Charlemagne

The whole point of Silo - as a story - is as an allegory/commentary on our real world. That's its purpose as a work of art. It's just another iteration of Plato's Cave. Like The Matrix was - which also featured periodic cullings. It is 100% meant to be a microcosm of not just our current society but our past and our future societies because that's how Human Nature works... in cycles. The Silo = Society. It's a literary stand-in And you can absolutely blame and punish people you desperately need if A) the people in power fear them and worry about them getting too organized and b) if the people in power feel that those they desperately need can reasonably be replaced in a reasonable amount of time. If people who are desperately needed were never blamed or punished... there would never have been things like Slavery. Or a need for things like Unions. It's a very old tale. And Silo is simply re-telling it in a slightly different package.

It makes perfect sense in the context of the Silo. The mistake you seem to be making is taking an "all or none" approach to it when that's not the intent in the Silo game plan. It's a periodic culling. Like when people do controlled burns in the woods. The goal is not to get rid of the entire forest... just a part of it. The whole fabric of the Silo's hierarchy relies on fear. Including the fear of the uprising/rebellion. They use it as a tool to control the population. "Remember the stories of the uprising? Yeah, well, if you don't want that to happen again... you had best follow our laws." But, the thing with such threats - a Boogie Man, if you will - is that if the Boogie Man never actually appears, the power of the threats diminishes. Therefore, every 140-150 years (depending upon how many Silo members get too curious and start to question too much), an uprising is orchestrated. And every time, Mechanical is chosen as the Boogie Man who appears. For reasons I already stated. They are the easiest to get people to turn against them. Think about how Immigrants are a target every US election cycle. And then, after the election, no one seems to talk about invading caravans. Replace "Immigrants," with "Mechanical," and there you have it.

But, the thing is that - in the context of Silo - if the goal is to foment war by demonizing a group of people... it pretty much *has* to be Mechanical. It's why they are specifically chosen every time. Precisely because they are so critical. It is easier to turn all the others against them because needing someone that much breeds resentment. As does Mechanical having specialized skills. It's an age-old story that goes like this: Those who we need and who are able to do or provide what we cannot, we learn to fear - for what happens if they take their stuff/skills away? And what we fear, we come to resent. And what we resent, we come to hate. And what we hate, we want to destroy. All it takes is a spark from someone who wants to burn things down.

Perhaps, but I am willing to bet that they are gambling on achieving the longevity of shows like The Mentalist and Psych.

I don't think that he has been in The Walking Dead before but he was a main character in the TV series, The Resident.

While a large part of me thinks that they would never say otherwise, it's always a possibility. Maybe the Strike wasn't a factor and it was just about a budget issue that caused them to go from 10 to 8 episodes.

I loved the finale. Though, I get the feeling that this was not the exact spot where they intended to end it. I think the Strikes last year put them a bit behind. I suspect that where the first episode of next season ends is where this season was likely meant to end.

I would imagine it follows the Servant Rules of British Aristocracy shows... some of the grunt employees see and hear everything and gossip with one another. They don't ever do anything about what they see and hear but I can't imagine that there is any way that the milk thing remained a secret at Vaught Tower.

She's now part of The Seven. I think the easy answer is that she found out through old-fashioned office gossip.

But, I mean... its genre seems pretty clear to me. It's a satire. In the vein of The Death of Stalin. I found its tone to be 100% focused in that regard. I am loving it. Others are not. That's how it goes. I am very comfortable being in the minority on this one. 😊

I thought it was simply fantastic.

Totally. A classic "put your cart before the horse" situation. And it may even be that the con artists had hoped it would be longer before Oscar found out that he had been scammed but Oscar couldn't contain himself and spoke to George. As a result, he found out earlier than he might have - but still too late, as it turned out.

The question that he wanted answered was a question never posed in the show. Oscar didn't invest because of that one deal. He invested in the company overall so that he can be a railroad tycoon in his own right. You may recall that he was given a dividend on his initial smaller investment in the form of a big check from the fake banker. Though we know now that the check was likely fake, Oscar was impressed enough by the sum to want more. Which is a classic grifter strategy. Oscar was presented with a "choice." Take the money and get out, or put in more money to get even more money. He ripped up that dividend check and opted to put more money in. Which is what the con artists wanted him to do. So, to sum up: How could Oscar have gotten a dividend check if that fictional deal had not gone through yet or had already been acquired by Russell? The only answer possible is that the contract that Russell eventually won (which was real) was but one facet of what Oscar was trying to invest in. The issue in this debate is that many people are misunderstanding this critical narrative point. Oscar thought that he was investing in a company that was making *many* deals - for which he had already seen a dividend check in his hands. The competing contract with Russell was just a real situation that the con artists used in order to lend legitimacy to their overall fake narrative.

The writers did just fine in this instance. They way they did it worked. And this is knowable because it can be compared to real life. How much money did some people put into NFTs when common sense should have prevailed? If someone wrote NFTs into a story (and they did not previously exist), that would have seemed completely unbelievable. Yet here we are. On this subject matter, it's not an opinion like how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. We have verifiable "comps" in this particular narrative neighborhood. How in the hell did Nigerian Prince scams work? Beats me. But they did. As unbelievable as it would seem... they did.

Fair enough. But the issue still remains: as a storyline... there's nothing unbelievable about it. We can point at the sucker and marvel at how someone could have been so stupid but it's one of the truest storylines on the show.