“Silo” is one of Apple TV’s most underrated sci-fi series. The small screen adaptation of Hugh Howey’s novel trilogy of the same name has a compelling mystery and impeccable worldbuilding. And with its story focusing on people being trapped in isolated locations under mysterious circumstances (all while those in power keep the true history of the world a secret), it even feels like a live-action “Attack on Titan” TV show at times.
Across its first two seasons, “Silo” created a lived-in, tactile setting full of memorable characters. It made the show compelling to watch even without its central mysteries, adding layers of meaning to its mystery box plotting. Season 2 also ended on a huge cliffhanger, and not just for the people of the titular silo, whose lives may be in imminent danger. No, the big reveal came at the very end, when “Silo” jumped back to the before times prior to the end of the world. At this point, which looks a lot like our own current reality, Iran has seemingly just detonated a dirty bomb on U.S. soil.
From there, we followed a journalist named Helen Drew as she questioned a young congressman as to whether the U.S. will retaliate against Iran. Cut to Season 3, and Helen is now part of the show’s main ensemble, with Season 3 splitting its attention between the past and present. As for Helen? There’s a reason she probably looks familiar.
Indeed, “Silo” is a show full of great actors, including Rebecca Ferguson, Common, Tim Robbins, and the scene-stealing Steve Zahn. As for Helen? She’s played by Jessica Henwick, who got her start on TV in 2010 on the fantasy series “Spirit Warriors” before scoring her big break in 2015 with roles in “Game of Thrones” and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”
Jessica Henwick has been in some huge projects besides Silo
Jessica Henwick has amassed some impressive credits in a fairly short amount of time. For starters, she appeared on “Game of Thrones” as Nymeria Sand, i.e. one of the illegitimate daughters of Pedro Pascal’s Prince Oberyn Martell, better known as the Sand Snakes. Granted, that storyline wound up spelling trouble for “Game of Thrones,” but that certainly wasn’t Henwick’s doing.
From there, Henwick joined Marvel’s Netflix-verse as the martial artist Colleen Wing in “Iron Fist,” a role she reprised for “Luke Cage” and “The Defenders” as well. She also has experience in voice acting, having lent her vocals to both “Blood of Zeus” (a phenomenal fantasy show based on Greek mythology) and the anime “Blade Runner: Black Lotus.”
Elsewhere, Henwick has tackled roles both big and small on the movie front. Her first credited role was Jessika “Testor” Pava in “The Force Awakens,” one of the Resistance pilots that flies with Oscar Isaac’s Poe Dameron. She also appeared in “Underwater” (the 2020 Kristen Stewart movie that starts out as a simple survival horror thriller before becoming an actual Lovecraftian nightmare) and the criminally underrated monster adventure film “Love and Monsters” starring Dylan O’Brien (which came out during the COVID-19 lockdowns). And let’s not forget Henwick’s turn in “The Matrix Resurrections” as Bugs, the film’s deuteragonist and the person who’s been looking for Neo (Keanu Reeves) when the movie begins.
More recently, Henwick starred in Netflix’s limited series “Vladimir” and had a small role in the under-seen Glen Powell vehicle turned HBO Max hit “How to Make a Killing.” Suffice it to say, between all of that and “Silo,” her career is going pretty swimmingly at the moment.
New episodes of “Silo” premiere Fridays on Apple TV.
