“There Is No Feeling”: ‘Severance’s Patricia Arquette and Tramell Tillman on Why Cobel and Milchick Are Struggling in Season 2

Editor’s note: The below interview contains spoilers for Severance Season 2.Apple TV+’s Severance is a show of twists and turns, many of them having to do with the mysterious company known as Lumon Industries. While we’re first introduced to Lumon and the role they played in developing the controversial severance procedure (for which the series is named), our first real experience of what working at this company is like comes through the employees who have elected to work on the severed floor, initially led by supervisor Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette). As the first season reveals, Ms. Cobel’s methods are fairly unorthodox — there’s a reason she eventually becomes known as “Cobelvig” due to the dual identity she adopts — and her choices ultimately culminate in her being fired from her role at Lumon, much to her frustration.

When we pick up with the characters in Season 2, however, we discover that Cobel has been replaced as severed floor manager by her former right-hand man, Mr. Milchick (Tramell Tillman), who has so far struggled to pick up the baton in keeping all of those troublesome innies in line. While his implemented “wellness reforms” are intended to ensure the severed employees’ happiness at Lumon, the disastrous outcome of the ORTBO in Episode 4, “Woe’s Hollow,” earns him a performance review that, to put it mildly, could have gone better.

Ahead of the show’s long-awaited return, Collider had the opportunity to speak with many members of the Severance cast, including Arquette and Tillman, about their characters’ biggest moments so far this season. Over the course of the interview, which you can watch above or read below, Arquette and Tillman discuss Cobel and Milchick’s new positions, why Cobel doesn’t immediately accept Helena Eagan’s (Britt Lower) offer to return to Lumon, what Milchick really thinks of his new co-worker Miss Huang (Sarah Bock), what that mirror speech in Episode 6 really means, and more.

COLLIDER: Tramell, I wanted to start with you because this season, Milchick gets promoted. How is he adjusting to this nudge up the food chain? How does his new role come with new complications, as well?

TRAMELL TILLMAN: He has to adjust quick. We’re still in a state of panic right now because when we start Season 2, we pick up from the chaos that happened in Season 1, and so he’s been having to clean up his mess since he introduced the OTC — overtime contingency. That blew up in his face, so now he’s been tapped to go ahead and lead this charge. So the pressure is on and he’s got to deliver, and we see with his kindness reforms whether or not he’s effective.

Patricia Arquette on Why Harmony Cobel Feels Betrayed by Lumon in ‘Severance’ Season 2

Patricia, your character is sort of on the outside looking in when we pick up with her at the beginning of Season 2. Do you think she’s second-guessing her role in everything that’s brought her to this point, or do you feel like she’s trying to figure out how she can get out of this situation with any power?

PATRICIA ARQUETTE: I think she’s having an interior cyclone happening. She’s incredibly angry at their lack of loyalty. She has this different vision that’s more in keeping with Kier’s purity into the future, with technology, where she doesn’t really believe in this new guard of Lumon today, this Jame and Helena kind of Lumon. And she’s pissed at him. She feels backstabbed and betrayed, and so she’s walking the line between wanting to destroy Lumon and also wanting them to let her back in because it’s her home and everything she’s known. So it’s a very complicated experience for her

Tramell, I wanted to ask you about working with Sarah [Bock] as Miss Huang this season. She kind of keeps Milchick on his toes a little bit. What do you enjoy about getting to bounce off of her in their scenes together?

TILLMAN: Sarah is lovely to work with. She’s so bright and has an incredible future ahead of her. She’s just brilliant. I think Milchick’s relationship to Miss Huang is not as friendly. [Laughs] He’s a little offended that essentially a teenager has come in and taken his old job, and it’s like, “What is Lumon saying about him? Like, really? Is this what we’re doing?” And she’s not quiet about it. Miss Huang is needling her way into my business, challenging my techniques, and it’s enough. Enough is enough. Like, stop. You just got here. So, it’s fun to see that power dynamic between the two of them and how she constantly is keeping him in check. But on a whole grand scheme, if you look at it, she’s doing the right thing because Milchick is doing things that he shouldn’t be doing, and she’s just correcting him for that. It’s like, “No, you need to do this, or you need to stop doing it that way.” And Milchick doesn’t want to hear that.

Patricia, that moment in the parking lot between Cobel and Helena — it feels like, initially, Helena might be offering a bit of an olive branch, but it [also] feels like your character picks up on something and gets a bad vibe. What does she see, either in Helena’s face or the moment itself, that causes her to think twice about what’s being offered to her?

ARQUETTE: She gets this feeling inside that it’s a trap, that it’s not real. There’s something punitive going on. I feel like Helena has the capacity to have this incredible coldness in real life, and she is the heir and has grown up in this incredible privilege. I think in that moment, Harmony realizes it’s never going to be what she wants it to be, at least not like this. She has to come back with something different. She has to have more to hold over their heads, more to negotiate with. It’s not going to work out like this for her the way she wants.

Tramell Tillman Explains the Meaning Behind Milchick’s Mirror Speech in ‘Severance’

Tramell, I want to wrap up by asking you about the ORTBO episode and the fallout that we see Milchick going through with his performance evaluation. It all really culminates in the speech that he gives himself in the mirror. I wanted to ask you about that “grow up” speech and what you think that represents for him in that moment. What is he really trying to tell himself there?

TILLMAN: It goes back to what we were saying before about the cost of leadership and this position that he is in now. He hasn’t had the formal training, if you will, to be able to handle this kind of pressure, and the stakes are so incredibly high at this moment. Knowing that he has let the board down, he has let his immediate supervisors down, he identifies so much with this organization, this corporation — it’s who he is — so for him, it is mustering up the strength, the will to be able to push forward, to challenge himself, and to be able to carry out what he needs to carry out. Because we also understand that there is a task at hand when it comes to Mark. There’s this duty that he has to fulfill. He has to meet the quota, and Milchick is the one that is responsible for ensuring that he meets the quota in that time. So he really is pulling himself up and pushing himself to tighten the leash and move forward.

ARQUETTE: All of these things that we do as humans, to be liked and to have other people be the way that we think leadership is, the way we think things should be done, and how we make a connection with someone and try to work together in this kind of way, these structures are the rules. There is no feeling. This is the way you do things, and that’s what we need. It doesn’t matter if it’s complicated or not. That’s so much easier said than done when you’re the one who’s supposed to deliver this.