No, Bernard Was Never the Villain on Silo — But There Is One in the Shadows

Any good TV show has a villain, someone we can really loathe and despise. And initially, it seemed like Silo had that in Bernard.

From the beginning of the series, there was something shifty about the Head of IT.

He manipulated situations and people, and he killed in order to protect his own power and place within the underground bunker.

At the end of Silo Season 1, he sent Juliette out to clean, and then he fought against those looking for answers about how she got over that hill.

Except this is a man who isn’t so much the villain as he is one of the more layered and complicated characters on the series.

There is a villain in the shadows, though.

Bernard Wants to Save the Silo

While throughout the first season it looked like Bernard’s interests were for himself, by the end of Silo Season 2, we learned that there was much more at stake.

As Lucas Kyle became his shadow, we learned more secrets, and suddenly, everything Bernard was doing made more sense.

He wasn’t acting out of self-preservation. Not in a selfish way, anyway.

This wasn’t about remaining as Head of IT. Instead, he wanted to make sure the silo remained protected and safe.

He had one fear: that the safeguard would be used.

It doesn’t sound like he even knew what the safeguard was in full.

All he knew was that it would destroy everyone. He couldn’t see his silo destroyed and this part of humanity turned to dust.

So, he did what the Algorithm told him.

Yes, part of it was to save his own life, and can we really blame him for that?

But he was also doing it to save the thousands of people in the bunker with him.

Trying to protect your own home doesn’t make you a villain, and it’s unfair to give Bernard that title.

What he did have to do was make some terrible choices because he was told to.

The True Villain Is in the Vault

Now, Camille has taken over that task on Silo, and no, she isn’t the villain either.

She’s the one who has to make impossible decisions to save everyone.

She had to agree to put the Vitamin D+ into the drinking water to help remove everyone’s memories.

If she didn’t, the safeguard would be released.

We want to blame both the characters for not acting against the Algorithm, but how can they?

This Algorithm has all the power.

Now, sure, we can’t say for certain that the Algorithm told Bernard to kill the mayor, but there’s a good chance it did.

If Mayor Ruth Jahns was getting too close to some of the truth, then there’s a good chance that the Algorithm viewed her as a threat.

Ruth’s decision to make Juliette the sheriff when Bernard wanted Billings also made her a threat to the whole institution.

Those who created these silos had a particular plan for hundreds of years, and the Algorithm is part of that.

It’s the computer interface that we see with Camille on Silo Season 3 that is the true villain — the one giving commands that affect whether people live or die.

When Juliette and Bernard were saved from the fiery room, the Algorithm wanted them both dead.

It took Sims risking his wife’s wrath to make it look like Bernard had died and encourage her to find another way to handle Juliette.

When Juliette started to remember, it was this faceless voice that gave the command for the memory-wiping drug to be used on everyone.

There is no care or empathy behind this creature, which makes it seem like artificial intelligence, but what if it’s not?

What if there is someone in another silo giving all these commands?

Wouldn’t that make that person the true villain?

The only way for anyone to go up against the Algorithm is to figure out what the safeguard is and stop it from being a problem. It’s something that Solo shared his silo was able to do in Silo Season 2.

Once there’s less threat of death to the whole silo, everyone gets to play the hero.

But someone taking orders and finding a way to keep thousands of people safe does not make them the villain.

It does make them interesting.

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