The firing of Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette) at the end of Severance Season 1 left a power vacuum in the Severed Floor that Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman) fills in the second season. The increased scope of his work allows fans to spend more time with Milchick and understand what makes him tick. Surprisingly, he is more complex than anyone could imagine, frequently stealing the show as a middle manager who must endure abuse from his superiors while ensuring the continued work of the MDR team. Tillman uses the opportunity to deliver a masterclass in acting, quickly becoming the best part of Severance Season 2.
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Here’s our pick for the best Mr. Milchick scenes in Severance Season 2. Please try to enjoy each scene equally.
The MDR Re-Orientation
Season 2 of Severance restructured the Severed Floor, with Mr. Milchick betting on using a carrot instead of a stick to keep the innies in line. As such, the Break Room is completely refurbished as an actual place for employees to rest, security cameras are nowhere to be seen, doors remain unlocked, and the MDR team is granted the right to roam freely in Lumon’s corridors. These drastic changes set the tone for the second season of Severance and allow it to illustrate the complexities of Mr. Milchick, a man who understands the responsibility of managing innies but who often refuses to deny his prisoners a sense of humanity.
Right in the first episode, the MDR re-orientation perfectly illustrates Mr. Milchick’s duality. In the scene, Mr. Milchick apologizes for treating innies as animals, tries to pin the blame on Cobel, and presents a hilarious animated video glorifying the “MDR revolution.” Of course, Mr. Milchick is putting up a good show to convince Mark S. (Adam Scott) to finish the Cold Harbor file. He could have doubled down on Cobel’s malice. Instead, Mr. Milchick prefers to improve the innies’ lives, tapping into his natural disposition to frolic to create wacky situations. The MDR re-orientation scene lays the groundwork for Season 2’s layered approach to Mr. Milchick, teasing the shenanigans that would ensue in the following episodes.
ORTBO’s Storyreading
Even though the ORTBO storyline didn’t get appropriately explored, the outdoor retreat shows how hilarious Severance can be. The concept of innies camping together and seeing the outdoors for the first time was unthinkable in the first season. Yet, using his power as manager, Milchick put together the wild experience to prove to the innies things have changed at Lumon. The disastrous reveal of Helena Eagan’s (Britt Lower) infiltration threatens Mr. Milchick’s recently earned management position. The ORTBO retreat also underlines the unbelievable stories Lumnon shares about Kier and his twisted philosophy.
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Mr. Milchick is an intelligent man, and in several moments of Severance he shows that he doesn’t fully embrace Lumon’s cult-like behavior. Nevertheless, during ORTBO, he genuinely tries to impress the innies by selling the most farfetched lies ever with a clean face. While Milchick showing a small waterdrop as the largest waterfall in the world is up there with his best comedic moments, the story time at camp beats it. The book describing Kier’s masturbating brother is just so dubious that even Helena laughs at it. Still, Mr. Milchick maintains his decorum, defending the authenticity of something he knows is bollocks. That even includes a tantrum where Milchick deprives the innies of marshmallows, cementing his place as a villain despite his occasional moments of tenderness.
The Swedish Fable of Gråkappan
After ORTBO reveals Helana’s deception, Mr. Milchick must deal with the innies’ complaints about Lumon’s mischievous practices. His solution? To conjure a fake Swedish table on the fly, explaining how a wise king often wore a gray cloak to mingle among his subjects and learn more about his people’s needs.
The fact that Tillman just improvised the pronunciation of “Gråkappan” (a made-up word for “grey cloak” in Swedish) makes the whole affair even funnier. That’s a man of sheer commitment, capable of lying with such confidence that every word out of Mr. Milchick’s lips raises the utmost suspicion. The Gråkappan story, a quieter moment in Severance Season 2, illustrates Mr. Milchick’s sociopathic relationship with the truth. It’s so impossible to know what’s real or not with Mr. Milchick that some fans still await his heroic redemption despite his constant abuses of the MDR team.
Devour Feculance
Season 2 of Severance showed how Mr. Milchick is a cog in Lumon’s bigger machine, also controlled by the company’s bizarre rituals and unreal expectations. The gift of paintings showing Kier as a Black person started to highlight the cracks in Mr. Milchick’s façade as he’s forced to confront the company’s structural racism. Then, his unfair performance review and the subsequent punishment he has to endure further feed his doubts about how worthy Lumon is of his many talents.
[RELATED: Severance Season 2 Actually Answered Many of the Show’s Biggest Mysteries (Even If You Didn’t Realize It)]
The climax of Mr. Milchick’s confrontation journey comes when he tells Mr. Drummond (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson) to “devour feculance.” The cadence in which Tillman delivers each word of his monologue about the need to be respected by his superiors is nothing short of brilliant. Plus, the fact that Mr. Milchick reaffirms his unique speech pattern to revolt against the condescending demands of Mr. Drummond for him to use shorter words is an adrenaline-induced triumph. The scene ends with Mr. Milchick sending a monosyllabic message, in which every word has a single syllable, showcasing his sharp intellect regarding language.
Choreography and Merriment
The defiant jazz scene in Season 1 of Severance showed Tillman’s serious moves on the dance floor. Season 2’s finale takes things up a notch with the introduction of Choreography and Merriment, a department consisting entirely of band members. Mr. Milchick brings Choreography and Merriment to the MDR department to celebrate Mark’s completion of Cold Harbor, but it’s easy to see that the whole event is more for Milchick than anyone else.
In the scene, Mr. Milchick leads the band as it plays and moves around, following a carefully crafted choreography that’s elevated by Tillma’s commitment to the bit. We can say with absolute confidence that Severance is better when Milchick is dancing, so now Season 3 of Severance has the moral obligation to one-up the Choreography and Merriment number.
Both seasons of Severance are currently available on Apple TV+.
What’s your favorite Mr. Milchick scene in Season 2? Let us know in the comments!
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