to the beginning.' And so that gave us an idea: 'Well, what if Juliet has no memory? What if we started three months after the end of Season 2 and pick up on Juliet, and she still doesn't really know who she is, but she's mayor?'"
Rebecca Ferguson’s internalized performance
For Ferguson, Juliette's memory loss proved an interesting acting experience, especially after years of working to get her body language and internal drive just right.
"I think I did so much preparation for Juliet for Season 1 that I called it 'kicking her into action'. I had certain movements and things I would do with her that there was nothing to prepare; all I needed was to be true to the embodiment of Juliet. Put a dress and heels on, and she's already uncomfortable!"
At the start of the season, Juliette is led by the unseen forces who control Silo 18 through the actions of Camille Sims (Alexandria Riley). Yet every PR event and every choice that Juliette makes gives her pause, as if there's something off with the world. Says Ferguson:
"The idea is that she doesn't remember... but the DNA of her will to keep questioning is there: 'What is happening? Why am I not feeling correct? I hear what you're telling me, but something is off.' And just leaning into the offness is what she had to do all the time. Like, 'Wait, wait... I had a memory. I had a dream. No, no, no, don't interrupt me, there's something here.' So it was fun. It was a great start to Season 3 for me."
Coding neurodivergence in dystopian sci-fi
While not fully intentional, Juliette's character has been read by some, including myself, as heavily neurodiverse-coded. Her directness, stimming, and ability to hyperfocus on problems have made her an icon for people who are rarely portrayed on screen with this kind of nuance or complexity.
When I bring it up with Ferguson, she happily expands on the process.
"That makes me so happy! When I talked about creating the character, I talked to someone who also has autism, and we talked a lot about how it's not an 'outsideness' for [Juliette]; we would describe it as introvertedness; there was a free zone there.
"That's why I love the fact that [Juliette] is mechanical, because she could focus so much on fixing something by hand, but as soon as she had to interact with people, she was a fish out of water. And that was so good in the show, because she was forced into interacting with people, and she felt lost and she didn't know what it was, but she had to push through it. It was a good setup for the character."
Check out the full interview from the video below. Silo streams on Apple TV weekly.
