Abhiroop Das
Created by Graham Yost and based on the sci-fi novels by Hugh Howey, ‘Silo’ broadens its plotline into two in season 3, with Juliette spearheading the present sections and Congressman Daniel Keene leading the flashback arc. After his sister, Charlotte, narrowly survives a plane crash, Dr. Victor Crnkovich is tasked with supervising her psychological recovery. Unlike the usual doctors, however, he opts for an experimental therapeutic procedure, one that strips a person of all memories at first, and then allows selective memories to be re-inserted in their mind, piece by piece. Through this, Victor believes he can preserve pleasant experiences and suppress the traumatic ones, but that philosophy is challenged with the advent of silos, especially in the season 3 finale. SPOILERS AHEAD.
Victor Dies by Suicide After Being Overcome by Guilt and Hopelessness
Dr. Victor Crnkovich takes his own life in the season 3 finale of ‘Silo,’ mainly due to the unbearable guilt of taking countless lives for a cause he had long become disenchanted with. That, however, isn’t the only reason he takes this step, as series creator Graham Yost himself sees it as a constellation of motivations that prompted Victor to shoot himself to death. His mindset in these final moments can be understood by tracing his actions, which include waking Daniel from his cryogenic sleep and secretly sending him a video recording revealing the identity of Helen Drew, the woman Daniel hopelessly dreams about. In a sense, Victor’s final act is a rebellion against the system he helped create, which serves as a microcosm of his broader realization regarding the silos and their relation to power.
While Victor’s claim to fame is the technique that helps erase memory and bring it back selectively, it is important to note that it all started as his desire to forget the pain of losing his daughter. While he still technically remembers the event itself in perfect detail, the immediate emotional memory of the moment is gone, and all he can feel is a recreation at best. This principle informs just about every element in the silo network, including the ruthlessness with which Silo 1 controls information and suppresses dissent.
Though Victor hopes not to feel any pain about killing people under the guise of helping civilization, it eventually gets to him. Fittingly, he expresses happiness at Silo 18’s survival, his own loss, as by that point he knows that his actions have not, and perhaps never did, contribute to some greater good. As he walks back to his room and looks at a picture of his daughter, tears flow down his face, indicating that the emotions he once tried to suppress are back. It is this change that ultimately overwhelms him with a sense of guilt and pushes him to die by suicide, as there is simply no going back.
Matt Craven Brings Victor’s Arc to a Powerful Finish With Season 3
With Dr. Victor Crnkovich dead, actor Matt Craven has most likely bid the series goodbye. While ‘Silo’ is no stranger to fakeout deaths, as seen in the case of Lukas Kyle, Patrick Kennedy, and Bernard Holland in season 3 alone, Victor’s death does not fall into that camp. In a conversation with TIME, series creator Graham Yost revealed that he and the writing team spent a lot of time wondering why Victor would kill himself. While the answer they arrived at doesn’t put his psychological state in one box or another, it did help them shape the general direction of the story. “Power dictates who is in power, and that power gets to retain memory. But there’s a burden in retaining memory,” Yost added, discussing how Victor retaining his memory played into the decision as well.
During the interview, Yost also revealed that Victor was initially designed to be more of a supporting character, but became more influential as the show went on, in no small part due to the work put in by actor Matt Craven. While Craven himself hasn’t commented on Victor’s death and what it means for his future in the story, Yost did tease at an alternate possibility. When asked by TheWrap as to whether Victor might return in season 4, Yost didn’t say outright deny the possibility, and instead joked, “You’ll pay to find that out.” While there is a chance that Victor’s consciousness is still stored in some form in the records of the silos, Matt is unlikely to return for the role. The actor’s brief but powerful role in season 3 is bound to have a massive impact on the final season, regardless of whether he himself reprises the role.
Read More: Silo Season 4 Expected Release Date, Plot and Cast Theories
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