Silo is the perfect Severance replacement, and it releases on Apple TV in 3 weeks

It’s been nearly 15 months since Severance season 2 ended with a devastating cliffhanger, and there’s still no release date for season 3. Fans waited three years between the first and second seasons of Apple’s hit sci-fi show, but hopefully it won’t take another 21 months to get a third. Series star Adam Scott recently said that was too long and the Severance team is planning on releasing the new season sooner, but shooting hasn’t even begun yet. That means there won’t be more surreal stories about the employees of Lumon Industries until 2027 at the very soonest. In the meantime, however, Apple is dropping another great show for fans of twisty science fiction in just three weeks.

Silo season 3 arrives in just a few weeks. Here’s why it’s the perfect sci-fi show for Severance fans, and what you need to know before you start watching.

Why Silo is a perfect Severance replacement

Silo, an adaptation of Hugh Howey’s Wool books, is set in a massive underground complex that houses 10,000 people. The age of the Silo is unknown, as is the nature of the disaster that made the outside world uninhabitable. Like in Severance, the people in charge of maintaining Silo’s status quo have a lot more information than everyone else, and they react very poorly to people questioning their strange traditions. The mix of retro and futuristic tech, and the hints that the silo’s residents might have been subject to memory manipulation, give the show the same uneasy feeling as Severance. (The show also has a lot in common with Prime Video’s Fallout, although the tone is more dramatic and less absurdist.)

Silo showrunner Graham Yost has been delivering answers about what’s really going on quicker than Dan Erickson has in Severance, though Silo’s big reveals tend to lead to even more questions. The biggest difference between the two shows is that Silo has been keeping to a steady schedule. The series premiered in May 2023 and season 2 released right ahead of Severance season 2. Season 3 kicks off on July 3, so it’s a great time to catch up. If you are caught up on Silo and want a refresher. Here’s what you need to remember.

What happened in Silo season 2?

Silo season 1 ended with Silo engineer turned sheriff Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson) being sent out to clean the sensor that serves as the Silo’s only look at the surface world. Mayor Bernard Holland (Tim Robbins) and his loyal head of security Robert Sims (Common) wanted to stop Juliette from investigating the ways they’re controlling the Silo’s population. Cleaners are given faulty suits that leave them vulnerable to the poisonous outside air, and fed footage of an idyllic world instead of the real bleak wasteland to persuade them to clean the sensor.

With her suit sealed thanks to allies in charge of Silo’s supplies, Juliette was able to survive long enough to discover both that the world isn’t safe and that her Silo is just one of many. She made it to the neighboring Silo 17, which is mostly empty after a rebellion opened the Silo to the outside world. Solo (Steve Zahn) was the only survivor, having been locked in an inner chamber reserved for the head of IT where he’s spent decades learning about the Silo and the world that existed before the disaster. Juliette helped Solo get his Silo operational again and he gave her a firesuit that she used to venture back to Silo 18 to prevent a similar rebellion. Solo also gave Juliette a critical warning: the Silos have a failsafe that can poison everyone in them if whoever is in charge feels that’s necessary, and she’s made that very likely by surviving her cleaning. She’ll need to disable the device to protect everyone.

Juliette arrived back at her Silo just in time to stop a rebellion by warning them that it really isn’t safe to go outside. IT system analyst Lukas Kyle (Avi Nash) had been continuing Juliette’s work and learned about the other Silos and the safeguard by investigating a tunnel deep in the Silo. He shared this information with Bernard, who became so distressed that he gave Sims access to the IT vault and went out to confront Juliette. Bernard and Juliette were both locked in an incinerator as it fired up. Sims ventured into the vault with his former raider wife, Camille (Alexandria Riley) and was told by the AI there that he had to leave but that Camille could stay. The season’s biggest surprise was a flashback to the near future, where a new congressman is questioned about the possibility the U.S. will retaliate against Iran for detonating a dirty bomb on American soil.

Will there be a Silo season 4?

Yes! Apple has already confirmed that Silo will have a fourth season to conclude the story in Howey’s trilogy. It might even be out around the same time as Severance season 3.