Silo Season 3 Finally Revealed The Tragic Fate Of Jimmy's Mother

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

Apple TV's "Silo" is a show full of mysteries. Why were the series' silos built? Why is there a safeguard in place to kill all their residents? What happened to the surface world? Why don't people in the silos remember the past? Why's it forbidden to know about the past? And who's even in charge of the silos? Indeed, for all the information we've gotten of late (including the location of the silos), there are still a whole lot of questions that've yet to be answered.

One of the most fascinating ones concerns Solo, aka. Jimmy (Steve Zahn). In Season 2, Jimmy initially appeared to be the sole survivor of Silo 17 in the wake of its citizens rebelling and venturing to the surface. He lived alone for decades after that until he met Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson) from Silo 18 and decided to become part of a community with a group of young survivors. At the time, we also learned that Jimmy's father was once Silo 17's head of IT and sent his son to seek shelter in the silo's Vault when the rebellion broke out, only to get killed by the silo's sheriff (and right in front of a then very young Jimmy, no less).

But what about Jimmy's mother? In Season 3, Episode 8, "Gray Goo," Patrick Kennedy (Rick Gomez) starts looking for the capped poison line in Silo 17, only to discover a body behind a sealed off portion of the silo. Yes, it turns out Jimmy's mom was unable to fully cap the pipe designed for the Safeguard Procedure and died after sealing herself off to prevent it from pumping out poison into the rest of the silo.

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Life in the silos is rough. Every aspect of your life is carefully controlled, and you are not allowed to ask questions, have curiosity, or look into the past. You're also not allowed to have children unless you are deemed worthy by the administrators, and that's without even getting into the class divisions and bigotry that exist in this world.

Then you have Jimmy. On top of having to deal with all that as a child, he eventually lost everyone he ever loved and was forced to live alone inside a sealed vault. And while he may know more about the history of the world than anyone else thanks to the vast library of knowledge inside the Vault, he's all but lost any memories of the culture of his own silo as an adult. We see as much when Jimmy is grief-stricken upon discovering his mother's fate, and Kennedy tries to console him by asking about Silo 17's customs for the dead. "I never knew anyone who died ... until everyone did," Jimmy replies.

Basically, any practices and traditions in Silo 17 have been lost to time. Thankfully, Kennedy suggests following Silo 18's funeral rituals instead, so he and the others hold a ceremony for Jimmy's mom. All the same, it's a very sad and tragic affair.

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Jimmy's mother died while ensuring that the Safeguard Procedure would never be used against her people. Sure, it didn't matter in the end, as they all got killed as soon as they exited Silo 17, but at least they didn't die because of the poison administered through the pipes.

Thanks to this discovery, Silo 18 now has a fighting chance, even with a certain other huge crisis still brewing. After all, the plot of "Silo" Season 3 has been all about the fight to disable the Safeguard Procedure, i.e. the big red button looming over the silos' inhabitants that can kill all of them at any time. We've known since the end of Season 2 that it can be stopped, as Jimmy's parents managed to do just that. Now, we know both how they did it and where the Safeguard pipe is located.

If only it was that easy. In this week's episode, Juliette is captured by Camille Sims (Alexandria Riley) and her enforcers, jeopardizing the entire plan. But before she's taken away, Juliette charges her best friend, Shirley Campbell (Remmie Milner), with carrying out the mission no matter what.

If Shirley caps the pipe carrying the Safeguard poison, then the mysterious Algorithm will have no way of killing Silo 18 remotely, allowing its citizens to fully govern themselves. After all, it's the fear of the Safeguard that's made Camille do horrible things in the name of protecting the silo, like putting memory-erasing drugs in the water supply. But how long will she continue to help the Algorithm if she learns the Safeguard is no longer a threat? And what happens when all of Silo 18 is mobilized against their enemies?

"Silo" is now streaming on Apple TV.