Silo Season 2's Bird Painting: What It Means & Why It's In Solo's Vault
Warning! This article contains spoilers for Silo season 2's episode 9.Silo season 2's penultimate episode briefly features a bird painting in Solo's vault, seemingly foreshadowing several details from the show's future story beats. Since season 1's opening episodes, Apple TV+'s Silo has ensured that every little detail and development in the story is driven by intent. Owing to this, when Silo season 2's episode 9 shows Juliette staring at a painting of birds in Solo's vault, it is hard not to believe that it will eventually mean something in the Apple TV+ sci-fi show.
Given how Apple TV+'s Silo has barely scratched the surface of the story covered in the original Hugh Howey books, the show still has a lot of ground to cover. Since the show has also not shied away from taking various creative liberties, foreseeing the narrative directions it will explore in future installments can be challenging. However, based on subtle details, like the painting from Solo's vault, and story beats from the books, one can deduce what might happen in Silo's next few seasons.
The Bird Painting Seen In Solo's Vault In Silo Season 2 Explained
The Painting Seems To Show The Outside World
When Solo finally allows Juliette and the other Silo 17 survivors to enter his vault, Juliette briefly stares at a painting of birds on the wall. A closer look at the painting reveals that it is less about birds and more of a visual representation of the outside world. Eagle-eyed viewers would notice that on the right side, it features a massive tree that seems similar to the one that lies right outside Silo 18 and is visible through the display inside the silo.
At the left end, the painting features the top of a cliff, which has another tree. The creator of the painting seemingly used trigonometry to extrapolate the relative distance between objects in the outside world. Since Solo has previously seen people step out of Silo 17, he might have studied trigonometry over the years and created the painting to understand the spatial relationships between objects in his environment by scaling down their relative lengths.
Given how Solo also wrote many other equations all over his wall in the vault, it seems plausible that he created the painting to get a better understanding of the outside world.
The painting also features three human-like figures with measurements on their sides, revealing how tall they would appear to someone viewing them from a distance. Given how Solo also wrote many other equations all over his wall in the vault, it seems plausible that he created the painting to get a better understanding of the outside world. However, some other details in the painting seemingly suggest there is more to it than meets the eye.
Why The Bird Painting Is In The Silo 17 Vault
The Founders Might Have Kept It There
Even though the area surrounding the silos is a dry wasteland, the most prominent color in the painting is green. This makes it hard not to believe that the painting does not represent the real world. Instead, it shows the false AR display that cleaners see through their helmets when they walk out of a silo. This suggests that the painting was created by the founders and placed in the vault when the silo was first created. When Juliette steps out Silo 18 in Silo season 1's ending, Bernard expects her to fall to the ground and die after she crosses a certain point on the cliff surrounding their silo.
Before Juliette, Holston and Allison, too, died at almost the same spot on the cliff after leaving the silo. Owing to this, it is hard not to believe that the point marked as "D" on the ground in the painting represents the spot where most people die. It is the area where the cleaners face the consequences of not having their suits sealed with good tape. Interestingly, the painting also seems to align perfectly with story developments from the original Hugh Howey Silo books.
Warning! Major spoilers from the Silo books ahead.
How The Bird Painting Could Connect To The Silo Books
The Painting Might Have Spoiled How The Show Will End
In Silo season 2's episode 9, Solo mentions that the people from Silo 17, who left the underground structure after the rebellion, did not die at first. In another early scene from season 2, he also implies that moments after they left the silo, a wind carrying "dust" came in their direction and killed all of them. This would explain why Juliette finds a trail of bodies all the way to the bottom of the cliff surrounding Silo 17 as soon as she gets close to the underground structure.
The third book in the Silo trilogy, Dust, reveals that the silos' founders intentionally contaminated the air around the silos with dangerous nanobots every time a citizen stepped out to clean. They did this to ensure no one made it past the cliffs surrounding the silos and the spectators remained compliant. This suggests that the point marked "D" in the painting is the exact spot where the nanobots are released to kill a cleaner.
Juliette might later use the information from the painting to help her people in Silo 18.
Dust also discloses that the silo system was an experiment created right after the founders intentionally bombed the world with nuclear weapons to preserve humanity. The world was going through a massive crisis after the invention and prevalence of nanobots in the medical industry. Many terrorist organizations were hacking into the nanobots to spread devastating biological agents. To give the world a reset, the founders used destructive nuclear bombs to destroy the bots and the world.
Name of Silo book | Parts |
Wool |
|
Shift |
|
Dust | Serves as a singular book. |
500 years after the disaster, once the world had healed, only one silo was supposed to be chosen (likely by the Algorithm in the series) to repopulate the world and accommodate a haven called the "Seed." The birds in the painting from the Silo season 2 episode seem to represent the location of the "Seed," highlighting how the world beyond the area of the silos has already recovered and is safe for living species, like birds, to flourish.
In a dystopian future, men and women reside in a vast underground silo governed by strict regulations, believed to shield them from the hazardous world above. The series delves into the complex social order within the silo and the mysteries surrounding their subterranean existence.
- Cast
- Rebecca Ferguson, Common, Tim Robbins, Harriet Walter, Christian Ochoa Lavernia, Avi Nash, Billy Postlethwaite, Chinaza Uche, Iain Glen, Remmie Milner, David Oyelowo, Rick Gomez, Ferdinand Kingsley, Shane McRae, Chipo Chung, Caitlin Zoz, Matt Gomez Hidaka, Angela Yeoh, Olatunji Ayofe, Khairika Sinani, Will Patton, Akie Kotabe
- Showrunner
- Graham Yost
- Directors
- Morten Tyldum, David Semel
- Seasons
- 2
- Story By
- Hugh Howey
- Streaming Service(s)
- AppleTV+
