The idea that the only meaning that can be gleaned from hearing Silver’s backstory is that the world is “full of unending horrors” completely shifted my idea of why Silver never divulged it in the first place.

I always saw the secret of his story as a tool – as a way to have something over other people. For grifter Silver, for loner Silver that was an asset in manipulation because he could be whatever he wanted to be in any given moment.

But after this interaction, I think it’s possible that he’s ashamed of his backstory, and of his life. His childhood was perhaps a million times worse than anything that we could have ever imagined, and he is ashamed of it.

And so he stands opposed to Flint in this sense, because while Flint acknowledges how his past shaped him, how it motivated him, how it still motivates him, Silver absolutely and resolutely refuses to be defined by his past. He needs it to not have meaning, while Flint needs it to mean everything.

But in a way you could argue that it has already had meaning. The fact that Silver was so determined to be a loner always suggested to me that he’d been hurt by people. But the aspect of shame is a surprise. Because you can tell on some level he wants to give Flint what he wants; he’s not being stubborn or defiant. He’s – in a lot of ways – apologizing. You know all that I can bear to be known, I’m sorry.

So I feel like this gave us a window, even though it’s a backstory that’s not a backstory. But in a way that’s beautiful too – our imaginations are pretty strong. So if you give me a backstory that’s too hard for Silver to even relate to his closest friend, my imagination is going to go to all the horrible recesses of the world.

I also feel like this explains a lot. He started out a loner, a decided loner. But once he’s offered a community – once he finally finds a home – the lengths to which he is willing to go for the sake of that community starts to make so much sense.

Every move he’s ever made starts to make sense; all of season 3, his attempts to gain Flint’s respect, and his attempts to finally have people, a crew, a home. He goes to such extremes to guarantee that he somehow holds onto whatever he’s got now. He holds his world together with both hands.

If his childhood was so horrible, and he was such a decided loner, it’s like he didn’t have the muscle memory to know how to do relationships. Even though he was really good at reading people – that’s something that people who have experienced abuse know how to do very well.

So this could explain why he eventually becomes so tied to people. Why he became so devoted to his crew, why he became so devoted to Flint, and why he becomes so devoted to Madi. Because suddenly he was offered something he’s never had – a whole slew of things he’s never had, and perhaps even things that he never even knew he wanted.

And it’s in this conversation with Flint that we get another beat of whether or not something is enough, mirroring his earlier conversation with Madi.

“Can that be enough, can there still be trust between us?”

The tragedy is that you can see very clearly on Flint’s face that the answer is no. Flint didn’t answer – but the non-answer said enough.

And yet, in this episode, even though you can tell that the answer is no, Flint is so willing to get past that, to take the leap of faith. He still shows absolute trust in and loyalty to Silver, but he cannot be certain. When it comes down to it, he cannot know for sure whether or not Silver will make the right call.

Flint knows how much his backstory, how much his baggage with Thomas and with Miranda influences his actions and keeps him from seeing what is true. But he doesn’t know Silver’s backstory. By not divulging the secrets of his past, Silver leaves room for Flint to guess. And for a man like Flint – one who needs to be in absolute control all the time, who needs to see the inner workings of every single piece on the chess board so he can strategise accordingly – for a man like that to take a leap of faith like this, at a time like this, is as astounding as it is beautiful.

The old Flint would have most likely killed Silver and gotten him out of his way rather than go for such a risky and potentially astronomically costly gamble. And it’s this divergence that reinforces what we see clearly in this whole episode – that Flint does love Silver. It’s that simple. He desperately wants Silver to live and to be a part of this.