Did Helen die in Silo? The showrunner makes a promise after shocking season 3 finale

*Warning: Spoilers ahead for the ending of Silo season three and the Silo books*

Following Silo’s explosive season three finale, Helen Drew’s fate has become one of the show’s biggest unanswered questions after she and Daniel Keene were brutally separated.

Journalist Helen (Jessica Henwick) and Congressman Daniel (Ashley Zukerman) have been a major part of season three in the pre-apocalypse timeline, as the pair gradually uncover the truth behind the silos and the plan for humanity’s survival.

By episode nine, Helen and Daniel realise something is very wrong with the supposedly celebratory opening of the silos. But Helen, who is pregnant with Daniel’s child, is tricked into entering Silo 18, while Daniel is taken to Silo 1, before a nuclear explosion outside leaves them permanently separated. 

But the finale suddenly jumps forward by 350 years and reveals Daniel is somehow still alive. Now known as Troy, he’s been repeatedly put into cryogenic sleep and had his memories suppressed – yet flashes of Helen continue to break through.

So, what actually happened to Helen after she entered Silo 18, and could she somehow still be alive?

What happened to Helen in Silo?

For now, Silo deliberately hasn’t revealed exactly what happened to Helen after she was taken into Silo 18. While we discover that Daniel has survived for centuries inside Silo 1, the show doesn’t return to Helen after the nuclear explosion.

However, the finale does give us a major indication that her story isn’t over, as Daniel’s memories of her continue to resurface.

The episode opens with Troy seeing flashes of Helen, and Victor (Matt Craven) later reveals this isn’t the first time it’s happened. Each time Troy’s been woken up, he’s asked about the mysterious woman appearing in his memories, only for Victor to refuse to tell him who she is.

Victor takes his own life at the end of the finale, but he leaves Troy an encrypted message finally revealing the truth. “Her name is Helen Drew,” he says. 

Hearing her name causes Troy to break down in tears, suggesting that even after centuries of cryogenic sleep and repeated attempts to erase Daniel Keene, his memories of Helen haven’t completely disappeared.

Although the Apple TV show hasn’t yet revealed what happened to Helen after she entered Silo 18 – or what became of her and Daniel’s unborn child – readers of Hugh Howey’s books may already have a pretty good idea.

Helen’s fate in the Silo books

Helen’s fate isn’t a mystery in the Silo books, although the TV adaptation has already made some significant changes to her story, so we can’t fully guess what’s happened to her from the source material. 

In the second novel Shift, she’s the wife of Donald Keene (the book character is renamed Daniel Keene for the show). Like Daniel and Helen, Donald and Helen are separated when the silo project begins, with Donald taken to Silo 1 and kept alive through repeated periods of cryogenic sleep.

Helen, however, isn’t kept alive alongside him. She instead lives out a normal human lifespan inside Silo 2, eventually marrying Donald’s friend Mick Webb and having a family with him. By the time Donald discovers what became of his wife, Helen has been dead for years.

This doesn’t necessarily mean the TV series will give Helen the same fate. The adaptation has already made some big changes to her story, meaning there’s always a chance she could somehow still be alive.

That being said, with 350 years having passed since Helen entered Silo 18, it seems pretty unlikely. Perhaps the bigger question now is what happened to her and Daniel’s child, and whether they could have a connection to someone we already know.

One theory already circulating is that Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson) could actually be a distant descendant of Helen and Daniel. After all, Helen is taken into Silo 18 while pregnant – the very same silo Juliette will call home hundreds of years later. 

There’s no confirmation that’s actually the case for now, and Juliette isn’t the only candidate. A stronger theory is that George (Ferdinand Kingsley) could be related, especially given his connection to the yellow duck PEZ dispenser that Daniel originally gave Helen.

Either way, Helen being pregnant when she enters the silo feels like a pretty significant detail to leave hanging, and could be something we find out more about in season four. Speaking of which…

Silo showrunner confirms we’ll find out what happened to Helen in season 4

Thankfully, Helen hasn’t simply disappeared from the story, and showrunner Graham Yost has confirmed her fate will be addressed in Silo’s fourth and final season.

Speaking to Radio Times following the season three finale, Yost revealed this news while giving a rough estimate of when we can expect the next chapter. 

“A year from now, you’ll see season four, and there is a lot of cruelty at the heart of this thing,” he said. “Seeing Daniel and Helen being separated during a nuclear explosion… We pay that off in season 4. You will find out what happened to Helen.”

And the decision to make Helen the subject of the season’s final moments was very deliberate.

“We wanted the audience to lean in with the very last shot of season three, which is about her,” he added.

“It’s the tradition of the show. At the end of a season, there can be a cliffhanger element, but it’s also more information leaning forward. Hopefully, there’s a promise of where it’s going to go.”

Yost also told The Wrap that Troy’s persistent memories of Helen will become a crucial part of what happens next.

“You’ll find out more in season 4. It’s 35 years between shifts. There’s X number of people in Silo 1, and they’re always rotating through. There’s like always 100 people on shift, and I mean that’s all from the book,” he explained. 

“So that was the basic architecture of it. What we anchored our thing on was that they give people new identities, but their skill sets carry through, and I bring up one of Oliver Sacks books. 

“There’s a guy with very bad short-term memory loss. He would introduce himself every 1520 seconds to people. But if he sat at the piano, he could play an entire concerto by memory. 

“So there was something of his skill set, of his passion, lasted through, and for us, we thought, what if Daniel, even though he’s Troy, has flashes of memory of love, and that becomes basically the key to the whole thing, is that persistence of memory.”

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Featured image credit: Apple TV