Severance’s Seth Milchick was originally envisioned as a minor character, but Tramell Tillman’s performance changed everything
Severance’s Seth Milchick was originally envisioned as a minor character, but Tramell Tillman’s performance changed everything
Seth Milchick is one of Severance's "most important characters" according to the showrunner, but originally he was a bit part until Tramell Tillman showed up
Title exaggerates it a bit: the character was not necessarily minor, they made it open ended from the start so they could decide later if it would be a character worth expanding or not.
We can tell. Severance completely jumped the shark in the last episode.
Oh what, Lumon has 4 employees dedicated to macro data refinement, the most important project in the company's history, but they have
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160 employees dedicated to marching band, who come in to the severed floor every day to practice their marching band routine with Mr Millchek, so that they're ready to perform all the marching band routines that Lumon needs all the time?
You could really tell the last episode was almost entirely cheap fan service filler. I honestly avoided severance and then finally watched it because everyone raved, and it actually convinced me that it knew what it was doing, right up until that last episode when it showed that it was just another directionless mystery box train, laying down tracks in front of it as it goes.
I don't entirely disagree but at the same time, some projects just don't scale well. There is a clear implication too, IMO, that the interaction of Mark and Gemma in specific, is particularly key by the end of the project.
The Mark Gemma thing raises even more questions. If Mark and Gemma's relationship is key to whatever this is working, then why aren't the other MDR employees loved ones involved?
And conversely if loved ones aren't key to the project, then why can't it scale to more MDR employees?
At first with the marching band scene I was thinking, oh maybe they brought in all the MDR employees from across the country to celebrate this momentous occasion. Then they said the marching band had a dedicated department that was apparently 4x the size of MDR, Christopher Walken's department, and the goat department combined.
:/
Their work is mysterious and important.
Nowhere is it stated that C&M come into work every day, they might only come in for special occasions, or they could have other jobs in-between. Also, did you count 160 people, or are you guessing? It looked like way fewer to me, though still a rather large number.
I honestly don't get the "mystery box" criticism. The biggest mysteries have already been explained.
Nowhere is it stated that C&M come into work every day, they might only come in for special occasions, or they could have other jobs in-between.
They're putting temps through brain surgery?
Also, did you count 160 people, or are you guessing? It looked like way fewer to me, though still a rather large number.
I was being dramatic to express my point
I honestly don't get the "mystery box" criticism. The biggest mysteries have already been explained.
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So then what is the purpose of MDRs work? To create a better severed employee / birth mother? That was the answer to why severed employees exist? To create more severed employees? It's not a satisfying ending if the premise of the show is 'you thought severing was flawless, but guess what it fails sometime, but guess what, we use severed employees to make it fail less'.
It's an interesting premise and the first season was a fun watch. But once you start getting deeper into the mystery box, important threads get hollow.
S2 spoiler
Lots of threads are just dead ending at "it's a quirky cult". When the evil shadowy organization aren't taking rational steps toward a concrete goal you can't make any reasonable deductions.
For example, the entire elaborate goat department serves no purpose beyond sacrifice? Sounds like the real purpose was the writers wanting some unsettling discovery and didn't know how to fit it in.
And disbelief gets more stretched when you think about the daily operation of the departments.
S1 spoiler
MDR is a critical department but you can't afford more than 1 security officer on the floor? You have all these security cameras but nobody watching them? The security chief is murdered and you just don't replace him and continue with your normal operations? You don't even have night guards to watch the severance control panels?
You demonstrably have the tech to hire any number of goons and sever them. Maybe instead of faulty security doors just have like 2 guys guarding important hallways.
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MDR is a critical department but you can’t afford more than 1 security officer on the floor? You have all these security cameras but nobody watching them?
I feel this is explained well by the hubris of Lumon - they literally think that innies aren't people, so why go further than necessary to keep them in line? And this seemingly worked as intended, until two pieces of contraband - Graeners security card and the "idolatrous text" of The You You Are - were brought onto the floor.
You demonstrably have the tech to hire any number of goons and sever them. Maybe instead of faulty security doors just have like 2 guys guarding important hallways.
What faulty security doors? They had the keycard of the head of security, which nobody expected the innies to get. The doors themselves worked just as expected.
The rest though are valid criticisms!
I feel you're completely missing the artistry of the cinematography in pursuit of some realistic/based "grounded" plot. It's a show. It's going to jump some sharks. Crowds enjoy jumping over sharks. I'm sure they had a great idea of the destination they wanted to arrive at, but they're taking the scenic route (because it's a show) instead of the direct path and I honestly wouldn't love it the same had they not.
I feel like you're making excuses for bad writing because you like the show.
I too enjoy it, I've just been burned by this pattern before. It's easy to write mysterybox openings, and it's easy to prolong them by continuing to throw twists out every time theres been a lull, it's hard to conclude them in a satisfying and sensible way.
Given what Lumon has done with Gemma, isn't it plausible that the marching band is an amalgamation of severed staffers from all the other unknown number of departments?