EveryDeparture weight“The viewer already knows this, but it is repeated: Lumon Industries is strange as hell.
Much of the weirdness is rooted in the work, which is mysterious and important; None of the cut workers know what they are doing, even when they are in the office, and then there are lifts in dark corridors and baby goats – all of which are certainly obliged to turn heads when the wider world learns their real purpose, even If they are above the board of the company.
Then there is the weirdness that is just for Flair. It is one thing for cut workers to deire the company’s founder Kier Eagan, but why does invisible employees like Cobel play (Patricia Arquette) and Milchick (Tramell Tillman)?
Season 2, section 3 has such flowering on the surface, but it is a small detail that adds enormous complexity. After his marketing to floor manager, Milchick receives a gift: a set of paintings.
“The Board wishes strictly that you feel linked to Lumon’s history,” tells their power of attorney, Natalie (Sydney Cole Alexander) to him in a one-on-a-meeting. “For that purpose, please accept from the Board, these inclusive re -set paintings, intended to help you see yourself in Kier, our founder.”
You can see the caution in Tillman’s face before the paintings are revealed; Milchick suspects exactly what lies behind the floral lumon language, what ideas are not expressly expressed but which he always carries with him. The Board recognizes Lumon’s rare black boss and tries to carefully keep him in line. Sure enough, he unpacks a painting where Kier Eagan is converted as a black man – again, Tillman’s unreadable expression that speaks volumes.
“It was something we didn’t want to stay away from,” the series creator Dan Erickson told IndieWire for Season 2. “Milchick as a black man who worked in a place like Lumon who feels so many ways anchored in tradition, and literally has been driven by this family since the civil war. We wanted to a “severance pay” to admit it honest In this veneer of pleasure and acceptance, but there is always something behind it.
Tillman told Indiewire that while the scene updates how Lumon sees Milchick, it did not change how he portrayed the character.
“What was very important to understand is that Milchick is very aware of his blackness,” Tillman said. “He is very aware that he is different from the company’s structure where he works. I had extensive conversations with Dan and Ben about the subject of racism and his placement in Lumon, and also with Natalie, the fact that there is a colorism aspect. “
When Milchick examines the paintings in silence (after a perfect “Oh. Oh my”), Natalie expresses that she received the same gift on her own campaign, “and thought it was extremely moving.” She blinks that the company is smiling and seems convinced – but Alexander gives its own subtle screen when the board initially instructs Natalie to say this.
This is the first time “Severance” has recognized the character’s race directly – a decision that was only made with Tillman’s approval and commitment.
“I am grateful that these conversations happened and continue to happen and still happen,” Tillman said. “We are moving forward with care, because I never want to tell a story about such a sensitive nature easy to not respect the character and not to respect the audience who will invest in this story.”
Section 3 scene is worrying – partly because it is “departure” and it comes with the territory, but because it compiles Milchick’s reality with Lumon’s consistent glorification of the past. It forces him to immediately confront it until now, the board was as aware of his breed as he was, and that the insight seems to be our usually untouched floor manager.
“I’m grateful,” he says Natalie with his signature Milchick professionalism. “It’s meaningful to see myself reflected in …” He tracks, the Lumon language fails with him for the first time we have ever seen. The Board ends the conversation and thus Natalie ends the conversation and the meeting and offers Seth a WAN smile and rare first name recognition.
“Even in his leadership role, he would always be wondering in the back of his head,” Well, what do these people actually want from me, and do they have my best interest in mind? “, Erickson said. “What are the strange challenges he would specifically have to face, as opposed to someone else working in the same position?”
Arquette, who joined Tillman for the interview, noted that Lumon’s past is contrary to its present. “If you look back at the turn of the century, there was so much racism – not that it does not exist today – but not having it to be part of that story? It’s interesting, she said. “And how much people shine over it in the story of any religion, if you really look back, and people just don’t want to look back.”
And while the board must – or at least bark Value Milchick tremendously – there is no doubt that, as with everything Lumon, the paintings earn more than one purpose. They are meant to ensure his fertility – but will they?
New episodes of “Severance” premiere every week on Apple TV+.
