Yahoo Lifestyle Silo Season 3: Everything We Know About Casting News, the Book It’s Based On, Filming Status and More
The bad news for Silo fans: an end date has been set for Apple TV+’s adaptation of the Hugh Howey novels.
The good news? There is still plenty of story to be told — in multiple timelines — before the dystopian series comes to an end.
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Based on not even the first half of Howey’s first book, titled WOOL, Silo Season 1 streamed from May 5 to June 30, 2023, and introduced us to what was presented as “the last 10,000 people on Earth,” who live in a mile-deep silo that is protecting them from a toxic world outside. Mission: Impossible franchise badass Ferguson stars as Juliette Nichols, an engineer-turned-sheriff who aimed to unravel the mystery behind the underground civilization and uncover possible deceptions laid before its citizens.
Season 2, which streamed Nov. 5, 2024 to Jan. 17, 2025, covered the remainder of WOOL, albeit with deviations from the source material. In fact, the Season 2 finale’s very final sequence “stole” a bit from the second novel in Howey’s sci-fi trilogy, by way of a brief peek at the many, expository flashbacks to come.
TVLine readers gave Season 1 an average grade of “A,” while Season 2 netted an “A-.”
While you patiently wait for Silo Season 3, here is everything we know so far about the next chapter in the Apple TV+ adaptation…
What Book Is Silo Season 3 Based On?
Silo Season 3 will at least partly cover the second book in novelist Hugh Howey’s trilogy, which was released in 2013 and titled Shift.
Shift is set some 300 years prior to the events of Howey’s first novel, unspooling as it does the origin of the World Order Operation Fifty (W.O.O.L.) initiative to protect humanity from an extinction-level event by way of a collection of underground silos in the state of Georgia.
Congressman Donald Keene is a primary character in Shift, though the character’s first name has been changed — to a less Trump-y Daniel — for Apple TV+’s Silo series.
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What Is Season 3 About?
Simply said, whereas “[the ending of] Season 1 is, ‘Holy s–t, there’s more than one silo,’ [the ending of] Season 2 is like, ‘Oh! I think we’re going to find out how this whole thing started.’” That’s how showrunner Graham Yost put it.
The Shift novel’s flashbacks begin in the year 2049, but the TV series’ flashbacks are set “a wink into [our] future,” Yost said. “It’s basically contemporaneous with us, give or take five years in the future.”
Silo Season 3 isn’t a straight adaptation of Shift, either. As Yost explained, “Hugh [Howey] does something in Shift that we couldn’t do in a TV show, which is Juliette doesn’t appear in it until very late. So, we came up with a different story to get us to roughly the same point,” while also featuring Rebecca Ferguson in a “big” way.
Additionally, “We’ve taken a different approach to the Daniel and Helen story” teased at the end of the Season 2 finale, Yost shared. “We wanted to play up the romance and make it more of a political conspiracy thriller.”
Meanwhile in the dystopian timeline, in addition to picking up (to some extent) where we left off with both Juliette and Tim Robbin’s Bernard being trapped in the Silo 18 airlock’s fire-cleansing chamber, “We do go back to Silo 17,” Yost told TVLine.
Which Cast Members Will Be Back for Season 3?
Outside of Rebecca Ferguson’s Juliette — whom showrunner Graham Yost plans to feature to a greater degree than the Shift novel source material — there has been no official word on who else from Silo 18 will be seen in Season 3.
Bernard, meanwhile, hopefully didn’t buy any green bananas before heading to the airlock in the Season 2 finale.
Trapped with Juliette in the fire-cleansing chamber when last we tuned in, “He’s not in a good position,” Yost notes. “One thing that Hugh [Howey] established in the books, and we did, too, in the series, is ‘anyone can die.’ And if two people are going into that airlock, and it’s on fire, it’s probably not going to be the woman on the poster.”
Who Is New for Season 3?
On the day that Silo‘s Season 2 finale — including its jarring, timey-wimey coda — was released, TVLine reported that Aussie actor Ashley Zukerman (Designated Survivor) in Season 3 will fill the role of Daniel, a young and hungry congressman, while English actress Jessica Henwick (Game of Thrones) will play Helen, a whip-smart reporter.
Both characters were featured in the Season 2 finale’s closing scene, which took us back some 300 years to a near-future Washington. D.C.
In that first flashback, Zukerman’s Daniel arrived at a bar to meet, for a first time, Henwick’s Helen. We learned that Daniel graduated from the University of Georgia with a master’s degree in engineering, and then went to work for the Army Corps of Engineers; Helen, meanwhile, attended the University of Oregon.
The two obliquely talked of a “dirty bomb” and whether Daniel knew “anyone who was affected.” Helen, a reporter, then cut to the chase on the nature of their non-“date,” saying, “I think the people you work for” — his constituents — “need to know if there are plans to strike back against Iran, whether or not there was a radiological weapon attack against the United States.”
A suddenly uneasy Daniel responded, “I better go,” slipped on his coat and left, but not before giving Helen something he “panic-bought at convenience store” on his way over — a duck-head PEZ dispenser. Namely, the same PEZ dispenser that George would give Juliette several centuries later, Yost confirmed for TVLine.
How Many Episodes Is Season 3?
Like both Season 1 and Season 2, TVLine hears that Season 3 will span another 10 episodes — though Apple TV+ is not confirming that tally just yet.
Will Season 3 Be as Dark to Watch as Season 2?
In the wake of season-long viewer complaints about the post-apocalyptic drama being too dark in scenes, showrunner Graham Yost affirmed for TVLine that Season 3 will be easier on the eyes. Or, at least parts of it will, given that the flashbacks are set 300 years prior in a pre-dystopian Washington, D.C. and other cities. In actual buildings that experience actual daylight and weather.
“We will be outdoors, and we will be in the world, and there will be sunshine,” Yost said, speaking to the parts of Season 3 that will be brighter. “Something that [executive producer/writer] Fred Golan said was, ‘Let’s make every effort to make the world that we see outside beautiful, so that we’re reminded of what’s been lost.’”
Does Season 3 Have a Release Date?
Production on Silo Seasons 3 and 4, which are being shot back-to-back, started in October 2024. Given the typical shooting schedule and the amount of post-production needed for even a pre-dystopian, near-future Season 3, TVLine’s Inside Line column boldly predicted a Season 3 premiere date of… “Early 2026.”
Apple TV+, though, has yet to announce even a broad release window for Season 3.
For How Many More Seasons Will Silo Run?
Silo‘s double-season renewal, for Seasons 3 and 4, was formally announced in mid-December 2024 — well after production had actually gotten underway on Season 3.
That announcement also made clear that Season 4 will mark the series’ “final, thrilling chapter.”
“It has been a richly rewarding experience to adapt Hugh’s epic novels … and we are thrilled to have the opportunity to bring this complete story to the screen over the course of four seasons,” Yost said in a statement. “With the final two chapters of Silo, we can’t wait to give fans of the show an incredibly satisfying conclusion to the many mysteries and unanswered questions contained within the walls of these silos.”
Added star and EP Ferguson, “I’ve loved every minute of bringing Juliette to the screen and am immensely proud of what we’ve all created with Silo since the first episode…. I cannot wait to dive into these final two thought-provoking seasons that will beautifully conclude this dystopian tale.”
Want scoop on Silo, or for any other TV show ? Shoot an email to InsideLine@tvline.com, and your question may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line!
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