Warning: This article contains spoilers for Apple TV+’s Silo.
George Wilkins’ tragic fate in Apple TV+’s Silo is no different from his book counterpart, but how he meets it massively changes Juliette’s overarching storyline. Silo first introduces George Wilkins in its first episode when he reaches out to Allison’s company to ask for technical assistance. When Allison meets him at his place, he shows her an old hard drive with detailed information about the Silo’s shrouded history. Although Allison initially seems apprehensive about defying the Silo’s rules and extracting forbidden data from the hard drive, her curiosity gets the best of her.
With what follows in Apple TV+’s Silo, Allison and Wilkins spend several hours cracking the drive, and what they find makes Allison step out of the Silo and meet her doom. George Wilkins, too, meets a similar fate when his dead body is found on Level 120. While authorities suspect he committed suicide, Juliette believes that someone murdered him since he kept telling her he wanted to show her something moments before his demise. Even in the original Silo books, George Wilkins’ arc ends in a similar way, but the events that lead up to it are quite different from the show.
George Wilkins Gets Killed For A Different Reason In Silo
In Apple TV+’s Silo, George Wilkins digs his own grave after he finds the forbidden “relic” of a hard drive and attempts to access it with Allison’s help. While the show has not yet unraveled the mysteries surrounding his death, episode 5 confirms that the Judicial’s Robert Sims had hired Douglas Trumbull to kill him. This suggests that after learning about the secrets of the Silo’s deleted history from the hard drive, Wilkins likely trusted the wrong people and shared his newfound insights with them. Consequently, the Judicial probably caught the wind of all the classified information he possessed and murdered him to stop him from spreading it to other naive citizens.
The Judicial saw George Wilkins as a threat because they realized he could trigger another rebellion by exposing the truth behind the Silo’s origins and history. To avoid any potential insurrections, they killed him before he got the opportunity to use his learnings as a weapon against them. Even in the original Silo books, George Wilkins’ ambitiousness and defiance towards the Silo’s rules get him killed. However, the exact reason for his murder is slightly different and has less to do with him discovering a relic.
What Happens To George Wilkins In The Books (& How It Affects Juliette’s Silo Arc)
In the books, George Wilkins starts dreaming about expanding the Silo. He wonders if it would be possible to broaden the walls of their enclosed underground bunker by performing a lateral dig in the Silo’s mine. Since lateral digs are against the law in the subterranean city, the authorities consider his ideas a threat to the Silo’s security. Therefore, the Judicial gets him killed to warn others and establish order. His sudden death leaves a profound impact on Juliette’s Silo arc in the books. However, unlike the show, it does not serve as direct catalyst for her journey.
Apple TV+’s Silo directly links George Wilkins’ death with the mysteries Juliette has to solve as the new Sheriff. This seems to raise the stakes for Juliette by making her motives more personal. It also adds more emotional heft to her journey because once she starts decoding the Silo’s secrets and figures out its connections with Wilkins’ death, she will have a firm poignant reason to wage a war against the Silo’s authorities. Exposing the Judicial’s lies will be a risky pursuit for Juliette. However, her hunger for vengeance in Silo will drive her to spark a rebellion against the authorities and avenge Wilkins’ death.
New episodes of Silo release Fridays on Apple TV+.