Severance’s best-kept secret is finally getting his due in season 2

It would be really easy for Seth Milchick to be a side note in Severance, or even just a running gag. In the hands of a lesser show and a lesser performer, he might be a caricature: a dedicated company man with an impressive mustache, a strong sense of fashion, and an extraordinarily expansive vocabulary.

But Tramell Tillman is no ordinary performer, and it’s his performance as Milchick that holds the whole show together, balancing Severance’s disparate tones with aplomb. His performance helps keep the show’s mysteries close to the vest, because we don’t need to know a lot about Milchick for the character to work extremely well in Tillman’s hands. Previously best known for guest appearances on a handful of TV shows (Difficult People, Elementary) and some shows on and off-Broadway, Tillman has been a revelation on Severance. As Milchick, he represents many of the show’s most important themes without feeling like a walking billboard for them. He brings humanity and life to a character who seems like he’s constantly hiding an aspect of himself from everyone else. It’s one of the most remarkable performances on television today, and without it, Severance wouldn’t work half as well as it does.

In a show filled with mysteries and enigmas, Milchick’s whole deal is one of the most elusive, and his priorities are hard to pin down. Unlike some other Lumon drones, he’s not lacking in personality: He’s effusive and exuberant in front of the innies, but we also see a more calculating side of him when dealing with Lumon’s board and Ms. Huang. And yet, Tillman somehow makes a character with unknown motivations and who is constantly putting on a front feel real and tangible. It’s a seemingly impossible tightrope he walks, but he’s able to pull it off in part because of how well his impenetrable performance reflects the blank wall that innies, outies, and viewers alike are trying to scale for its secrets.

Severance depicts Lumon culture as a parody of modern corporate culture — bribing disgruntled workers with meaningless or minor gifts rather than meaningfully improving conditions, and making empty promises toward broader change. There are two primary avatars through which Severance communicates this: corporate training videos, and Seth Milchick. And appropriately, Tillman is able to make Milchick’s overly positive attitude when dealing with the innies feel fairly convincing, but never quite genuine. That air of insincere kindness fits perfectly into this vision of Lumon — it’s just surface level, and we don’t know what truly is lying underneath.

Tillman quickly became a fan favorite in the first season, and Milchick has been rewarded with an even bigger role in season 2. (Hollywood has taken notice, too: He had a small part in the straight-to-Max rom-com Sweethearts, but most intriguingly, he’s among the new cast for Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.) He’s replaced Patricia Arquette’s Harmony Cobel as the manager of the severed floor, and remains the main point of contact for both the innies and the board. But we also get more of a glimpse into his own struggles: In the third episode of the season, “Who Is Alive?”, Milchick receives a “gift” from the board — a group of paintings that depict the white founder of Lumon, Kier Eagan, as a Black man. Uncomfortable with the situation but unable to express his true feelings, Milchick once again has to hide behind that artificial smile.

In the fifth episode, “Trojan’s Horse,” Milchick tries to relate to Natalie (Sydney Cole Alexander), hoping to find sympathy with a fellow Black co-worker who also received similar paintings, only to be shut down. After opening with an expression of his appreciation for the paintings and what they represent, Milchick becomes just a little more vulnerable, hinting at his true feelings but still never breaking from the very controlled and flat facial expressions he maintains when talking to others in management.

“I was just wondering if you could share with me a little how you felt when you received the paintings,” he says. “Because I’m thinking our experiences here have been similar in some ways. We face similar challenges, and perhaps the paintings and the somewhat complicated feelings they evoke…”

But Natalie won’t give him what he’s looking for — she simply smiles (insincerely but better practiced, perhaps?) and informs him the meeting begins soon. It’s a heartbreaking moment that is only amplified in episode 6, “Attila,” after Milchick is given a performance review from Lumon that asks him to stop using so many “big words.” When he takes that to heart and practices in front of a mirror, actively trying to reduce his vocabulary, it’s as if he’s personally excising a part of his personality (not unlike the severance procedure itself). Tillman plays the moment with a quiet anger that crescendos into a palpable rage, nearly losing the composure the character is so well known for.

It’s a fine line Tillman is walking, as a character who is constantly putting on a performance but is finally starting to let the cracks show due to the relentless pressure he faces. Milchick’s journey this season closely mirrors the struggles and discontent of the innies, even while he’s positioned as an oppositional figure to them. The closer he gets to the dark heart of Lumon, the more he seems to understand both the cruelty and incompetence of the people he works for. (I mean, damn, they can’t even get his name on his computer screensaver, huh?) But through it all, his polish of his resolve remains. Milchick is completely dedicated to his work, communicated by the actor’s stoicism even in the face of foolish requests from the board (or the chaos the innies get up to). That’s what makes the brief glimpse of his anger when practicing a limited vocabulary in the mirror so powerful — it’s an expression of emotion we haven’t seen from the character before, but still very in line with the controlled presence we expect from him. Tillman manages to radiate Milchick’s energy shifts at the same time he neutralizes them.

Tillman brilliantly never crosses the line into overdramatic expression — it’s still just micro gestures and movements in his face that clue us in to how we think he’s truly feeling. And that’s just it: How he’s actually feeling remains a mystery, because Severance and Tillman won’t give that to us quite yet. It’s a great pairing of character and material, anchored by a masterful performance that holds it all together. Milchick is one of the show’s greatest mysteries — and Tillman is making damn sure we know it.